There's a lot else wrong with it - fragile, overly elaborate sight, over-engineered magazine when a plain zig-zag spring would have done better, much too long, lack of extracting power inherent in design ...
the snipers liked them.
There's a lot else wrong with it - fragile, overly elaborate sight, over-engineered magazine when a plain zig-zag spring would have done better, much too long, lack of extracting power inherent in design ...
There's a lot else wrong with it - fragile, overly elaborate sight, over-engineered magazine when a plain zig-zag spring would have done better, much too long, lack of extracting power inherent in design ...
There's a lot else wrong with it - fragile, overly elaborate sight, over-engineered magazine when a plain zig-zag spring would have done better, much too long, lack of extracting power inherent in design ...
Fragile: You're thinking of the MkII.
Magazine: The MkII mag was pretty complex, but the MkIII mag is no more complex than a Mauser or SMLE...?
If you are buying a Ross today, your chances of running into this problem are somewhere between 'nil' and 'extremely faint'.
The Ross is a story of what might have been with adequate field testing and refinement prior to being used in the trenches. It is but one of a number of illustrations of how promising Canadian designs never made the grade because of small domestic demand and economies of scale, a cold R&D and industrial base which meant longer lead times and higher costs, abundant supplies of foreign equipment, and the imperative of commonality with allied logistics systems.
This has been the story of our military equipment procurement through history and remains the case today. Current examples are our Italian/ Austrian/American licence built trucks, German tanks, and various foreign designed small arms and crew served weapons. About the only exception that comes to mind is the Canadian LAV armoured vehicle which is only a viable production possibility because sales to the USMC have lowered the unit cost and kept a warm R&D and production base for the past 25 yrs. Another exception are the Canadian designed patrol frigates (CPF) which came at a fearsome cost due to the need to re-create a design and ship building capability from scratch-something we tend to do about every 20-25 yrs. In the case of the CPF programe politics prevailed and we ate the huge costs necessary to make the ships in our defunct Quebec and maritime shipyards.
Back to the Ross. The bottom line was that it was a miserable failure as a service rifle. For a variety of reasons it failed the test of combat. I always enjoyed them on the range, but they are long and unwieldy, and butt-ugly to boot!
I recall someone posting photos of such a project rifle, made up using a sported Mk. III. Looked very businesslike with a Lee Enfield length barrel.
It is great to see such a discussion here! I have learned so much from the debate. It seems to me, what I shall do, with my love of carbines, is find a sportered Ross Mk.III 1910, with a cut barrel, and see if I can splice some wood on, and maybe Mannlicher forestock it, after all, I understand Mr. Ross and Herr Mannlicher debated on the design. If you look at a M95 Bolt and a Ross 1905 Bolt, you can see clear lines of heritage there. Don't give me any "the Swiss had it" as they used Mannlicher's design too! All the same, a great gun is the Ross, if I get a sporter and mod it to a "Canadian Carbine" I will post it up for all the collectors, who have 2500 dollars in their pockets, to lose their lunch.![]()