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  1. #11
    Advisory Panel Surpmil's Avatar
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    What is the source of your drawing? PM me if you prefer. As you can imagine, given the place and time, there is about zero chance that metric screws were used originally, unless perhaps in WWII, and even then I can't see any reason why unless nothing else was available and that seems highly unlikely. I have the diameter and pitch of thread, but it's not metric, though there may be a NEAR equivalent in metric.

    I haven't looked at the other listings, they don't interest me much, but if indeed this gent turned out to have an extensive collection of replicas or "fakes", then certainly that would be circumstantial evidence worth considering.

    How would one prove a rifle was a WWII fitting? Most obviously by the absence of what were standard markings in WWI, or other features unique to WWII such as the scope SN struck into the barrel or action. Not proof positive, but also worth considering carefully in the light of "forensics" and other examples.

    There is no reason to think the WWII era bases were any different from the WWI pattern, except those made to fit the P14, but that was probably just a case of adjusting the "feet" of each "leg" of the bases.

    Not an easy thing to fake in 1950s or 60s eithere - where do you even find one to copy?
    Last edited by Surpmil; 03-18-2021 at 12:10 AM. Reason: Clarity
    “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.”

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    A Collector's View - The SMLE Short Magazine Lee Enfield 1903-1989. It is 300 8.5x11 inch pages with 1,000+ photo’s, most in color, and each book is serial-numbered.  Covering the SMLE from 1903 to the end of production in India in 1989 it looks at how each model differs and manufacturer differences from a collecting point of view along with the major accessories that could be attached to the rifle. For the record this is not a moneymaker, I hope just to break even, eventually, at $80/book plus shipping.  In the USA shipping is $5.00 for media mail.  I will accept PayPal, Zelle, MO and good old checks (and cash if you want to stop by for a tour!).  CLICK BANNER to send me a PM for International pricing and shipping. Manufacturer of various vintage rifle scopes for the 1903 such as our M73G4 (reproduction of the Weaver 330C) and Malcolm 8X Gen II (Unertl reproduction). Several of our scopes are used in the CMP Vintage Sniper competition on top of 1903 rifles. Brian Dick ... BDL Ltd. - Specializing in British and Commonwealth weapons Specializing in premium ammunition and reloading components. Your source for the finest in High Power Competition Gear. Here at T-bones Shipwrighting we specialise in vintage service rifle: re-barrelling, bedding, repairs, modifications and accurizing. We also provide importation services for firearms, parts and weapons, for both private or commercial businesses.
     

  3. #12
    Contributing Member Promo's Avatar
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    Re the threading: you know my story on the former WWI 1910 sniper rifle that I got for restoration. It has had its original threaded holes still in the receiver. I did NOT knew the correct threading when I got it. I tried various Commonwealth threadings. None fitted. I pulled out this drawing, noticed the bottom line for the metric diameter and pitch, and thought I should try this. So made screws per these dimensions, tried ... they fitted! This was the proof the drawing is correct and the Ross M1910 Sniper Rifle with the W&S scopes have bracket screws in metric dimensions.
    Attached is the drawing that I got from a good friend in the UKicon who is also a member in here. I think he got most of them from the Pattern Room. Note I painted over all dimensions to avoid future "all correct" rifles. Let me know if this is the same one as you have.

    Secondly, how dare you to claim it has a good provenance if you don't even look at the other listings?! Just because the seller claims it comes from the collection of a soldier with a known name? Still this doesn't mean the guns this guy has are all original. As you maybe have recognized from the listings I posted links to in this case the provenance is one of the most concerning things!

    Finally, once again re the WWII set up Ross sniper rifles: you ASSUME how they would look like. We don't have any documentation on this, do we? Why wouldn't they try to set them up exactly in the same manner as in WWI? Why wouldn't they have available the same stamps used to stamp the receiver and the rail with the scope number? Even if I would not have exactly THESE stamps, were I the armorer, I would nevertheless try to stamp both the rail and the receiver (/gun) to match the scope, not only the receiver (/gun). Couldn't MY rifle with TWO scope numbers on it be one of those re-issued for WWII and no 1910 Ross set up for the first time to be equipped with a scope, but them rather mounting the spare scopes to rifles such as the P.14, as pictures proof? There were only 500 scopes, if already some are with WWI 1910 Ross rifles there are not too many left to be mounted on P.14 rifles. In my eyes it would make more sense to re-issue the leftover WWI sniper rifles with scopes, re-match them, and the remaining amount of scopes then to be mounted on P.14 rifles.

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  5. #13
    Advisory Panel Surpmil's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    Re the threading: you know my story on the former WWI 1910 sniper rifle that I got for restoration. It has had its original threaded holes still in the receiver. I did NOT knew the correct threading when I got it. I tried various Commonwealth threadings. None fitted. I pulled out this drawing, noticed the bottom line for the metric diameter and pitch, and thought I should try this. So made screws per these dimensions, tried ... they fitted! This was the proof the drawing is correct and the Ross M1910 Sniper Rifle with the W&S scopes have bracket screws in metric dimensions.
    Attached is the drawing that I got from a good friend in the UK who is also a member in here. I think he got most of them from the Pattern Room. Note I painted over all dimensions to avoid future "all correct" rifles. Let me know if this is the same one as you have.
    No, not the same drawing. That drawing was probably produced from the drawing made by Frank Dupuis in the 1960s, which is the one I have. A copy of that drawing was provided in the past to at least one person in the UK, possibly more than one. All dimensions including the screws are in Imperial measurements. There may well be a metric thread that fits closely, but that's coincidental.

    Regarding the barrelled receiver you restored, if the bullet hole was something that happened in WWI, then we have an interesting conundrum: 334 is too high a scope number to have been in Franceicon in WWI.

    So if the records of only 150 rifles & scopes sent to France are correct, then that bullet damage cannot have occurred in WWI, and must have been either in WWII or some other non-combat situation.

    Of course we have no record of Ross rifles being used in combat in WWII and it is highly unlikely that a battle damaged rifle would ever make it back to Canadaicon anyway; it would have been scrapped overseas, as so much more valuable, and perfectly serviceable equipment was, unless perhaps brought back as a curiosity.

    In any event, the two numbers on the receiver prove that when scopes were either changed or fitted to new rifles, the bases were removed. There would be no reason to remove the bases unless it was believed that they were each collimated to each scope, rather than the scope being collimated to rifle and base as a unit. That would be a belief very much at odds with standard practice, particularly since the M.1913 W&S has the unusual capacity for mechanical collimation built-in: the entire body of the scope can be moved, not only the reticule as in most scopes.

    Would the bases have been removed merely so as to stamp in a new scope serial number? That seems totally improbable, but if scopes and bases were considered a pair not to be separated, when a scope was replaced, apparently the base went with it.

    This may say something about the consistency of the dimensions of the Ross MkIII; it probably does.

    With all this swapping around of scopes and bases, as one or the other needed to be replaced perhaps soldering of the screws was not considered necessary in WWII fittings.

    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    Secondly, how dare you to claim it has a good provenance if you don't even look at the other listings?! Just because the seller claims it comes from the collection of a soldier with a known name? Still this doesn't mean the guns this guy has are all original. As you maybe have recognized from the listings I posted links to in this case the provenance is one of the most concerning things!
    How dare I!? Well, I dare. You see under English Common Law the fact that a fellow is found through no choice of his own to be in the company of some criminals does not make him a criminal himself! It makes it quite likely that he is less than entirely honest, but only under Lynch Law or perhaps some continental systems is "guilt by association" recognized. So, the presence of other fakes in the same collection does not automatically make this rifle a "fake", obviously. Though, as I said, it is certainly useful circumstantial evidence. Remember the saying, "buy the rifle not the story"? It means examine a piece for what it shows, not what some interested party says about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    Finally, once again re the WWII set up Ross sniper rifles: you ASSUME how they would look like. We don't have any documentation on this, do we?
    You have answered your own question in the next quote below.

    No, we have something perhaps as good as documentation, and sometimes even better: physical evidence. As mentioned previously, records don't always reflect what actually happened. Of course we have to evaluate that physical evidence on the basis of forensics and logical deduction.

    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    Why wouldn't they try to set them up exactly in the same manner as in WWI? Why wouldn't they have available the same stamps used to stamp the receiver and the rail with the scope number?
    As I've said before, I believe that is exactly what they did, no doubt using the original base drawings. There would be no logical reason to do anything else; many more important tasks had to be undertaken in 1938-41 than redesigning mounts for an utterly obsolete and inherently defective scope, intended only to be a stop-gap for training purposes. In the event of course, the No4(T)s didn't appear in numbers until late 1943 and early 1944.

    As for "stamps", as you know only the stocks were stamped in WWI, from the surviving examples, though it is possible that the SOP changed with later batches. (The problem there was the dribbles of scopes provided by Warner & Swasey.)

    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    Even if I would not have exactly THESE stamps, were I the armorer, I would nevertheless try to stamp both the rail and the receiver (/gun) to match the scope, not only the receiver (/gun). Couldn't MY rifle with TWO scope numbers on it be one of those re-issued for WWII and no 1910 Ross set up for the first time to be equipped with a scope, but them rather mounting the spare scopes to rifles such as the P.14, as pictures proof?
    Your restored receiver with scope numbers 138 (barred out) and 334 could be a WWI fitting, refitted in WWII, but it seems very unlikely, unless the 184 number was struck in when the base was first fitted. But if I'm not mistaken the original bases were soldered on as well as screwed, and I see no signs of solder on that receiver of yours.

    Quote Originally Posted by Promo View Post
    There were only 500 scopes, if already some are with WWI 1910 Ross rifles there are not too many left to be mounted on P.14 rifles. In my eyes it would make more sense to re-issue the leftover WWI sniper rifles with scopes, re-match them, and the remaining amount of scopes then to be mounted on P.14 rifles.
    That was no doubt the thinking when 80, and possibly a second batch of 80, were sent to the UK in 1939-40. We know SOME were fitted as we have the well-known photo taken in Italyicon. (I have a reliable report of one here in Canada in the 1960s also)

    So, we know there were 385 W&S sights in store in Canada between the wars; meaning that 115 had been lost, destroyed or scrapped. That would support the figure of 150 only being sent to France in WWI. A 77% loss rate over 2-4 years of active service - not surprising to anyone who has examined a W&S scope closely and can imagine using and maintaining one in trench warfare.

    (Incidentally, the W&S M.1913 seems to have been designed as an expensive, impracticable freak to fleece the US War Dept. and equip them with a Heath Robinson design that would be ineffective in combat. The scope was totally outside normal European scope design of the period, to say nothing of mechanical common sense, with which the staff at W&S can hardly have been unfamiliar, if only because so many were Germanicon immigrants to the USAicon)

    So 80 scopes were taken to the UK by the 1st Division in 1939 and reportedly fitted to P14s with bases newly made in the UK, and another 80 are known to have been requested in 1940, but their delivery is apparently unconfirmed in the existing records.

    Clive Law also reports that records show 267 W&S scopes and rifles were on issue in Canada in December 1943 for training purposes.

    That suggests that either some additional scopes, with or without rifles, were found in store, or perhaps collected from museums in Canada, or less than 160 were sent to the UK as 385 - 160 = 225 and not 267. 385 - 80 = 305 and 305 - 267 = 38, a quite likely number for training losses and scopes written off from all that wear and tear

    Thus for 267 to be on issue and serviceable in December 1943, after 3-4 years of use for training, I suggest that is almost certain that the second batch of 80 were never delivered to the UK.

    As for armourers and stamps, they would do whatever they were ordered to do. We know some armourers in the Britishicon Army (and perhaps others) retroactively applied TR and T stamps to early No4(T) rifles. I doubt they did so on their own initiative.

    The serial number fonts on your restored receiver are identical; that would tend to suggest a WWII date for both, but would not be 100% certain IMHO.

    PS: is that a cast base you used for the restoration?
    Last edited by Surpmil; 03-19-2021 at 02:08 AM. Reason: Clarity
    “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.”

    Edward Bernays, 1928

    Much changes, much remains the same.

  6. #14
    Contributing Member Promo's Avatar
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    Please then let me know which threading the drawing of yours mentions and I'll check my rifle whether this threading would fit original drilled holes or not. Easy to verify.

    I don't think original rails were soldered as well. They were not for the M1903 Springfield rifle, my drawings mention nothing of that and none of the pictures of original Ross Snipers I've seen seem to carry traces of solder anywhere.

    Quote Originally Posted by Surpmil View Post
    The serial number fonts on your restored receiver are identical; that would tend to suggest a WWII date for both, but would not be 100% certain IMHO.

    PS: is that a cast base you used for the restoration?
    The font on my receiver is identical to the font on the rifle of Doug. Rifle of Doug only has one very low number on it. Therefore the font of both scope numbers on my rifle is the same as the one used during WWI. If the second scope was fitted for WWII, then in WWII they used the same font stamps as for WWI.

    My base came from Roger Payneicon. I don't know how he had it produced. Maybe he'll give us a clue on this.

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