I've been collecting surplus military bolt guns for 15 years, the law of averages caught up with me. Gunsmith called me last night letting me know my rifle in for work had a catastrophic case failure. I supplied the ammo [303 British, 5 rounds of PPU, 5 rounds of HXP Greek surplus, both good ammo].
He loaded 5 rounds in the magazine, shots 1 & 2 were fine. #3 blew up the rifle, the stock is now kindling . No damage to the shooter, none to the barrel or the action. I'll give him credit, he's not charging me due to what happened.
If it was any of my other rifles, I would just find a replacement stock and carry on. This one hurts. It's a Canadian Ross Mk II 3*, sold to the US in 1917 for training. The ONLY rifle I'm aware of that has the SN on the wood. SHIT! Most have been sporterized, original stocks are scarce. A guy in Canada makes a nice stock, but it's unmarked, and $550 [I only paid $800 for the rifle]. I haven't seen it yet, I'll be picking it up next week. If the buttstock is intact, I would consider having a woodworker graft it to another stock to preserve the history.
I'm assuming it was an overcharged round. He's leaving the case in the chamber until I get it. Hoping it was the PPU, I'll file a claim with them. I'll post pictures of the carnage next week.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kz1000,

Sorry to see this

Glad your smith wasn't injured.

Wow, that really sucks. I'm sorry to hear about your rifle, but glad your gunsmith is ok. Hopefully you can work something out to at least partially salvage the original stock.

If it was the PPU, I'd be interested to hear which .303 load it was and the lot#....I've shot quite a bit of PPU .303 through a few different rifles, mostly the 180gr, and have never had a problem but would like to know if there's a ticking time bomb waiting in my ammo can. Pics of the rifle and case would be interesting, too, if you'd be willing to share them after you get it back.

Cripes!!! That sucks but, I’m glad he is ok. I know that there was some issues on the Ross where the wrong re-assembly of the bolt caused catastrophic failures but, I believe that was remediated w/ the earlier models.

Disregard. It seems to be an issue a/ the earlier models and it was an issue w/ the rifle being able to fire w/ a bolt assembled wrong and the bolt going back into the shooters face. Another kind of suck to be sure.. but, doesn’t sound like the case w/ your rifle. I hope you guys can figure out went went wrong.

92fstech, the box is long gone, I have no idea what lot # it was.

357fuzz, It was the later MK III that had the bolt issue. But the rifle couldn't handle the out of spec .303 the English supplied, resulting in stuck cases. It got to the point that Canadian soldiers had to stomp the bolt open [straight pull rifles have poor primary extraction]. The British Army eventually withdrew the Ross & gave the Canadians SMLE's [Before this, Ross's were ditched and they picked up SMLE's, even thought this was forbidden]. Some Ross's were kept as DM & sniper rifles, using better made Canadian ammo.

From what I have read, you have to kind of work at getting a Ross assembled so the bolt does not lock. It isn't a routine field strip Oops.

I recall Herbert W. McBride liking Winchester .303 for sniping.

Just curious but what was the work the gunsmith was originally suppose to perform?

quote:

Originally posted by darkest2000:
Just curious but what was the work the gunsmith was originally suppose to perform?

I was getting light primer strikes with both types of ammo. Tried to fix it myself, all the parts looked good. The bolt is just a real bear to take apart and put back together.

Any chance the headspace is off? That could lead to light primer strikes, and a possible kaboom.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Any chance the headspace is off? That could lead to light primer strikes, and a possible kaboom.

303 headspaces off the rim, and there is a bit of variation of rim thicknesses on the various manufactures of 303 ammo,


and some variation on what the stanaard is out there

I suspect that we may have a combination of causes here. First, it's a Ross and they had a rather poor reputation for Military use. Second suspect is that Greek ammo. I suspect if you dig into it you'll find that the Greeks didn't make the finest ammunition on the planet and a lot of it may have been assembled by hand.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
I suspect if you dig into it you'll find that the Greeks didn't make the finest ammunition on the planet and a lot of it may have been assembled by hand.

Your suspicions are dead wrong, Scooter. Quite the opposite. In actuality, HXP factory ammo from Greece is regarded as some of the highest quality surplus ammo out there, and is widely used by milsurp shooters and collectors in both .303 and .30-06.

I'll take HXP .303 over any other surplus .303 any day of the week.

HXP is good ammo. In any caliber. And the brass is very good for reloading.

+3 on HXP, got a pile of it in 303 and 30.06 and no issues,

there was some discussion on the 30.06 about some years being better than others, accuracy wise, and some faster, but not fast as in dangerous,


he may be thinking of Olympia branded ammo?

OH THE HUMANITY!

Stock is in much better shape than what I was initially told. Now to find a 'smith willing to take it on.