Assistance Confirming Suspected 1905M Factory Sporter Requested

[Ax.303]

If the 1905 were mine, I`d leave it as is, other than repairing the rear sight etc.. Looking closer at it, there are some of 1905-R features, and the front sight would also be correct for a 1905-R.

I did not make out the Circle P until you mentioned it. This is normal stamp on a 1905-R, but that one looks like it might be humped.

Are there any numbers under the buttplate? It is also worth checking under the buttplate on the R-10 (numbers are usually quite small, last two serial numbers, stamped in the steel)

I also wonder about the lack of serial numbers on Ross factory sporters with all the other factory markings.

I do know there are others out there. I have seen two M-10 .280s, Two Civilian MkII**s and at least five 1905-Rs.

One of the M-10s was featured in an article in Man at Arms magazine if anyone cares to look.

[flying pig]

I cannot remember if they were numbered under the plate, for some reason I don’t believe they were. When I’m back in the mountains I’ll check again.

[Surpmil]

If the 1905 were mine, I`d leave it as is, other than repairing the rear sight etc.. Looking closer at it, there are some of 1905-R features, and the front sight would also be correct for a 1905-R.

I did not make out the Circle P until you mentioned it. This is normal stamp on a 1905-R, but that one looks like it might be humped.

Are there any numbers under the buttplate? It is also worth checking under the buttplate on the R-10 (numbers are usually quite small, last two serial numbers, stamped in the steel)

I also wonder about the lack of serial numbers on Ross factory sporters with all the other factory markings.

I do know there are others out there. I have seen two M-10 .280s, Two Civilian MkII**s and at least five 1905-Rs.

One of the M-10s was featured in an article in Man at Arms magazine if anyone cares to look.

Opinions vary as to why some Rosses lack serials, but I suspect there was even more theft from that factory than is usual.

[flying pig]

Opinions vary as to why some Rosses lack serials, but I suspect there was even more theft from that factory than is usual.

Bunch of employees becoming jobless wouldn’t encourage lunchbox specials, would it? That would explain unusual, ‘unapproved’ configurations as well. They’ve been building them for years, so why not build what they wanted on the way out the door? Just a hunch.

[Ax.303]

Bunch of employees becoming jobless wouldn’t encourage lunchbox specials, would it? That would explain unusual, ‘unapproved’ configurations as well. They’ve been building them for years, so why not build what they wanted on the way out the door? Just a hunch.

There probably was a few go out the back door towards the end.

Thing is, I was able to check under the buttplates of all I mentioned, except the two M-10 .280s

They all had proper serial numbers stamped in both the steel and the wood. This indicates to me that they went out the front door. Most likely with serial numbers on their barrels originally.

I`d be inclined to think that most of the odd configurations, were more likely rifles put together as prototypes or to float ideas.

[flying pig]

There probably was a few go out the back door towards the end.

Thing is, I was able to check under the buttplates of all I mentioned, except the two M-10 .280s

They all had proper serial numbers stamped in both the steel and the wood. This indicates to me that they went out the front door. Most likely with serial numbers on their barrels originally.

I`d be inclined to think that most of the odd configurations, were more likely rifles put together as prototypes or to float ideas.

I’ll have a look under those plates here in the next couple days. I’m pretty sure both rifles were bare under them though. I’ve been wrong before, a few times in this thread already in fact. Ha ha.

[Ax.303]

Brandon, if you have time, check in the barrel channel of the R-10. Last two #s of the serial # are usually stamped in the wood.

[Surpmil]

Bunch of employees becoming jobless wouldn’t encourage lunchbox specials, would it? That would explain unusual, ‘unapproved’ configurations as well. They’ve been building them for years, so why not build what they wanted on the way out the door? Just a hunch.

I'm sure all those things happened at times, and Ross made to order to some extent, at least for some customers such as Major Blair.

I looked through sources online in the past but found no mentions of big layoffs at Ross until the very end. This was a period when Quebec was arguably still the financial center of the country with lots of industry. Incidentally, hundreds of thousands of Quebec francophones migrated to the USA around this time, mostly to New England states and mostly to work in manufacturing, where they cheerfully and completely assimilated in strange contrast to the Canadian case. The point being that we have no reason to think Ross was a harsh employer or that those who didn't like his employ couldn't easily find work somewhere else.

I don't know if Ross sold through any of the large retailers like Eatons, but he may have had reasons for not wanting to reveal his production and sales volumes through serial numbers at times. Or it could have been a way of subtly recording which rifles he had or had not sold directly from the factory. It might even be that he had a different policy on returns or repairs for rifles sold by a major retailer: they might have been expected to handle that sort of thing, perhaps from their own pockets, whereas direct purchasers were treated differently?? Or more likely, a way to concealing from government eyes how much factory time he was devoting to sporting rifle production rather than his government contracts?

That's all hypothesis and other hypotheses are that rifles that were rebarrelled sometimes did not have their serial numbers added to the new barrels. I'd suspect such rebarreling was done after the factory closure by those smiths who bought up the parts that were left over. Reportedly that continued for a good twenty years or so.

I spoke a credible seeming fellow long ago who lived in Quebec City in the 1960s and early 70s and said at some gun shows there which he attended as a seller he was told by other sellers to watch out for an elderly gent who came to the shows who had a large stock of Ross parts, and to always be very polite to him as "if he liked you" he would sometimes offer to restore a seller's rifle(s) from his stock of new parts for little if any cost.

[flying pig]

Very thoughtful insight into the last days at RRCo Surpmil, much appreciated!

I’m at home for a minute now, so dug out the pair of R’s and had another look. I must not have originally pulled the plate off of the 1905. The serial number is there in plain sight on the butt and plate. The last two digits are on the rear sight blade as found on my other sporting rifles. There’s no sign of the last two of the serial inside the inletting anywhere. Also, the front sight on this rifle does not appear to be set back, as the sight base band would have had to been bored to accept the taper farther back on the barrel or the barrel would have had to been stepped down. I’d say the barrel length checks out as unmodified. This one had to have been special ordered like this maybe.

The 1910: it has B over 8329 lightly struck on the left side of the receiver under the dominion proof. It’s very faint and I never noticed it before. The bluing on the barrel doesn’t match the receiver ring. The ring is nearly in the white, barrel is 80% or so.

Inside the buttplate there is no serial number on either plate or butt. It is marked A Littlejohn, Quebec 1921. So there’s something to research. A few months ago I researched an R-10 back to a man from Vancouver who passed away in the 1980s this way.

Inside the inletting there is a big fat E under the chamber. No signs of inletting for an express sight. It had to have been an R that was shot out and re barrelled, but left the factory with a special order E stock.

[Ax.303]

Brandon, sounds like you are making good headway on what you have with the R-10.

The barrel on the the 1905 however, does not strike me as being a factory original R barrel. It is most likely a military barrel repurposed to this rifle.

It does not have The R and the .303 Ross markings found on all factory R rifles.

Honing out the front sight is a fairly strait forward task, as is the well done muzzle work. It was done to nearly every sporterized MK III Ross that came out of England after WW II.

If you ever remove the rear sight, it would not surprise me if there was evidence of another sight there.