Description
Recently imported from the US in our latest shipment & offered for sale to the serious collector is this a highly desirable WW1 straight pull .303 Canadian Ross rifle MkII, rarely seen in Australia.
Shortly after the Boer War, Canada requested the license to build the Enfield SMLE but Britain refused. This infuriated the Canadians & particularly Sir Charles Ross who as a younger man served in the Second Anglo-Boer War & was now an advisor on small arms to the Canadian Government. Ross had influence & took it upon himself to design, manufacture & supply the Army with an indigenous Canadian built rifle.
This became the famous Ross rifle which, despite initial criticisms which required a lot of rectification before it could be issued went onto to arm the Canadians & become the only Allied straight pull main battle rifle in service during WW1. Issues identified were rectified in the MkII which equipped the CEF & which this rifle is an example of.
The revised & improved Ross rifle MkII was the standard infantry weapon of the First Canadian Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) when it first arrived in France in February 1915. Despite the British now wanting to standardise infantry small arms, the CEF was equipped with these until they proved unsuitable for trench warfare & was replaced with the Enfield SMLE in around 1916. The stated reasons for the rejection of the Ross as a service rifle in the battlefields of France was literally because it was built to extremely tight tolerances & unless perfectly clean ammunition was used in a clean rifle, it would jam. Despite tight tolerances being desirable in a civilian hunting rifle, this is not good for frontline soldiers in a world of mud. Understandably, this made them unpopular with the Canadian soldier because unless kept free from any nastiness (let’s face it, there was a lot of nastiness in the trenches of the Western Front) it tended to jam at ‘inappropriate times’.
The Ross showed itself to be an extremely accurate target rifle before the Great War & continued to be used by many snipers of the CEF until the end of the war due to its exceptional accuracy & was sought after as a sniper platform by Allied snipers even after it was withdrawn from normal front-line use in Europe.
Stories about the bolt flying back are not because of a design fault making them dangerous, but because the design allowed for the bolt to be put back together incorrectly after being removed for disassembly & cleaning, resulting the potential for injury.
Interestingly, the LC marking on the top of the receiver indicates it was one of around 4,000 rifles which were used by the 31st CEF Battalion for training purposes in England which while in England had the chambers enlarged at the Canadian ordnance depot at Ashford, Kent in an effort to make the British .303 ammunition work better. These have the marking “LC” on the chamber as this one does.
These rifles are highly valued by knowledgeable collectors & are a sought after rifle in its own right, especially here in the land of Oz.
Please do your own research & make your decision based on what you see, so please view the photos carefully as they form the main description & override all written information so ask for more if desired.
Whilst we check these out for serviceability, the warranty has expired & these are sold on an as is basis.
As with all used guns, we recommend you have this checked by a suitably qualified person prior to shooting.
Call for shipping cost to your dealer.
