Where are all the ross rifles?

In all, approximately 420,000 Ross service rifles were produced, 342,040 of which were purchased by the British, or so say standard sources.

the figure342,040 Ross rifles is quoted as being purchasd by the British, which may be in error. Here is the actual known breakdown.

- Ross Mk111B rifles orderd by British Government, 100,000. Actually delivered; 66,591.
- Taken over from the Canadian Government in exchange for SMLE's 95,674.
- Purchased by the Admiralty, from the USA in 1915 - model not known for sure- 750.
- Purchased from Canada by Britain in 1940 for British Home Guard use, 75,000.

The total is therefore ( if we included the 95,674 exchanged Ross rifles), 238,015.

The above is taken from various posts on the Ross rifle. The question is, where are all of the rifles?

So gents, I ask this question as I cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for where all the Ross rifles are. Here in the US they are very uncommon. I have never seen a MK I rifle, MK II*** are the most common, if for no other reason that 20,000 were bought in 1917 for training and then sold after WWI by the DCM. There were a number of sported MK II rifles imported into the US of A in the mid 1950s which seem to have come from Canada or the UK, these seem to show up at shows on a semi-regular basis with relatively low prices. But non US marked MK II rifles and MK III rifles in issue military condition seem to be really, really rare, at least in the states.

Now when I look to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, New Zealand and they still seem to be rare. Overall I would rate them as about as common as the SMLE MK V. With ~420,000 Ross rifle made, 240,000 to 342,000 sold to England and 20,000 SMLE MK V rifles made, that seems kind of odd that they should be so rare.

In trying to track down the figures, here are some facts I found in research of rifles that were lost:

British WWI Ross rifles supplied to Armenia ~25,000, all lost to USSR
British Post WWI rifles supplied to Baltic countries ~20,000, all lost to USSR
Brits post WWI supplied 200,000 rifles to Deinken in the Ukraine (white Russian), of which some were Ross rifles, some were P14 rifle (most I think) and a few were SMLE rifles. Number of Ross rifles unknown, but likely less then half as P14 rifles were said to make up at least half of the rifles supplied.
I found one sales record indicating in 1919 a surplus firm bought 35,000 of them in London for export. Where they went I have no record of .

Canadian milita reports from 1920-1921 show Canada had 90,000 Ross rifles left. That tends to back up the assertion that ~332,000 (342,000?) were exported to the UK/western front.

The total of lost rifles do not account for the large supposed production of Ross rifles prior to 1917. The only implication that makes sense is the Brits sold/destroyed almost all of the rifles they did not supply to the USSR. So virtually none of the ~330/342,000 sent overseas survived, though I have seen one MKIII B rifle, so some survived.

Of the Canadian 90,000 Ross rifles stored in 1921, 75,000 were sent to the UK during WWII. As they saw HG use only, what happened to them post WWII?

Anyone care to clarify that for a Yank?


The more detail the better.

To add a little to your search. I heard stories from my grandfather that after WWII he and a bunch of fellow services man were order to destroy a few hundred rifle by running over the barrels with cats and then bury in a dump in Edmonton Alberta. I have no actual figure on how many but I remember him saying between 300-500 Ross rifle. What a same to loss those rifles

Well I know where two of them are, in my closet.:D

I read somewhere that some were sent to Spain during the 30's for the Republican side to use in the Civil War. Don't know how many, or if that can be corroborated. I also talked to a fellow who knew an old gunsmith who worked in Southern BC during the 1930's. He had a government contract or some sort of contract to modify Rosses for sale to China during the Sino-Japanese war, but again, how many I'm not sure.

There are certainly a depressingly large number of bubba'd Mk III's out there--there's usually at least one at every gun show I go to. The Mk II** and earlier marks are much less common. Others may know more, but the Canadian gov't seems to have a habit of destroying a lot of surplus stuff, so I would assume that most of the Ross 1905s of various marks were destroyed after being declared obsolete. Alternatively, they may just have been released to public sale and a lot of them destroyed over the years by enthusiastic home gunsmiths? It is an interesting question.

Ed

Take a careful look at the Bubba'd ones you find at gun shows, especally in Canada. Many of them show BRITISH commercial Birmingham proofmarks.

Generally this indicates rifles which finally were sold out of stores after the SECOND war. Most of them have the heavy military barrels cut back to 24 or 26 inches, stocks heavily sanded to remove all Canadian markings and cut down to become a cut-price "sporter".

That many of these are ex-Royal Marine Light Infantry rifles is evidenced by the PLY (PLYmouth) and CRB (CRomBie) stampings on the STEEL receiver rings. I have a PLY; so do a number of others. Friend BUFFDOG has a CRB and there are more in circulation. Mixed parts (a PLY rifle with a CRB bolt or vice versa) also are found on these small-factory-sporters. I also have a couple of rifles marked PHAB on the WOOD, both cut down like a "stripped" sniping Ross. We assume that these were stationed at Priddy's Hard ammunitioning depot near Portsmouth, as this is definitely NOT a Canadian unit marking.

The books are WRONG, pure and simple. How else does one explain Ross Rifles in the hands of Royal Marines at the sinking of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in May of 1919..... if all the Rosses in RM hands had been withdrawn 2 years earlier??????? The photographs exist and have been posted in this forum. RN/RM still had thousands of the critters until the end of War Two: that is where the Weedon List rifles and all these "factory-minimal sporters" come from.

As well there were large shipments of Rosses to Mother Russia during War Two but they also got a huge number from Britain during the Great War, which is where the ones used in the Spanish Civil War came from.

Also, the Ross was the OFFICIAL rifle of the Republic of Latvia, plus others in used in numbers by Estonia and Lithuania. Russia got all of these in 1940 when they "protected" the Baltic countries into 50 years of servitude and oppression. Funny, the evil Nazis only "occupied" these countries for 3 years......

Upshot of the whole thing is that Russia ended up with better than half of all the Model 10 Rosses ever built. Quite a number were rebuilt in Russia as match rifles, target rifles for DOSAAF, competition rifles for international events and so forth. A FEW of these have come out, but the rest still are there, somewhere...... and Mother Russia ain't lettin' go.

Hope this helps.
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An unknown quantity of rifles, including Ross rifles, of MkIII and earlier marks, many already stripped of furniture, were sent to Algoma Steel in Sault St. Marie to be melted down. Some of these "fell off the truck" and ended up in private hands. At one point I had a NEW Mk II barrel, packed in grease, but bent, which I passed on to someone who needed it. Some parts are still around, but many of the actions were cut in half rather than be registered when the Firearms Act came into force.
Bill

Gents, thanks for the comments.

Let me clarify what I have found:

On the Spanish civil war imports, almost all of these rifles were MK III and MK III B rifles. The numbers were not that high, only a few thousand at most. These rifles, if what I have read is correct, came out of the Soviet Union and were the residuum of the rifles that were supplied by the UK to the Whites in the Ukraine during 1919 and perhaps some of the the Armenian rifles. One observation that seems to back this up is that none of the MK III rifles that can be traced to this import lot have the reinforcing bolt pin to prevent the bolt from being assembled incorrectly.

A dealer I know, who was 85 when I spoke to him and used to go down to Interarmeco in the day, told me that few if any of these Spanish civil war rifles had good bores, most were completely rusted out. He also indicated every MK IIIB rifle he had seen was from this lot. He also said this bad bore condition contributed to there being preserved, as the bores were so poor that no one would bother sporting them.

Leaping forward to the WWII disposition of the 90,000 Canadian war reserve Ross rifles. The comments on the Canadian destruction of Ross rifles might explain where some of the 15,000 remaining war reserve rifles in Canada ended up. Not all were destroyed as there are ads for sported Mk II and MK III rifles from the 1950s that indicate the rifles were surpluses from Canada. In any case that still leaves the problem of what happened to the 75,000 rifles sent to the UK in 1940 from the Canadian war reserve. These rifles were all MK III with the Ross rear sight, the reinforce pin in the bolt.

Why are there not more of these rifles about? As I said here in the US of A the MK II 3* seem to be the most common rifles, as 20,000 were brought in during 1917 for training rifles. MKIII rifles seem to be very rare here, and also in the other remaining commonwealth countries.

Compare that to the number of ex Navy Ross rifles, (many of which were sported). These rifles were released in the 1950s. There cannot have been that many, and yet these rifles seem more common then the War reserve rifles. (unless the Naval rifles were from the WWII lots and not remaining surplus from WWI).

Any insights or possible paths to pursue would be of interest.

FRS

Well, there have been reports of Rosses showing up in Afghanistan, and I have a Mk IIIb with a Farsi type rack number on the side of the stock, suggesting possible Indian use. There are a large number of Rosses unkindly referred to as "curryguns" which were surplused out of India or Pakistan--they often have an incredibly long serial number stamped on the receiver. Is it possible that Britain sent some of its stores to India or Pakistan, and if so, how many?

Ed

I seem to remember reading that Russian rebuilt Ross rifles, in a new and fancy flat-shooting caliber, was what revolutionized olympic Biathlon back in the day, and heralded first the swap to straight-pull rifles, and then standardizing on the .22 LR

I think finland ended up with a few of them as well, after they split from Imperial Russia after the revolution. Think i saw reference to them being issued for coastal defence and home front use during the winter war. Seems Imperial Russia had tendency to ship non-standard weapons off the the "colonys", explainin why they showed up in places like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.

The new Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) got a lot of British equipment right after WWI.

Photos exist of Latvian Sopwith Camels with swastikas painted on them. DEFINITELY not a British marking, either War!!
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Smellie, what's your source for Ross shipments to Russia during WWII?

The Ross Rifles to Lithuania/Latvia were "presents" from the British Government. They also gave them ammunition:
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../Lettish-1.jpg

Like the earlier responder, two of them are in my closet here in Oklahoma. The question has arisen, how many III's were on the Canada? I have heard 700 to 750 but this seems a little high for one ship. Also my 1905 is marked on the left side of the butt "5th PNRS" which I understan is "fifth pioneers" which were equivalent to the US Combat Engineers. Was this issue before or after the date the rifle was sent to France? In it's case the CEF date was March 1915. Just curious if anyone knows.

I have a Deactivated Ross has markings on butt KKD, 1.45 ,23/c, 70
Seriel no 50556613

Bogtrotter2,
My understanding that the MkIIs never went to France with the CEF, though they did deploy to England with the First Division. Only MkIIIs went to the Front in France....who knows, there may have been exceptions! I believe that David Edgeworth discusses this in his book.

I found this interesting information on the Spanish Civil War - with references to Ross rifles supplied:

http://www.carbinesforcollectors.com/spaintable.html

All,

I would not underestimate the number of Ross rifles that became consumed by war. I'd also suggest that probably many tens of thousands were destroyed as unserviceable, or end of life arms for which further storage was not fiscally viable. The earlier mention by kev303 of running over the barrels with bulldozers probably happened a lot.

Just my $.02...

David Albert
dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

I own a 1910 Ross MkIIIB, full length, full military wood. Just test fired it a few weeks back and everything went ok, 4" group at 100yds with a low powered basic handload for safety reasons. It is rare to find a non sporterized full military wood Ross though, this one took me a year to find.

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Originally Posted by Amatikulu

I found this interesting information on the Spanish Civil War - with references to Ross rifles supplied:

http://www.carbinesforcollectors.com/spaintable.html

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Interesting article

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The remarkable thing was that the number of M91/30 rifles was proportionately low considering the large numbers supplied. Possibly the bulk of the surviving M91/30's were acquired by some government.

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Probably they were sent via Germany in WWII to arm the Ostbatallions, in trade for some German equipment perhaps.

Frederick303;

I would bet that all the Ross's in the British Isles went under the torch. The Limeys did that with nearly all the rifles sent to them by American sportsmen. They just never caught onto the idea of a fee, armed citizenry.
I have a nice M1910 myself, and I enjoy shooting it.

Try Beaufort's **** or the Hurd Deep:
http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/5750E...y_sea_dump.pdf

When I was first finding out about Rosses about 12 years ago, one of the Ross experts told me that a lot of surplus weapons that couldn't be off-loaded any other way after WW1 were simply dumped at sea - along with the worn-out Smellies, knackered artillery pieces - oh! and lots of unused gas projectiles and other obsolete high explosive . . .

This is why the UK was in such desperate straits in 1940-1, after the BEF had lost the majority of its equipment at Dunkirk and the arms factories and US contractors weren't yet up to speed - there was no reserve at all to fall back on.

And in 1946-7 and onwards to the 1970s, the same thing happened again - especially as Rosses, Arisakas , P14s and P17s, etc were now considered obsolete when matched against AK47s and so on . . .

Try the diving clubs/websites - most have them have stories of wrecks of military transports and evidence of dumping of all sorts of military material - it's just that simple rifles tend to get forgotten in the fuss about obsolete and deteriorating NBC weaponry.

Sorry, but I can't remember my source - I think it was one of the Canadian experts, but I'm not sure about that.

As for Rosses in large numbers in Russia - surely they would have been in the first convoys to Russia in 1941-2, and so issued to the PBI fighting the 1942 summer campaign, Stalingrad, etc and then Kursk? Some of those would have been captured by the Germans and would have appeared long since, especially with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the selling-off of obsolete military hardware to all comers? And we would be seeing Rosses with all sorts of non-British/Canadian (i.e., Cyrillic) stamps?

P.S. Sorry - this website won't let me enter the word **** - hope my meaning's obviious with a little bit of Googling

This is more than a little late, but I have a bit of info that may be useful.

That total number you had for production, was that just mk3s, or did it include Mk2s? I do know, for example, that at least one batch of 10,500 mk2s (known as the "3 star") were sold to the Americans in WW1, and were primarily used as training rifles. Some American "state" units ("State militia"?) used these as service rifles, and if I recall correctly, the New York units had them until the early 1950's. I recently got a mk2 3-star that might have been from that batch, but was almost certainly from the US. I don't have a rear sight on it yet. Mechanically it's in great shape, bore looks great, and shoots beautifully. Can't wait to get a sight on it.

The one thing I will add to this conversation even though I know it is late, is trying to track down what happened to most of them will be difficult to say the least. 420,000 isn't a massive amount of rifles produced, as much as we may think otherwise. Things like the Lebel had 3.5 million produced but I have never seen a Lebel in person but I have seen about 10 Rosses.

War usage, sporterization, supplying to foreign governments, and destruction instead of surplus has lead to very few original examples remaining. In particular the sporterization here in Canada really lead to many being taken out of original state as they were available as surplus long before any other more 'modern' alternatives were available (Lee Enfields, Mausers, etc.).

I am surprised you have not read about India. I do not have the links but you can follow the story up.
I think you will find the "missing" Ross Rifles were given to India by the Brittish as training rifles.
The Indians were desperate for rifles to train their troops and asked the Brits to help. Now the Brits dis not want to give the Indians live firing rifles as there was unrest in the country and they did not want them being used against them, so they were given Thousands of Ross Rifles upon the condition that they were all converted to DP.
It appears this DP deactivating was done in 3 ways.
1.Hole drilled through the chamber.
2. Hole drilled through the action/chamber.
3. Hole drilled through the chamber and action/chamber and a pin welded in.

How do I know? I have purchased one of each over the years. There were a hundred or so imported by an Australian dealer between 20-30yr ago and on the sale advertisement it said "welding rods supplied to repair it yourself" So I have been told.
The one I had with a hole in the chamber only had a brand spanking new barrel. And when repaired it shot MOA.

Now I also happened to talk to a dealer that was involved in international trading years ago and he did a lot of dealing in India. He said in a huge warehouse he saw a "huge" pile of DP Ross Rifles mounded up in the middle on the floor and would have estimated thousands. He said he sould have bought them as they were dirt cheap, but he said "no one wanted Ross Rifles, you can't give em away". And he was probably right at the time.
My guess is that they were scrapped.

If you can find research on this it may solve your question.
Cheers.

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Originally Posted by martins8589

a "huge" pile of DP Ross Rifles

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That would be about the time gazillions of dewat rifles and DPs appeared in Canada. They had been drilled through the chamber left to right and they were all consumed. You can't find one today.

There was plenty of destruction going on in Canada post-WWII and perhaps before that. There's an account online of rifles being gathered up from schools in Ontario(?) stacked up and burned, other accounts of large numbers of rifles being sent to steel mills etc. Lots of dumping of munitions at sea on both coasts after WWII...Armouries and depots were cleaned out of accumulations sometimes going back almost a century.

Was it 15,000 or 25,000 MkIIIs sent to Armenia that was mentioned on Gunboards? China got some, India who knows how many, but probably tens of thousands...

We can be pretty sure there was nothing much left in the UK, since in 1940 Canada was asked to supply MkIIIs fitted with scopes for sniping purposes. (Without Warning)

According to the same source Canada had 121,179 MkIII Rosses on hand in 1939. Some of these obviously went to the UK, but how many?

As these rifles were replaced for training and 2nd line purposes, what happened to them? My bet would be they were smelted while the war was still on. In the same book there is a quote from official correspondence about the Warner & Swasey scoped rifles that had been used for training since 1939/40. The recommendation was that the sights be scrapped and it seems most of them were.

Scrap mania was well under way here in Canada as well: look at the WWI war trophies that were rounded up and scrapped for example.

Turkey got some via England also.

Losses during WWI were heavy (combat loss as well as thrown away by the troops). Those pulled from service when replaced by the SMLE were given to British rear line groups (guards) and the Royal Marines, who stamped them with the naval depot they were assigned to (CRB for Crombie, PLY for Plymouth, etc). Post war, many of those were sent to India and the middle East along with nearly all of the Mk IIIB (so called War Office Pattern) which is why most of the Mk IIIB found have Indian issue stamps on them. Some were DP as a previous poster has mentioned but not all. It is safe to assume a lot of those deteriorated or were scrapped, and some were surplussed back to North America. Others of the ones in BRitish stores were scrapped, and a fair number seem also to have been made available to the "trade" as many were sporterized by British gun houses.

Rosses were also sent to Russia during the revolution to arm the White Russians, and those pop up periodically in photographs from the 1970's. Some were also sent to the Balkans apparently. Some of these Russian bound Rosses were reportedly used in the Winter War as there are reports of some being used by the Finns. Given the massive losses and destruction in Russia during WWII it is safe to assume that any Rosses there were either issued and lost, issued and then scrapped post war as being completely non standard. If some were used and were captured by the Germans, it would be safe to assume we don't see them because I can't possibly see the Germans keeping them--they would have property stamped and reissued any useable firearms as they did, but I don't think they would have been too interested in keeping a WWI era long clunker in .303 to reissue on the Russian front.

A fellow collector told me about a gunsmith long since passed away who talked about readying a large number of Rosses for shipment to China during the 1930's as part of a private purchase shipment for some warlord or other.

So, where are all the Mk III and Mk IIIB Rosses? In the mud of France, at the bottom of the sea, scrapped/dumped/sporterized in Great Britain, exported from GB to Russia, Far East/Middle East and therefore scrapped or lost in Russia, or scrapped, destroyed or deteriorated in India/Far East/Middle East. Ones staying in Canada were either sporterized in Canada, scrapped, sent to China, and a few are still intact and in collections. There is a bustling market now in reproduction stocks and parts to bring back the sporters. The Indian dewats can be readily identified by having a dark oily stock, dark oily metal, and a matching pair of "half moon" divots out of the top of the main stock just by the receiver where the drill went through.

Ed

So are these a "if you see one, move on it" kind of deal? Or a gun that if you'd rather spend the money on other things, you can wait to locate later? I don't see them often here in the states but I've seen more than I've seen Lebels. Specifically asking as there is a Ross Mk2 coming up for auction tomorrow and while it would be a great addition, I'm really deep in the search for a Polish M44 and Japanese paratrooper right now.

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Originally Posted by boltaction

The Indian dewats can be readily identified by having a dark oily stock, dark oily metal, and a matching pair of "half moon" divots out of the top of the main stock just by the receiver where the drill went through.

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Those would be the very ones I speak of.