[ Ross A5 Sniper ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and we have a
fantastically cool rifle for you here today.
This is a Ross Mark III Canadian World War One service rifle
that was modified in the field
to add a Winchester A5 scope to outfit it as a sniping rifle.
Now, if you're familiar with Ross snipers, the one that you're probably most likely to have seen
is the two different production runs that were made with
Warner & Swasey Model 1913 American musket sights.
Arguably one of the worst telescopic sights in the war.
However, the Canadians also used Winchester A5s.
And it's interesting that a bunch of different countries actually did,
there were Lebels in World War One that were outfitted with A5s,
and of course American ... sniping rifles used Winchester A5s.
This was kind of one of the popular, world standard, go-to optics
for this sort of thing in World War One, or around that time period.
So, what we have here is not a factory creation, it is an armourer field creation.
There is at least one of these that's really well provenanced and in a Canadian museum.
This one also has good provenance to its origin.
So let me show you what they did, there's not a whole lot
that was changed to it, but it makes for a really nice sniping rifle.
So the Ross rifle in combat had its strengths and weaknesses.
And the weaknesses are pretty well documented and ... well in the public consciousness.
What people may not be quite so familiar with is the fact that
the Ross rifle's strengths really all suited it as a sniper's rifle.
You'll find this in a number of military memoirs.
Herbert McBride's book, "A Rifleman Went To War",
really lodged the Ross as an outstanding sniping rifle.
And these were kept in Canadian inventory after the war.
The Canadian infantry exchanged the Ross for the SMLE during World War One,
but they kept the Ross as a sniper rifle until after the war
because it was a particularly accurate gun.
It was originally designed as a sporting rifle.
The Ross really just cleaned house at long range competition in England before the war.
And all those things go together to a really good sniper.
Its weaknesses lay more in mud and dirty conditions and a lot of rapid fire.
The two things that a sniping rifle doesn't really have to deal with so much.
Anyway, on to this particular rifle.
The Canadians, along with kind of the colonial troops in general,
were known to play a little bit more fast and loose with the rules than the British troops,
and would happily put a variety of scopes onto rifles that they wanted to outfit in this way.
So it's of no surprise that the Winchester A5 would be a good candidate.
You can see here that a pair of mounting brackets have been added,
one to the top of the receiver, one right through the front handguard.
The rear sight has been removed, I don't know that it would necessarily
interfere with the scope there, but there's no reason to have it.
You are certainly not going to use it with these scope mounting brackets in the way.
The forestock has been cut down, that's going to make the rifle
presumably a little bit easier to camouflage, and maybe a little bit lighter.
And the front sight has been removed because
if you don't have the rear sight, you definitely don't need the front sight.
The mounting and zeroing of these scopes is really pretty interesting by today's standards
because it's all external to the scope.
So the scope is actually riding ... you can see I can move it up and down here,
it has a spring to push it back up into the same position all the time.
Your elevation travel is adjusted here.
And of course there's nothing below, it's just a screw that impinges on the scope tube.
The windage adjustment has a spring-loaded keeper on this side,
and an adjustment on this side.
So as you adjust the knobs, you are actually physically moving the scope,
you're not moving the reticle within it.
Alright, I can get a bit of a view here through the reticle, which is just a plain crosshair.
So not that much to see there.
Looking at the stock markings on this guy, it is of course a Mark III Ross.
And this one comes from the DA serial block.
The rifle was manufactured in 1914.
Of course this optics mounting modification was not done at the factory.
It wasn't done at that time, it would have been done no earlier than 1915.
The British, and by extension Canadian, sniping programs really didn't
become a thing until 1915, more like 1916 really.
So this may have been an earlier creation
once sniping was a little more of an accepted speciality I suppose,
but before there was much supply of the Warner & Swasey rifles.
Or frankly it could have been later production,
there is really no way to tell, because it is just an armourer's modification.
Well, there you go guys. It's really interesting to look at the different variations
of marksman's and sniper's rifles that were used during World War One.
This really is the war that developed sniping with optical sights
as kind of an industrialised formal thing among militaries.
So a lot of these did not survive after the war,
most military ... sniping programs kind of were disbanded after World War One.
So when you have the opportunity to see an original World War One sniper,
especially an awesome one like a Winchester on a Ross, it's a very cool opportunity.
Thanks for watching, hopefully you enjoyed the video.