When soldiers in the throes of battle discard their rifles and pluck a different weapon from the hands of dead allies, there's clearly a serious problem.
So it was with the Ross rifle, the weapon that Canadian soldiers took with them to the start of the First World War a century ago.
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Mine are not the best, but they are not too bad. I can think of lots of Enfields I'd rather have but instead of constantly striving for more, sometimes it's good to be satisfied with what one has...
There was a serious problem: rubbish ammo from incompetent manufacturers. Compounding the problem was the fact that the high grade Canadian ammo was kept in England by ... ?
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
It was posted by SRV1 on another board on which I posted the same information
Mine are not the best, but they are not too bad. I can think of lots of Enfields I'd rather have but instead of constantly striving for more, sometimes it's good to be satisfied with what one has...
There was a serious problem: rubbish ammo from incompetent manufacturers. Compounding the problem was the fact that the high grade Canadian ammo was kept in England by ... ?
I would re-state this as- there was a serious problem: during desperate war-time conditions, Canada chose to field a rifle that required "high grade ammunition". I get a kick out of this constantly re-surfacing mythology of the great Ross rifle. I own a MkIII in excellent mechanical condition and can't see much great about it. Like my Mannlicher M95 it lacks positive extraction power and to be able to assemble the bolt in two modes (one safe and one definitely not) is poor engineering.
This was where we were on another thread...if straight pull was so great, why didn't everyone go to it instead of them drifting into obsolescence? I too have had them and they were OK to shoot for a while and then I sold them and moved on.
This was where we were on another thread...if straight pull was so great, why didn't everyone go to it instead of them drifting into obsolescence? I too have had them and they were OK to shoot for a while and then I sold them and moved on.
Have you ever shot any of the Swiss straight pulls?
There was a serious problem: rubbish ammo from incompetent manufacturers. Compounding the problem was the fact that the high grade Canadian ammo was kept in England by ... ?
Um, no. Everything I have read says it was tight clearances of the Ross mechanism not bad ammo. The ross complex mechanism simply didnt stand up to the mud and dust in the trenches of WW1. Even if that was the case that the ammo was bad (and yes Im sure it wasnt as good as pre and post war) the Enfield's had no problem and hence were suited to being a battle rifle.
Now if you can provide some real evidence that the Ross rifle suffered directly from poorly made ammo, I'd love to review it. What I have read is snipers kept to batches of ammo and had to re-zero when they got a new batch but that is an accuracy thing and not functional. In any case the rifle had to meet the conditions that there were, having a prima donna rifle you cant shoot as you have no ammo is a quick way to end up dead IMHO, kind of like the early M16 A1s in Nam never needing cleaning.
---------- Post added at 12:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 PM ----------
Originally Posted by Seamie
Have you ever shot any of the Swiss straight pulls?
No not shot, but I have handled empty ones (and Ross's) as I consdered buy good examples. They may well have been a straight pulls but frankly they didnt impress me over a No4 in terms of ease and speed of use. and then there was the complexity and keeping it clean so it worked.
soldiers took with them to the start of the First World War a century ago.
PM
Originally Posted by Surpmil
