Ross Brass neck extension

[CanadianLanBoy]

Hello all,

I recently got to shoot my Ross Model E factory sporter, and I noticed the brass had expanded quite a bit. I understood that this is normal for .303 Ross chambers, but I noticed the internal neck diameter of the brass had expanded a lot more than I expected.

As you can see from the pictures, the dimension increased ~0.020, which is quite a lot.

It's a shame as even with neck sizing case life probably won't be great.

I was wondering if this is normal for these rifles, or if mine was cut particularly large.

Appreciate any responses,

CanadianLanBoy

Information

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[browningautorifle]

The Aussies seem to draw case life out to the max by neck sizing. I never managed to get much beyond a couple or three shots myself. I don't want to segregate brass for each rifle. It's just a fact of life that your .303 brass won't last long with full length resizing and neck sizing isn't going to be much better. That's why you have a hard time finding decent fired brass here in Canada for .303. The chambers are large. There should be lots of response to this thread about steps to save brass..."O" rings and such...

[Bluenoser]

I have several civilian and military 1905/Mk IIs and a Mk III that I shoot. All but two Mk II** have generous chambers that make reloading a bit of a challenge. I do segregate cases and neck size only. The necks are typically enlarged to the point they will not start into the neck sizer and I have to get a bit creative with an intermediate step to slightly reduce the diameter. In my experience, the only .303 Ross rifles that do not have large chambers are the Mk II** target rifles. Reloading for them is a pleasure. Ross rifles have poor primary extraction and, as I understand it, the chambers are large to improve extraction.

[M94/14]

I've only had one Ross Sporter and the fired cases came out more or less normal looking. However, the fired case you show looks almost identical to the cases that would come out of my Mk2***** which were known to have extremely large chamber neck diameters. The .330" showing on your "very-nears" confirms this. I was able to resize mine, but they had to be well lubed, and you had to size them very forcibly in one "fast and smooth motion" as the effort required was tremendous if you went slowly.

I was able to resize for two re-loadings without annealing, don't know if the brass would have made a third.

[Surpmil]

What's are the first few digits of the rifle's serial number? It could be that once the reaming of the Mk.III chambers began at the factory, this was carried over to the sporting rifles also, as Ross does seem to have kept assembling some sporting rifles during WWI. I wouldn't be surprised if after the UK contract for 100,000 rifles was cancelled and the Mk.III withdrawn from general service in 1916, the factory put quite a bit of effort into sporters as a way to generate revenues.

I have a non-Home Guard 1915 Mk.III here with a pristine bore and small chamber, so they're not unknown, and also a 1910-E with small chamber, but it is a pre-WWI rifle.

[M94/14]

I don't have the rifle anymore, just kept the MK. III that was made in 1916. It's chamber is marked L.C. but is not as large as the MK.II*****, more like an average SMLE.

[Surpmil]

Actually I was directing that at the OP: CanadianLanBoy