The Ross rifle is a straight-pull bolt action rifle chambered in .303 British that was produced in Canada from 1903 until 1918.
The Ross Mk.II (or "model 1905") rifle was highly successful in target shooting before World War I, but the close chamber tolerances, lack of primary extraction and length made the Mk.III (or "1910") Ross rifle unsuitable for the conditions of trench warfare, exacerbated by the often poor quality ammunition issued.
The Ross Rifle Co. made sporting rifles from early in its production, most notably chambered in .280 Ross, introduced in 1907. This cartridge is recorded as the first to achieve over muzzle velocity and the cartridge acquired a very considerable international reputation among target shooters and hunters.
History
During the Second Boer War (1899–1902), a minor diplomatic fight broke out between Canada and the United Kingdom, after the latter refused to license the Lee–Enfield SMLE design for production in Canada. Sir Charles Ross offered to finance the construction of a factory in Canada to produce his newly designed straight-pull rifle for Canadian service. This offer was accepted by the Liberal government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Ross was awarded his first contract in 1903 for 12,000 Mark I Ross rifles.
It is generally accepted that Ross' design was inspired by the straight-pull Austrian Mannlicher M1895 rifle introduced into Austro-Hungarian service in the 1890s and used throughout World War I, and as secondary weapons into World War II. Ross' earliest rifles unmistakably borrowed a number of mechanical details directly from the Mannlicher which was a relatively new design at the time Ross was producing his first rifles in the late 1890s.
The operating principle of the straight-pull bolt action comprises a bolt "sleeve" to which the bolt lever or handle is attached. The sleeve is hollow and has spiral grooves or "teeth" cut into its inner surface in which slide corresponding projections or "teeth" on the outside of the bolt head or "body". As the bolt lever and sleeve are moved, the bolt head is forced to rotate through about 90°, locking or unlocking it in the receiver of the rifle. The bolt handle and sleeve thus need only be pushed backwards or forwards to open or close the action of the rifle.
In conventional bolt-action rifles such as the Mauser, Mosin–Nagant or Lee–Enfield, the bolt is unlocked or locked by the raising or lowering of the bolt handle, before the bolt is drawn back and after it is pushed forward. The single motion required to open or close the bolt of a straight-pull-action rifle is theoretically faster and easier for soldiers to learn, thus perhaps offering a higher rate of fire. Unlike the Lee–Enfield, the bolt of the Ross rifle could be taken apart without special tools, although this was not necessarily an advantage as it encouraged unauthorized disassembly by soldiers.
Service The first 1,000 rifles were given to the Royal North-West Mounted Police (RNWMP) for testing. Routine inspection before operational testing found 113 defects bad enough to warrant rejection. One of these was a poorly designed bolt lock that enabled the bolt to fall right out of the rifle. Another was poorly tempered component springs that were described as being as "soft as copper". In 1906, the RNWMP reverted to their Model 1894 Winchesters and Lee–Metfords. The Ross rifle was modified to correct these faults and became the Mark II Ross [Model 05 (1905)]. In 1907, the Mk II was modified to handle the higher pressure of new .280 Ross, this variant was called Mk II**. The Model 10 (1910) was a new design, to correct the shortcomings of the 1905. None of the major parts are interchangeable between the 1905 and the 1910 models. Although the British were now encouraging standardization in the Empire on the Lee–Enfield, Canada stayed with the Ross. The Model 10 was the standard infantry weapon of the First Canadian Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force when it first arrived in France in February 1915.
The shortcomings of the rifle were made apparent before the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was the first unit to voice its objections about the rifle; the regiment replaced the Ross rifle with the more familiar and rugged Lee-Enfield and later persuaded the 3rd Division to switch to the Lee-Enfield. The rifle had problems when British-made ammunition was used, which was produced with lower tolerances than Canadian-made ammunition. Another part of the jamming problem came from the bolt's outer face hitting the bolt stop, then deforming the thread shape. The bolt could also be taken apart for cleaning and inadvertently reassembled in a manner that would fail to lock but still allow a round to be fired, leading to serious injury or death of the operator as the bolt flew back into his face. Armourers in France added a simple rivet or screw in the bolt sleeve to prevent misalignment, but this improvement came too late to prevent the replacement of the Ross with the SMLE.
Another deficiency was the tendency for the bayonet to become dislodged and fall off when firing the rifle. Many Canadians of the First Contingent (now renamed the 1st Canadian Division) at Ypres took Lee–Enfield rifles from fallen British soldiers to replace their Ross rifles. Lieutenant Chris Scriven of the 10th Battalion, CEF, commented that it sometimes took five men just to keep one rifle firing. Major T.V. Scudamore of the British Columbia Regiment, having been captured at Ypres after being wounded, wrote of the "contemptible" Ross rifle, "Those in the front line with that rifle will never forget... what it is like to be charged by the flower of the German army... and be unable to fire a shot in return".
Complaints rapidly reached the rifle's chief sponsor, the Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence Sam Hughes. He continued to believe in its strengths despite the professional opinion of Sir Edwin Alderson, the British Army officer who was commander of the First Canadian Division. The rifle became an element in political issues within Canada and between Canada and the British. Hughes responded to Alderson's criticism by accusing Alderson of ignorance and copied the letter to many officers in the corps. The effect was to undermine confidence in Alderson and the rifle. Hughes also made accusations that Canadian officers were induced to produce adverse reports on the rifle. After negative reports regarding the rifle were published through the Ottawa Citizen, it became increasingly clear that his claims before the House of Commons that all the faults of the rifle had been cured were patently false and Hughes' defence of the rifle could no longer be supported by the Prime Minister. The Ross was more accurate at long range than the SMLE, and this potentially overcame the serious problem British and Canadian troops had faced during the Boer War, with the accurate long-range fire from the 7×57mm Mauser chambered Mauser Model 1895 rifle. In all, approximately 420,000 Ross service rifles were produced, 342,040 of which were purchased by the British. After being replaced by the SMLE, some rifles were scrapped or shipped to Russia, others were given to the Royal Navy and a few Ross rifles were kept as sniper rifles, a role where it excelled, provided it was kept clean and well-maintained.
Replacement
Canadians retained the Ross even as additional contingents arrived in France. On 12 June 1915, the 1st Canadian Division replaced all its Ross rifles with Enfields. By the time of the Somme battles of July 1916, Sir Douglas Haig, the new Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, had ordered the replacement of all Ross rifles in the three Canadian Divisions by the Pattern 1914 Enfield, which was finally available in quantity. Hughes refused to accept that there were problems with the Ross, and it took the intervention of many influential people to persuade him otherwise. In November 1916, Hughes resigned after Sir Robert Borden's decision to appoint a Minister of Overseas Forces. Ross rifles were then used for training, in Canada and the UK, to release Lee–Enfields for the front. After the United States entered the war in 1917, Ross rifles were shipped to the U.S. for the same reasons, for more M1903 Springfield rifles at the front. Hughes' reputation was inevitably tarnished, but Sir Charles Ross had already made a considerable fortune from his rifle design and manufacturing contracts despite its reputation. At around the same time, the Dominion Rifle Factory (Quebec City) converted a number of Rosses into the Huot automatic rifle, under the guidance of designer Joseph Alphonse Huot. It was an effective design, feeding from a drum magazine, and cheaper than a Lewis Gun. Despite successful trials, it was never adopted for service.
Military variants Rifle, Ross Mk I This was the first production military model Ross Rifle. The first few hundred were fitted with the full-length folding Sight, Ross Mk I. Before any were delivered, the sight was replaced with a shorter version graduated to 2,200 yards rather than 2,500 yards. Years later, this sight would be designated Sight, Ross Mk I*. Many weapons would have this replaced with the Sight, Ross Mk II, a curved sliding "Lange Vizier" type. The barrel was 28 inch long, and the fore-stock ended 4 inches short of the muzzle. The front band had a bayonet lug. The safety was a sliding flat plate on the back of the bolt handle operated by pushing a square button on the plate. The magazine cut-off was on the lower right of the magazine protruding through the stock, and pressing it down engaged the cut-off. The magazine cut-off release was inside the front of the trigger guard, and depressing it would disengage the cut-off. A large lever was on the right side which was used to depress the magazine follower for "dump loading" all five rounds at once. The weapon was a straight-pull cock-on-close design. There was a sliding trap in the butt-stock for cleaning tools. A total of 10,500 were manufactured. A number of the original 500 were re-purposed as training rifles and fitted with longer front barrel bands as used on later production Rifle, Ross Mk II. This was done so they could more easily endure the stress of constant bayonet practice.
Carbine, Ross Mk I The RNWMP purchased 1,000 shorter versions of the Ross Mk I. The main difference was the barrel length of 26 inches. The full stock of the rifle was retained, and the barrel projected only 2 inches past the forestock. As presented for inspection, the carbines used the shorter version of the Sight, Ross Mk I. However, at the inspector's request, the weapons were delivered fitted with the Sight, Ross Mk II.
Rifle, Ross Mk II This designation was a 1909 re-designation of those Mk I rifles that had been fitted with the Sight, Ross Mk II.
Rifle, Ross Mk II/Rifle, Ross Mk II with Sight, Ross Mk II After various complaints had been received, the weapon was re-designed to address the issues. The 28 inch barrel length was retained, and the Sight, Ross Mk II was used. The most noticeable change was the replacement of the side-mounted magazine cut-off control and trigger-guard mounted cut-off release with a single hook shaped control inside the front trigger guard that performed both functions. The action was also changed to cock-on-open. The safety was similar to the earlier model's, but the slider was more solid and inside the bolt handle, moved by pushing a round button on the back of the bolt handle. Changes were introduced in production without change in designation until the introduction of the Sight, Ross Mk III when the nomenclature of the earlier rifles was expanded to Rifle, Ross Mk II with Sight, Ross Mk II.
Rifle, Ross Mk II with Sight, Ross Mk III