What happened to P14 rifles made in US for Britain?

[Frederick303]

Canadian Militia guns were sold in both Canada and the US, most of them sported in the early 1950s to middle 1950s. Not all the rosses were sent to the UK, only around 75,000 out of around 118,000 that the Canadians had in 1940. Working from memory here, I would have to check my reference books to be sure, old age and all that. But Canada retained a larger number of MK II (forget number of stars) and MKIII rifles at least 42,000.

I may be wrong on this as I am not a Ross expert, but I seem to recall the UK Naval marked Ross rifles were for the most part saved because they were sold as part of ships stores and when ships were sold post war they went with them. I seem to recall that some Chilean ross rifles were imported in the late 1950s so marked.

That said when I went through all of the sales circulars some years ago trying to figure out what century, Golden state and Interarms brought in, there was a noticeable lack of Ross rifles from the UK. The other partner in that equation, Parker Hale shows no ads in that period for Ross rifles and they were Golden state arms UK agent. Golden state shows some ads but they seem to have been sourced directly from Canada.

There were Ross rifles imported from Spain, which were MK IIIB rifles (interarms imports 1959/1960)
There were MK I/MKII/MKIII variants that came in via (what was to become) century prior to the big UK sales in the 1958 and after.

The very first sales from interarms in the mid to late 1950s with MKV, MKIV and even some CLLE rifles seem to lack much in the way of Ross rifles.

Now in the US today the most common Ross we see is the MK II, from the 1917 state of New York import (taken over by US government). Around 20,000 were imported, of which most were sold to the NRA members post 1919. Around 2000 to 3000 MK IIIB rifles were imported from Spain. Rare but you see them. The 75,000 MKIII rifles (ross rear sight) from the UK are noticeable missing, I have never seen but one or two of them in my entire life. That is why I conclude they were dumped at sea.