The .280 Ross

Sir Ross

To understand the Ross rifle, you have to understand the man, a complex man at that. Sir Charles Henry Augustus Federick Lockhart Ross was the Ninth Baronet of Balnagown, Scotland. A Knight of the Realm, he inherited an estate of 350,000 acres, 3,000 tenants and Balnagown Castle.
Even as a boy, Sir Charles exhibited a strong aptitude for things mechanical and could be found, as often as not, working away in the well-equipped workshop of his family’s castle. Over a lifetime, he proved himself to be a savvy businessman, a prolific inventor of everything from ship propellers to hydro-electric machinery, a soldier, an accomplished sportsman and what we know as a bon-vivant. He was married three times.

Attending Easton College in 1893, he had patented his first straight-pull rifle — a complicated design that went nowhere. A more practical design, the Ross Model 1897 Magazine Sporting Rifle, somewhat similar in design to the Model 1890 straight-pull Austrian-Mannlicher, followed. Having moved to Canada in 1897, Sir Charles built a hydro-electric company, invested in a trolley company and set up a rifle making company in Hartford, Conn. This business made complete rifles for the North American trade and furnished parts to Charles Lancaster, who built more custom-type Ross straight-pull rifles for the UK sporting clientele.

Canada’s involvement in the Boer War was a watershed for Ross. Armed largely with Snider and Martini-Henry rifles, the Canadian contingent was badly outgunned by the Boer’s Mausers but Britian refused to set up a factory in Canada to manufacture the newer Lee-Enfield. Seizing the moment, Ross convinced the government to sign a contract for 12,000 Ross straight-pull military models in .303 British. Delivered in 1905, the Ross Mark 1 was plagued by faults and was returned to the factory in Quebec for a new model, the Mark 11, also known as the Model 1905. Both the Mark 1 & Mk 11 bolts carried two solid lugs that rode vertically and locked horizontally.

By 1910, Ross had discarded the two, solid lug bolt head in favor of a “triple-threaded, interrupted-screw, double-bearing cam bolt head” opening horizontal and locking vertically.

The new action was introduced into the military model line as the Mark 111 and in the sporting line as the Model 1910. Around the same period, Sir Charles Ross retained a renowned ballistician and long-range competitor, Frederick W. Jones, to develop an advanced sporting and match cartridge. The result was the .280 Ross cartridge, produced and catalogued as the “.280 Rimless Nitro-Express” and head-stamped simply “280 Ross.”

Appearing in the first decade of the 20th Century, the .280 Ross offered the sporting world ballistics never been seen before. Here was a 7mm cartridge, loaded with a 140-grain spitzer soft-point, capable of reaching velocities of over 3,000 fps in the Ross Model 1910 sporter with a barrel length of 26″ to 28″. It was the ballistic marvel of its day. Kynoch catalogued the load as having a velocity of 3,010 fps, along with a 150-grain spitzer at 2,920 fps, a 160-grain, round nose HP load at 2, 910 fps and a 180-grain target match loading at 2,760 fps.

The new cartridge electrified the sporting world and dominated the long-range rifle matches for years. It wasn’t long until a rimmed, or “flanged” version of the .280 Ross appeared for use in double rifles and combination guns with the velocity (and pressure) of the 140-grain loading reduced to 2,850 fps.