Ross Rifle myths and realities

TheIndifferent1

TheIndifferent1

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I have a few questions :) I'm currently taking a course in Canadian First World War history with Jack Granatstein. In his book Canada's Army, he writes that during the gas attack at Ypres on April 24

"...the infantrymet's wretched Ross rifles with their five round magazine required frequent reloading and repeatedly jammed. In rapid fire their bolts became too hot to grasp, and the bayonets had a tendency to fall off."

There are a few other technical mistakes in his description of the Ross (men handing each other loaded magazines instead of clips) but he is not a technical writer. Still, I have frequently been reading about the Ross becoming hot and jamming, but this is the first time I've heard tell of a hot bolt handle. To me this seems to be an impossibility. In my mind there isn't enough metal contact inside the bolt sleeve to transfer sufficient heat from the bolt head to the relatively thick handle. His reference is the diary of J.A. Perkins.

I'm wondering how many of these common flaws with the Ross were reality and how many are myths. I've flipped through the Ross Rifle Story, and noted the issue with the small bolt stop, tight chamber and loose-tolerance ammunition. What about this heat-jamming and hot bolt handles?

Could it possibly be that soldiers didn't realize the bolthead was damaged and thus blamed heat because they felt the barrel was hot? I'm tempted to make this into a paper but unsure if I'll have sufficient information available to either prove or debunk the myths. Of course I suppose I could also recruit a few rosses and several hundred rounds of ammunition for a rapid-fire exercise and see if any of them jam :D

Also, with regards to the bayonet falling off, the Ross seems to have a similar retention system to other bayonets - is there any proof or reason that they fell off frequently? one would think of anything they would get stuck on because of a hot barrel and dirt/mud in the release mechanism.
 
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I don't have any relevant info for you.

I just wanted to say that I would KILL to be in the class you're in. Lucky bugger. The History dept. at Nipissing is filled with boorish and uninspiring profs. You are very fortunate.
 
Find a copy of service publications "The Ross Rifle: a question of confidence". As I recall, it was a reprint of Col Stacey's analysis of the whole Ross rifle affair with a few good photos thrown in. It makes a good read, and was written early enough to leave the ever expanding myths and legacies of the Ross out, and concentrate on facts.

Correction to the above...just found my copy and it was Col AF Duguid who wrote the compilation as an appendix to the Army istorical Section's series "The Official History of the Cdn Forces in the Great War. 1914-1919.
 
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The Ross story book was written by two writers. The guy who started it died part way through, and the project was finished off by someone else. It is possible that the questions you ask would have been answered there.

The "clips" would be 5-shot charger clips, and feed from the top when the bolt is to the rear. Five shots is not very much, and I had the idea that later Rosses had a deeper and larger magazine than five.

The jamming issue was not wrongly reported. Troops in combat would fire continuously for many minutes, pause and maybe fire some more. All that heating and cooling, probably without opening the bolt, would tend to cause brass cartridges to expand and adhere to the steel. The 9mm SMG C1 relied a similar principle of dissimilar materials attraction to hold the cartridge in the chamber while the pressure dropped in the barrel and until the inertia of the breechblock was overcome. Good in SMGs, not good in rifles.

The bolt handle on a Ross is small. I wonder if in fact its small gripping surface and zero leverage was the complaint. The camming motion of a bolt action is its initial extraction "moment". Straight-pulls like the Ross only have the rearward force of the rifleman's sweaty right hand reefing back on a slippery, muddy knob.
 
If a Ross bolt handle could get that hot, then so could a Lee Enfield. I seriously doubt that one could ever fire a bolt action rifle enough to get the bolt handle too hot to touch. The reason they were jamming mainly I believe was due to their tight chambers. Many of them were reamed in the field but by then the damage was done. Same for the bolts being assembled incorrectly and blowing back upon firing. A lot of them had been rivited as to prevent this problem, but again all too late. Had a lot of these problems been ironed out before going into service, the Ross may have had a much longer history.
 
Thanks Stencollector, that book is checked out at the library right now but I'll put a hold on it and give it a read :)

maple_leaf_eh, I would expect that if it were simply heat in the chamber and sticky brass (improperly sized chambers/brass is another issue) then all rifles would be prone to the same conditions, particularly other straight-pulls with tight chambers like Schmidt-Rubins.

I'm thinking I might be able to help debunk this bolt-getting-too-hot story, mythbusters style. A few Ross's of different years and modification, a few hundred rounds of ammo and a sunny day at the range. If I can make it into a paper topic so much the better :D Might also be able to get one of the engineering guys to help with some of the math regarding the amount of heat transfered through the cartridge base to the bolthead.

Here's the biggest problem I see of this "getting hot and jamming" story - one should expect the opposite. Let's say the tolerance between the bolt head lugs(male) and the chamber cuts (female) were at a very close tolerance. Then, heating the bolthead sufficiently should cause it to jam, as the lugs would expand and create a very tight fit. The problem with this is that the chamber heats up as well, and one would assume so would the locking surfaces. Question is - which heats up more, the bolthead or the chamber/receiver? Then the next question is, which metal expands more per unit of heat?

If they both have similar expansion rates, one would assume that the hotter it got the easier it would be to work. If I have a nut and bolt stuck together, and I take a torch to the nut, it loosens it's grip on the bolt. Same idea with the receiver/bolthead idea. I've got some assumptions running here but it is semi-testable and I have a laser temp gauge that could be used to take barrel, receiver and bolt temps :)

Sorry for the rambling, I'm kinda working this out as I go along :p
 
I took my Ross out this is the one with the protruding magazine, an ex-military model with the barrel cut back to 24 inches, original butt(no recoil pad), the rivet in the bolt body; I fired 27 rounds or so and had one hard extraction, :runaway:the reason I had a hard extraction is unknown; as she was as clean as a whistle :confused:I was firing 1980 South African 8Z. Regards Tony. ;)
 
TheIndifferent1 said:
Thanks Stencollector, that book is checked out at the library right now but I'll put a hold on it and give it a read :)
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A copy will only run you $23 through service publications, or your local militaria store. The book is a must have for a milsurp colector.
You can also look for the book(s) "The Official History of the Cdn Forces in the Great War. 1914-1919.". Appendix III should have the same contents.
 
Tony, would you mind sharing a bit more info about your Ross?

What year was it manufactured (should be on the right side of the buttstock)? Also, does it have an oversized bolt stop? Is the chamber reamed large (does the spent brass look like .303 or something that's been blown out of shape?) How quickly did you fire those rounds and did you feel much heat from the receiver/barrel/bolt?

stencollector, I'll look into ordering it :D I know the library here has at least one copy of the official histories, maybe I'll check that first.
 
I don't have it handy but for some reason I don't think it's been reamed, does anyone know what marking signifies a reamed chamber? Sorry the butt was modified somewhere along it's life so there isn't anything stamped there that I can see, you see the stock was "cut down" by employees of the company that did these mods back in the I don't klnow, 1950's. I didn't really fire the rounds fast at all, it was the type of shoot where you had 2 guys shooting at one target so we took turns so I would say about 30 seconds per shot but the barrel got a little warm, but I don't think the receiver or bolt got hot at all from what I can remember. I would not be able to discern a normal sized bolt stop from an oversized one. All in all it was pretty slick except for one or two hard extractions.
 
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fat tony said:
I don't have it handy but for some reason I don't think it's been reamed, does anyone know what marking signifies a reamed chamber? Sorry the butt was modified somewhere along it's life so there isn't anything stamped there that I can see, you see the stock was "cut down" by employees of the company that did these mods back in the I don't klnow, 1950's. I didn't really fire the rounds fast at all, it was the type of shoot where you had 2 guys shooting at one target so we took turns so I would say about 30 seconds per shot but the barrel got a little warm, but I don't think the receiver or bolt got hot at all from what I can remember. I would not be able to discern a normal sized bolt stop from an oversized one. All in all it was pretty slick except for one or two hard extractions.
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Thanks Tony :) As for external markings about a reamed chamber, I'd need to wait for someone like tiriaq to chime in. Would it be possible for you to take a photo of the bolt stop/left side of the receiver and of a piece of spent brass if you have any?

Considering you were not firing rapidly, I doubt that you experienced this supposed heat lock phenomenon, but then again one never knows!
 
E, LC for the altered chamber. I believe that 2nd Ypres, in April of 1915, preceded the wholesale modification of rifle chambers. The batch of bolts made from incorrect steel were the ones that could have the left rear lug deformed by contact with the bolt stop. Subsequent re-heattreating with torches and cyanide could make things worse, particularly when bolts made from the proper steel were carburized the same way. The rivet modification to the bolt sleeve and bolt is WW2. Some of the ammunition was so bad that SMLEs had trouble with it, and specs for the SMLE chamber were revised a s a result. MGs certainly had trouble with the same ammunition that caused problems in the rifles. Read McBride's account of the spare Colt-Browning bolts being used as gauges to test every round prior to being loaded into belts.
Indifferent, I think that you saw my shooter Ross - the nice looking but restocked one. We were shooting it last Saturday, about 40 rounds in a fairly short period of time, barrel was too hot to keep your hand on it, there was no noticable heat in the bolt assembly or receiver. Action certainly functionned smoothly. Even though the barrel breech is stamped E, the cases look pretty much normal. One of my Mk. II rifles, and, oddly a 1905R sporter, have the really oversized chamber; the cases look rather odd.
One factor that could make it awkward to try to duplicate the problems reported in WWI is that the rifles available now are survivors. They worked. Ones that were defective, damaged in service, etc. are gone.
Not Ross specific, but I've done enouogh gunsmithing on other peoples rifles to be sceptical when someone tells me that <this> happened because of <that>.
 
tiriaq said:
E, LC for the altered chamber. I believe that 2nd Ypres, in April of 1915, preceded the wholesale modification of rifle chambers. The batch of bolts made from incorrect steel were the ones that could have the left rear lug deformed by contact with the bolt stop. Subsequent re-heattreating with torches and cyanide could make things worse, particularly when bolts made from the proper steel were carburized the same way. The rivet modification to the bolt sleeve and bolt is WW2. Some of the ammunition was so bad that SMLEs had trouble with it, and specs for the SMLE chamber were revised a s a result. MGs certainly had trouble with the same ammunition that caused problems in the rifles. Read McBride's account of the spare Colt-Browning bolts being used as gauges to test every round prior to being loaded into belts.
Indifferent, I think that you saw my shooter Ross - the nice looking but restocked one. We were shooting it last Saturday, about 40 rounds in a fairly short period of time, barrel was too hot to keep your hand on it, there was no noticable heat in the bolt assembly or receiver. Action certainly functionned smoothly. Even though the barrel breech is stamped E, the cases look pretty much normal. One of my Mk. II rifles, and, oddly a 1905R sporter, have the really oversized chamber; the cases look rather odd.
One factor that could make it awkward to try to duplicate the problems reported in WWI is that the rifles available now are survivors. They worked. Ones that were defective, damaged in service, etc. are gone.
Not Ross specific, but I've done enouogh gunsmithing on other peoples rifles to be sceptical when someone tells me that <this> happened because of <that>.
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All very good points :) What in all likelihood this would turn into would be a measurement of the barrel/chamber temperatures after, say, 100 rounds rapid fire, and a measurement of the bolthead temp.

Again, I don't think it's the heat that's the problem but the aforementioned bolthead problems. Either way it would be a fun test! I'm not sure now if I can make it fit within the confines of the class though :(
 
I have a 1916 Ross M-10 in full military configuration TheIndifferent1. I have shot it quite a bit with jacketed as well as cast bullets, due to the fact that it is so accurate. It is a great rifle to develope target loads in. I have never found a hard extraction, but then again I do not shoot it fast enough to overheat the barrel because it is in mint condition and I hope to keep it that way. My knoxform is stamped with a capital E. I find my fired brass very similar to my 1917 BSA SMLE, with the shoulders blown slightly forward. My bolt is not rivited so I can dissasemble my bolt and put it together incorrectly if not too careful, although if you know what to look for you will be fine. I have had my bolt completely apart to give it a thorough cleaning and to show friends how not to put them together:p My stock has GWVA stamped on it and nobody seems to be able to tell me what that stands for. Could it be Great War Veterans Association? This was suggested by a friend. With regards to the bayonets, I have a Mk. II bayonet for her that I have had on the rifle while shooting, although it is quite loose and sloppy feeling it hasn't fallen off yet.
 
None of the above. Jamming was caused by the bolt release being too small and raising a burr in an inconvient place when the bolt was pulled back. Later rectified, too late. However, this is a testament to Canadian leather, since it required an ammo boot to kick the bolt open.
Maybe Ross had good idea when he sold up and retired to Florida to avoid any ex servicemen looking him up.;)
 
The myth of the bolt blowing open on a Ross is simply that: a myth. It is almost (but not entirely) impossible to assemble the bolt wrong.
I would like to point out that the first Ross was almost a knock-off of the Mannlicher 1895, which had a long service life. I suspect that the difficult extraction came from lack of cleaning. The same problem would occur with the M-1 Garand, for which a chamber cleaner was included with the rifle.
The Ross 1910 is an immensely strong action which has been altered by at least one gunsmith to 7mm Rem. Magnum
 
I have a Mk III bolthead that has the damage on the lugs that caused them to jam up. If you would like, I can take some closeup photos of it and email them to you, and photos of a good one to compare against. PM me if you're interested.
 
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