Yes, friend, DO search this forum. There was a thread on here that went more than a year, all on the ins and the outs and the ups and the downs of the Ross Rifle.
Mark I was also called the 1903. If anything, it was a pilot model, had a lot of problems and was superceded very early. NONE saw combat in the Great War or any other.
Mark II was based on the 1905 Ross patents. It had an internal magazine, most of them with the Harris Attachment for "dump loading" the mag, they all carried 5 rounds. Sporters WERE made in several calibres, but are very scarce. Amongst other things, the 1905 was the test-bed for the .28 Ross cartridge, later developed into the world-famous .280 Ross.
The 1905 action was VERY strong, being rated at 100,000 psi of pressure. In many ways, it was a straight-pull adaptation of a Mauser, has the same heavy forward locking lugs., but they are larger and thicker on the Ross. The bolt travels with the lugs in a VERTICAL position and they lock in a HORIZONTAL position. This means that there is a fair jump from the magazine to the chamber and the final action largely was developed in the way it was to get rid of this problem. The 1905 in its special Match version was supplied to many rifle clubs across Canada and they still turn up to this day, complete with aperture rear sights and a 30-inch heavy barrel. Unfortunately, time, Cordite and corrosive primers, as well as LOTS of range time, have taken their toll on many of these wonderful barrels. The 1905 developed a reputation as the most accurate military rifle in the world, and that's pretty hard to argue with.
It is ALMOST impossible to assemble a 1905 bolt so that it will operate in a dangerous condition but it can be done if you are determined to kill yourself. Likely, however, the bolt will not even move back and forth in the rifle IF you can get it in at all.
And now we come to the 1910 model, the ill-starred Mark III which was, if anything, even STRONGER than the Mark II (1905). Ross actually tried one at 125,000 psi pressure and it held together!!!!! There was actually a case reported in The American Rifleman a number of years ago of a 1910 Ross in .280 Ross being fired with a .303 cartridge. The .303 obturated correctly and brazed itself into the chamber, pressure wrecked the extractor.... and the bullet was squeezed from .312" diameter, all the way down to .285" diameter and, apart from the extractor, there was no damage to the rifle. I won't even fathom a GUESS as to what the pressure levels might have been. Hatcher, however, has photos of a P-17 (and they were TOUGH!) which was spread all over the rifle-range by the firing of a .35 Remington in the .30-06 chamber: a very similar amount of squeezing being required. Under circumstances approaching sanity, I would think it very nearly impossible to wreck a 1910 Ross.
With the 1910 (Mark III), the bolt-lugs travelled horizontally and locked vertically. This did away with any feed problems and made for a MUCH smoother action. The seven-lug bolt was tremendously strong and the accuracy still is legendary. Unlike most legends, though, the accuracy of the Mark III Ross is PROVABLE any time you care to take one out and try it.
But there is a downside, of course. The rifle was long, heavy and unwieldy. It was not popular with the troops. The tales of the miserable performance in battle are emphatically NOT borne out by men I spoke with personally, men who actually used the rifles in some of the worst battles of the War.... and this INCLUDES the gas attack at Second Ypres. The tale of the removal of the Ross from combat duty, I am convinced, largely was political in nature: done to get rid of Sir Sam Hughes, who may have been erratic but who also was utterly incorruptable.
And here is the nasty part. The bolt of the 1910 is VERY easy to assemble in a dangerous condition. In fact, the easiest way to assemble one is to assemble it dangerously and then make the correction. It can NOT get out of adjustment by itself: it REQUIRES HUMAN INTERVENTION to make it dangerous. Some rifles doubtless were assembled wrong and a few disasters resulted. The Army came up with a modification to the bolt, entailing modifications to the shank of the rotating bolt-head and the assembly of a cross-pin through the shank of the bolt-sleeve. These are called "pinned" Rosses. A pinned Ross is impossible to assemble incorrectly; indeed, it is difficult to assemble at all. But it is totally safe.
Recoil with the 1910 is minimal; they are a heavy rifle and the .303 isn't all that terrible a kicker to start with. They all have these utterly wonderful Ross roller-bearing triggers which, for my money, are as good as any match trigger made today. They have 4-groove Mauser-type (wide grooves, narrow lands) rifling, 1 turn right in 10 inches and they are SUPERBLY accurate. I have one here that regularly touches its bullets at 100 yards.
Combat service: a few Mark II rifles may have seen combat in the Great War. 15 B'n CEF went overseas with them but it is not clear if they still had the Mark II when they first saw combat. Everybody else had the Mark III.
The 1910 action, essentially, is a self-cleaning action. What defeated them was the sheer quantity of mud in the Great War trenches. Sir Sam wanted to give the men "sticks" to clean their rifles and was berated and mocked widely for such a comment. Indeed, this is one of the statements commonly used to "prove" the "insanity" of Sir Sam Hughes. What he was talking about was the Ross "Cleaning Stick", made of hardwood and specially shaped for cleaning the locking-recesses of the Mark III rifle. They sold for 5 cents each but the Borden Government refused to spend the money.
The Ross is as Canadian as beaver soup or whatever. Designed by a Scot, made on the Plains of Abraham by a bunch of French-Canadians. It doesn't GET any more Canadian than that!
I could go on for HOURS about the Ross, but there is no point. You have your mind made up and I DO wish you well.
Welcome to the Wonderful World of the Ross Rifle!
