Where are all the ross rifles?

[Surpmil]

Smellie, what's your source for Ross shipments to Russia during WWII?

[Promo]

The Ross Rifles to Lithuania/Latvia were "presents" from the British Government. They also gave them ammunition:

[bogtrotter2]

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.

[DPyper]

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

[Mag Fed]

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.

[Amatikulu]

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

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

[dalbert]

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

[sledge]

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.

[Surpmil]

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

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

Interesting article

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.

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

[mworkmansr]

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.