Thread: 96 Years of Progress

Greetings



On the left is the 280 Ross from 1906, likely the father of all 7mm mag cartridges. On the right and offering a little more velocity in a much smaller case is the 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Mag from 96 years later.
GPM.

Interesting cartridge and rifle design. Shame the rifle had such a shit reputation in service.

Not a lot between a .280 and the (older) 7x57 performance-wise, no? I get that the 280 is shaped as such to make it feed in a Ross rifle of course

Originally Posted by woods223

Interesting cartridge and rifle design. Shame the rifle had such a shit reputation in service.

It was quite popular as a hunting cartridge and very popular as a long range target cartridge even in the Ross rifles. Being a good Army rifle is a different thing altogether, especially in the mud of WW1. The Ross rifle faults may also have been exaggerated for political reasons. The early Springfield's had problems as well resulting in injuries and I think some deaths but you don't hear that bagged. Hatcher details a lot of this in his book which is well worth a read.
GPM.

Originally Posted by Tommy

Not a lot between a .280 and the (older) 7x57 performance-wise, no? I get that the 280 is shaped as such to make it feed in a Ross rifle of course

Greetings,
At the time the .280 left the 7x57 for dead in terms of range, with a blunt 173 grain projectile at about 2,200 fps v a 160 grain at 2,600 for the Ross. The high velocity 7x57 rounds came later.

The Ross's fault was that it was a royal bastard to clean the bolt out and get it reassembled correctly. Reassembling it incorrectly meant the firer could end up wearing part of the bolt in their face. Trench warfare in mud like WW1 basically made the Ross design useless, for that reason as once the bolt got enough crap in it it didn't work and needed to be stripped to be cleaned out. Apart from that - the design was accurate and the cartridge was effective, it's just the combination was not suitable for the operating requirements that they ended up having to be used in. I do note that 'sharpshooter' type roles they did still use the Ross rifle until ammo supplies became problematic.

And I understand, that the British, who kind of forced Canada to build their own rifle in the first place, later decided that Canada needed to use the 303, and sabotaged their production of Ross ammo.

Greetings,
After the Boer War there was a movement to longer range rifle cartridges. The Ross was one and the 276 Enfield was another. This was due to the poor performance of the troops at longer ranges. With the brits they blamed the rifle rather than the training and so they came out with the .276 Enfield in the P13 rifle just before WW1 intervened which was fought at ranges in feet rather than yards. Back to the Lee Enfield. Training was also greatly improved. The principal problem with the Ross was poor extraction due to the straight pull action. By the end of WW1 machine guns had replaced rifles for long range work and they had been replaced by artillery. The days of the grunt soldier fighting at long range was over. Snipers were a different matter.
GPM.

Several very famous stalkers used them in the great golden trophy period (Including Newton McConnachie). The Ross rifle was highly regarded as a sporting rifle in New Zealand after WW1. The ballistics of the .280 Ross were much the same as the .270 Winchester. The hunting load most used was a 145 grain bullet at 3050fp.

Ross rifles were very successful at target competition of the period also, in the UK and Canada, using a 180 grain match bullet at 2800 fps.


(I did read a report from Townsend Whelen, who said that Canadian ammo was woefully inaccurate (six inch groups at 100 yards) simply because they had loaded them with the wrong sized bullet (.280 Ross caliber is not .284, but .288) But they must have soon figured that out if they were winning all the competitions including at Bisley etc.)

Originally Posted by No.3

The Ross's fault was that it was a royal bastard to clean the bolt out and get it reassembled correctly. Reassembling it incorrectly meant the firer could end up wearing part of the bolt in their face. Trench warfare in mud like WW1 basically made the Ross design useless, for that reason as once the bolt got enough crap in it it didn't work and needed to be stripped to be cleaned out. Apart from that - the design was accurate and the cartridge was effective, it's just the combination was not suitable for the operating requirements that they ended up having to be used in. I do note that 'sharpshooter' type roles they did still use the Ross rifle until ammo supplies became problematic.

I suppose Newton McConnachie knew how to put the bolt in properly. Not sure I entirely believe the internet lore about the bolt assembly issue. The internet claims that people were killed by assembling it wrong, but they never actually name any names or dates. It is very difficult to put the bolt together wrong. You know you're doing it wrong.

As Grandpamac says, I think the weak extraction was the reason the army didnt like it, and worse, it was expensive to make.

Originally Posted by John Duxbury

Several very famous stalkers used them in the great golden trophy period (Including Newton McConnachie). The Ross rifle was highly regarded as a sporting rifle in New Zealand after WW1.

Archie Kitto being one of the most noteable in that era.

Edit: I knew there was posting somewhere on this topic. Thanks to @FRST
https://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co....2/index20.html

And I believe after all the fuss about wayward bolts they did a mod with a rivet so you couldnt

On reading the title of this thread I assumed I'd be in for tales of GPM's childhood and shenanigans in later life. Alas, it is something more esoteric.

Originally Posted by woods223

Interesting cartridge and rifle design. Shame the rifle had such a shit reputation in service.

But a fantastic reputation for accuracy and a beautifully smooth straight pull action. The sight system is also very advanced. I’m going to take mine to the range this week.

I wonder if I'll ever get the old man's one.
We arent close so probably not