Ross Commercial Line Rifles Study.

[flying pig]

So, over the last 2-3 years that I’ve been chasing Sir Charles Ross’ rifles down, I’ve taken on a bit of a side study into serial numbers and the patterns they show in production as well as how they may help to date a given rifle’s manufacture. Since the Ross site has gone down and we’ve lost that serial number list, and I wasn’t interested enough to save it back in the day, the thought was to track down as many as possible and start over. There’s 161 rifles in this list. It’s missing a few I have come across and dropped the ball on recording the numbers from. There’s no Mil Match, Supine or single shot target rifles on this list either. They also need to be factored into it. Home Guard MkIIIs should represent a large percentage of these as well, but I dropped the ball on them until recently so there’s only 3 on there to start.

This only represents known Quebec production as well. Obviously there’s a few earlier sporters out there as well.

Anyway, here’s the breakdown so far:

Rifles by model and order of appearance, percentage of rifles on the list.

MkII** -36. 11132 is last one. 1749 is first 22.4%
1905-R -21. 2605 is first, 1020? last 13%
SDS -16. 3336 is first, 7171 last 9.9%
1905-E -8. 3637 is first, 7011 last 5.0%
1905-M -1. 8237 0.6%
M-10 -44. 7453 first, 17834 last 27.3%
E-10 -4. 10905 first, 16818 last 2.5%
R-10 -19 11047 first, 17864 last 11.8%
Commercial Cadet, -9. 11659 first, 17266 last 5.6%
MkIII HG -3. First 12615, last 14253 1.9%


From this we could speculate roughly when a given model showed up or went away. We can see that the release of the R-10 was delayed until the 05-R production had used up remaining 3tpi 1905 actions. 1905-E and MkII** Civilian production coincided with each other, but the E was a much lower demand unit. The M-10 was by far the best selling sporter Ross manufactured.
Also, the 1905-M is a very rare bird, in any of its 3 versions.

Love to hear feedback from any of you other Ross nuts as to your thoughts, interpretations or any other feedback on this.

If I was more computer savvy it would be worth my time to re scour the internet and put a pick or two of each rifle with its detailed feature description that is recorded with the numbers. That would be the ultimate way to record this for future research.

[Sapper740]

I have one of the Home Guard Ross rifles in my collection which is in excellent condition, even better condition than the other HG Ross rifles I've seen. Mine is unpinned and has the tight unaltered chamber, it would be interesting to see how many of the Home Guard Ross were left unaltered. The serial number on my Ross is HG 14259 so flying pig can extend the serial number range of the HG ross rifles and the buttstock is stamped ECHG 185 which I believe stands for Essex County Home Guard which is across the river from Detroit. Coincidentally, the person I bought the rifle from lives near Detroit. Makes one wonder if my Ross was issued in response to the German-American's attempt to blow up the Windsor Armoury during WWI.

[flying pig]

Thanks a Ton, Sapper740, yours is now on the list. It seems there were two blocks of HG MkIII rifles.

The HG rifles are gorgeous. Mine is a bit rougher than most, it has seen a bit of hard use at some point. But the bore is perfect and it’s a tac driver on par with even the MkII**s in my collection.

As time permits, I’ll go back and ad as many other HG rifles to the list as I can. There are also quite a few HG marked factory sporters around. There’s been a few R-10s, and one M-10 in my possession is marked HG as well.

Edit: Decided to tackle this for a bit this morning.

Found seven more including a sister to mine, B of M 4, and a sister to yours, Sapper. ECHG 121.

All these new rifles fall between serials 12153 and 12628.

14253 and 14259 are the ones I have in the second block so far.

[Sapper740]

Quite coincidentally a flyer from Poulin Auctions arrived in the mail today and there are two Commercial Ross M1910 rifles in .280 Ross, serial numbers 9817 and 16377.

2 DAY ONLINE FIREARMS AUCTION, MAR 31 & APR 1, 2025 - Page 1 of 25 - Poulin Auctions

[Surpmil]

The HG rifles retained the earlier small sight aperture and as mentioned had a commercial level of finish. Mind you, I suspect all the prewar and early war production had very much the same level of finish; it's just that hardly any survive in close to original condition, but I've owned a 1916 Mk.III that at least in terms of the metal was as well finished as the HG's I've seen.

[Sapper740]

Does anyone know when the Home Guard Ross MkIII rifles were built? From the Ross Rifle Story I've gleaned that the first deliveries of Canadian issue MkIII Ross rifles began in April of 1914 and ended in March of 1917. Am I correct in assuming the HG Ross rifles were manufactured between those dates?

There are two apocryphal stories regarding the HG Rosses that I've heard:

1) The cost of manufacturing the 1000 or so Home Guard Ross rifles was paid by the citizens of Nova Scotia. It wasn't unusual for private or public groups to finance materiel for the war effort through patriotic drives and funds. I don't know if this is true or not of the Home Guard Ross rifles but that story has been told to me by others.
2) The forming of the Essex County Home Guard was in reaction to the failed terror attack on the Windsor Armoury of June 21, 1915 by Charles Respa and Albert Kaltschmidt, both German-Americans. The ECHG was issued HG Ross rifles which they used to protect the railway and vehicle bridges crossing the Detroit River.

[flying pig]

I have one of the Home Guard Ross rifles in my collection which is in excellent condition, even better condition than the other HG Ross rifles I've seen. Mine is unpinned and has the tight unaltered chamber, it would be interesting to see how many of the Home Guard Ross were left unaltered. The serial number on my Ross is HG 14259 so flying pig can extend the serial number range of the HG ross rifles and the buttstock is stamped ECHG 185 which I believe stands for Essex County Home Guard which is across the river from Detroit. Coincidentally, the person I bought the rifle from lives near Detroit. Makes one wonder if my Ross was issued in response to the German-American's attempt to blow up the Windsor Armoury during WWI.

Sapper, yours appears to be the only HG rifle known in that 14,000 block.

[Sapper740]

According to the The Ross Rifle Story the Home Guard Ross's serial numbers fell into 1 of 2 clusters: 12125 - 12611 and then 13863 - 17977. By the end of 1914 15,850 MkIII rifles had been delivered and one month later, January 1915 over 19,000 MkIII's had been delivered in total. If the Home Guard MkIII's were taken out of serial production then they would have been manufactured between November 1914 and January 1915. The one's I've seen appear to be early production so this jibes with that time frame. Of course, I'm making some assumptions here but I'm lacking any hard evidence. It was reported in The Ross Rifle Story that the sole known dated Home Guard Ross MkIII was stamped 1915 so that fits.