Where are all the ross rifles?

[Frederick303]

In all, approximately 420,000 Ross service rifles were produced, 342,040 of which were purchased by the British, or so say standard sources.

the figure342,040 Ross rifles is quoted as being purchasd by the British, which may be in error. Here is the actual known breakdown.

- Ross Mk111B rifles orderd by British Government, 100,000. Actually delivered; 66,591.
- Taken over from the Canadian Government in exchange for SMLE's 95,674.
- Purchased by the Admiralty, from the USA in 1915 - model not known for sure- 750.
- Purchased from Canada by Britain in 1940 for British Home Guard use, 75,000.

The total is therefore ( if we included the 95,674 exchanged Ross rifles), 238,015.

The above is taken from various posts on the Ross rifle. The question is, where are all of the rifles?

So gents, I ask this question as I cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for where all the Ross rifles are. Here in the US they are very uncommon. I have never seen a MK I rifle, MK II*** are the most common, if for no other reason that 20,000 were bought in 1917 for training and then sold after WWI by the DCM. There were a number of sported MK II rifles imported into the US of A in the mid 1950s which seem to have come from Canada or the UK, these seem to show up at shows on a semi-regular basis with relatively low prices. But non US marked MK II rifles and MK III rifles in issue military condition seem to be really, really rare, at least in the states.

Now when I look to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, New Zealand and they still seem to be rare. Overall I would rate them as about as common as the SMLE MK V. With ~420,000 Ross rifle made, 240,000 to 342,000 sold to England and 20,000 SMLE MK V rifles made, that seems kind of odd that they should be so rare.

In trying to track down the figures, here are some facts I found in research of rifles that were lost:

British WWI Ross rifles supplied to Armenia ~25,000, all lost to USSR
British Post WWI rifles supplied to Baltic countries ~20,000, all lost to USSR
Brits post WWI supplied 200,000 rifles to Deinken in the Ukraine (white Russian), of which some were Ross rifles, some were P14 rifle (most I think) and a few were SMLE rifles. Number of Ross rifles unknown, but likely less then half as P14 rifles were said to make up at least half of the rifles supplied.
I found one sales record indicating in 1919 a surplus firm bought 35,000 of them in London for export. Where they went I have no record of .

Canadian milita reports from 1920-1921 show Canada had 90,000 Ross rifles left. That tends to back up the assertion that ~332,000 (342,000?) were exported to the UK/western front.

The total of lost rifles do not account for the large supposed production of Ross rifles prior to 1917. The only implication that makes sense is the Brits sold/destroyed almost all of the rifles they did not supply to the USSR. So virtually none of the ~330/342,000 sent overseas survived, though I have seen one MKIII B rifle, so some survived.

Of the Canadian 90,000 Ross rifles stored in 1921, 75,000 were sent to the UK during WWII. As they saw HG use only, what happened to them post WWII?

Anyone care to clarify that for a Yank?


The more detail the better.

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