Shooting the .303 Ross - ammunition advice?

[Surpmil]

Hesketh-Prichard, letter to his wife, March 16th, 1917:

"Today with a Ross rifle I did rather a feat of touching three bullets at 100 yards. It is luck of course, as no one can hold as close."

I suspect luck had very little to do with it.

[smellie]

Thank you, Surpmil, for that.

I am tired enough of being called a liar when I talk about the performance of a good Ross Rifle that I keep a box loaded. Anyone calls me a liar, I just invite them to the range. It is surprising how many back off when confronted with the possibility that they could be wrong... and the dangerous old POS rifle just MIGHT shoot better with century-old iron sights than their spiffy new Remchester does with its 24x scope.

One thing. Army doctrine called for aiming with the whole width of the blade of the front sight. That's fine and well for big targets. But the CORNER of the front-sight blade is a lot smaller.... and the Ross has an adjustable rear sight. So what you can do is put the rear-sight aperture OUT about 2 minutes and aim with the upper-right-hand corner of the front-sight blade. This will REALLY tighten things up, especially if your eyes are getting a bit old (as mine).

BTW, same technique works on a Garand, which has pretty decent sights for a battle rifle.

For tightest groups possible, try this technique while aiming at the bottom-left-hand corner of a 4-inch BLACK aiming-square at 100, or a 6- to 8-inch square at 200. Nice, big, easy to see target... nice, big, easy to see sight blade.... teeny, tiny, itty-bitty little groups if the rifle, ammo and shooter all are working together properly.

Carry along a Bic lighter; smoked sights shoot best.

Give it a try. Seriously. Works.

[Surpmil]

Reading your posts Smellie, here and elsewhere is a real pleasure and unfailingly informative. You may think you have no more knowledge than many of your contemporaries, but many of them are gone I suspect, and most others don't use computers/the Internet, or can't be bothered to write this stuff down.

Pray continue, and in as much detail as you can! Have you considered putting your various posts together and fleshing them out in the form of an 'e-book' on shooting the Ross and Enfield, for example?

[RobSmith]

One would suppose that it would simply be good practice to bring any "new to you" firearms that old to a gunsmith for a once-over.

[smellie]

That depends on a lot of factors, one being the relative states of knowledge of the gunsmith and yourself.

I am not a gunsmith myself and would never claim to be such. But there are a couple who come to me to identify strange stuff for them, also tell them the various idiosyncrasies of what they are working with.

There are a lot of gunsmiths out there who "know all about" those dangerous old Rosses and even a few who will volunteer to DEWAT it or destroy it for you. My CAT knew more about Ross Rifles than some of those guys. (But then, he WAS a very smart cat!)

There are people on this forum who are far more qualified in certain areas than 90% of gunsmiths. I think it makes sense to have a thing checked out by someone QUALIFIED to check it out.

Let's look at a 'f'rinstance' in this regard. Can you show me a gunsmith in Canada OR the USA who is 'QUALIFIED' to inspect and check out an Armaguerra Model 39? (This was the STANDARD semi-auto rifle of the Italian Army in World War Two.) I have never met one. How about qualified to check out a Ross? A FEW are qualified but, when it comes to Rosses, I find myself checking them for the GUNSMITHS more often than not.

Learn basic firearms technology and design, educate yourself on whatever your own particular bee-in-the-bonnet might be and then, when you feel yourself competent, likely you're halfway there. But the field is so huge that no-one can know it all. So you come to forums such as this one... and find the knowledge that you need.

There are some VERY good people here.... and a few are better than ANY gunsmith.

"Seek and ye shall find; ask and thou shalt receive."

[enbloc8]

Hesketh-Prichard, letter to his wife, March 16th, 1917:

"Today with a Ross rifle I did rather a feat of touching three bullets at 100 yards. It is luck of course, as no one can hold as close."

I suspect luck had very little to do with it.

So far I've only had one opportunity to shoot my Ross Mk. III, but I remember three things about it. It was FUN, it was FAST, and it was ACCURATE!!!

If I could find a steady source of cheap, reliable .303 that rifle would be almost a constant companion at the range....

[buffdog]

I have several Ross rifles. The .280 shoots great with reloads and can be downloaded a bit. My question is about the .303 military version, where I have shot reloads and factory Greek. But given the scarcity of milsurp ammo, I want to reload. My rifle has a large chamber. The cases come out with necks 10 thou or so too large to even enter a resizing die. How have people dealt with this problem? Have you gotten RCBS to make special dies? Does it take two resizing passes to get the necks down to .311? Other solutions or suggestions.
Thanks, Jay in CA

You might try a set of the Lee Collet Dies. These work quite well in a Ross, and even the SMLE if you use the same brass that was originally fired in that rifle. Mix it up, and you have trouble. These Collet Dies neck size only by squeezing the neck of the case inward to contact a mandrel in the center of the die. This resizing die, plus the "dead length" seating die results in some very accurate ammunition.
.

[smellie]

Thanks for that one, Buffdog. I have been thinking along similar lines, but you know how incredibly cheap I am.

What I have been doing is chamfering the OUTSIDES of case-mouths which are expanded too big; gives them a better shape so they can "ride" the shoulder cavity of the sizing die into the neck-sizing portion. Cheap.

But that's me, all over.

Have fun!

[Brian Dick]

I can honestly say that the Mk.II and Mk.III Ross rifles I've fired over the years are some of the most accurate military service rifles I've ever fired. I still have a few stashed away but I've bought and sold many over the years and they never gave me a problem using quality ammo and common sense of course!

[smellie]

enbloc8, check out Post 10, this thread.

If you are in the USA, you can order your supplies from Graf's for about half of what we pay for them up here in The Great White North.

Handloading is the only way you will EVER find ammunition which is consistent ENOUGH for a Ross Rifle! Serious.