Ross (M-10) Military Mark III factory sporterized rifles?

[buffdog]

I visited SMELLIE today, and brought along a Ross Military Mark III (M-10) rifle that I had picked up at the Winnipeg Military Collectors Show on Sunday September 12th. He looked at it, and said that he had a similar rifle, so we compared the two.

Barrels 25 inches long, stocks cut and sanded, Cooey manufacture rear sight, but the interesting thing was that there were two socket head screws on the barrel for attaching an open rear sight to the rifle. Except for a sight hood missing, and sling attachments, both rifles were identical.

Both had British commercial proof marks on them along with the usual DCP proof, and the "Not English Made" stamp on the barrel. However, my rifle had "CRB XXXX" serial number on the barrel (attributed to the Canadian Ranger Battalion) while his had a "PLY XXXX" number of the British Royal Marines.

This is an intriguing mystery, and to satisfy our curiosity and possible theorys about these rifles, we are posting a couple of pictures. If you have a similar Ross Rifle with the two screws in the barrel, we are asking that you reply with a post, or a PM to me. The more specemins we find, the better we can get some correct information on these rifles.

Due to the striking similarity, I think it is quite obvious that these two rifles were a factory conversion of a Military rifle to a Sporting one. But, whose factory, when, and how many are questions that remain to be answered.

Thanks for any co-operation.
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Information

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[Surpmil]

Century Arms and similar outfits did a lot of sporterizing like this in the 50s and 60s I understand.

Are the barrels still full length as your comment about the sight hood suggests?

[smellie]

Barrels have been shortened to 25 inches and recrowned professionally. This looks definitely like a genuine factory conversion although, as Buffdog says, we don't know whose factory, or when, or how many, or a whole bunch of other things.

We have established that the PLY Rosses were used by the Royal Marines Light Infantry out of Plymouth, England, in World War One. There were also Royal Marines depots at Chatham, Portsmouth and Deal, but we can find no rifles marked by them. Going by the known practice of the period, these should likely have been marked CH, PO and DEAL respectively. We have none marked thus, but we DO have unknown-provenance rifles marked CRB and PH....... and even a single specimen of a PLY-marked rifle with a PH bolt and a rear sight of type known to have been used by the Rangers.

Canadian practice at that time was to mark the rifles on the wood; the British marked them on the metal. This causes ME to think that the CLB markings MIGHT be British; the stamps are very similar to the PLY stamps. The rest of the world is quite certain, though, that the CRB rifles are from the Canadian Rangers. Some folk insist that this includes the PLY rifles, which we now can establish are from British service in the Great War.

NOW we have encountered sportered rifles, but with a new feature, and this on PLY and CRB rifles both.

And NOW rifles are turning up with PLY and CRB marked parts on the SAME RIFLE.

What we are trying to sort out has about as many twists and turns as a rattlesnake's intestines, but we are trying to make sense of it. In the end, we will succeed only with your help.

Thanks.

[tiriaq]

That these rifles are machine crowned, and that the diameter of the barrel was lathe turned to allow the issue front sight to be remounted suggests that the conversions were done in a serious shop. Drilling and tapping the rear sight holes in a consistant manner would require jigs and a setup for repetitive operations. The sling eyes, intended for use with hook type sling loops are like those found on Lee Enfields and P14/M1917 rifles sported in the UK.
I have seen sported Mk. IIIs just like the ones pictured without the markings being discusssed. I am quite sure that the conversions were done by one of the larger firms in England in the '50s, using a batch of rifles that were sold off as surplus in the UK. Some of the rifles have these receiver marks, some don't. The marked rifles were just part of a large batch. Mixed markings likely happened when the rifles were being sported.

[smellie]

This has me wondering if PH might not be "PortsmoutH"... and CRB might mean something such as "Catham Reserve Brigade".

We know that the PLY rifles are PLYmouth and served with the RMLI. We HAVE photos of Ross Rifles being used at the time of the scuttling of the High Seas Fleet. That was in May of 1919: two years AFTER the Ross supposedly disappeared from Naval and Marines service.

There have been too many paper cremations, much too much lost over the years.

I knew a man who saw the sinking of that fleet with his own eyes. He told me what it was like to watch as an entire enemy fleet destroyed itself, battle flags flying at mastheads, because the men refused to surrender their ships, even in the heart of the victor's stronghold. His family thought he was mad; they had him put away. If somebody had bothered to TALK with these old men, we would know so much more about what really went on.The Official Version is ALWAYS flawed. Men who were at Second Ypres told me a few things which were never written down. And Jimmie McKay from the Isle of Skye told me how to spot U-boats from a balloon basket 1800 feet up in the air, with your 278-foot destroyer rolling like a drunken pig down on the surface.... but he didn't know about the Ross Rifles, else I would have remembered it. But that entire generation is gone now, nobody talked with them, the paperwork was burnt and we are trying to reconstruct what happened from the wreckage.

TIRIAQ, thank you for the heads-up regarding the sportering conversions. Yes, it makes a lot of sense AND it puts these rifles together. We know now that the RN had about 27,000 Ross Rifles in store MUCH later than generally accepted. Perhaps these are some of them.

BTW, muzzle on my rifle (of the 2 shown in Buffdog's photos) is much heavier than the barrel on his. They MUST have had complete rebuilds at sporterisation. Tiriaq, thanks again.
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