WWI ROSS BAYONET - US

[cpatrick]

Here is something that I have had stashed away, hoping that I would find a rather cheap upgrade. So far, I have been unsuccessful. This is a Canadian Ross bayonet that was purchased by the United States. We know that this is a US purchase bayonet because of the U.S. Ordinance stamp on the grip. The Ross was a horrible rifle that was very much disliked by the Canadian soldiers during the war. Afterwards, the United States purchased a number of these for issue.

 

The blade is full length, but is otherwise beat up. Does anyone have any full length Ross's that they can show? Maybe someone else would like to offer information of this bayonet in relation to US military history?

 

It's a bayonet that I have not see discussed on the forum yet.

 

Chris

[gunbarrel]

Does anyone have any full length Ross's that they can show? Maybe someone else would like to offer information of this bayonet in relation to US military history?

 

It's a bayonet that I have not see discussed on the forum yet.

 

Chris

 

Chris,

 

Here are photos of the one in my collection.

[gunbarrel]

I don't have any photos of U.S. troops using them, but here are photos of Canadian troops. The third photo shows them turning in their Ross rifles, which is how they ended up in the U.S.

[gunbarrel]

What I know about them, I've read in Gary Cunningham (Bayonetman)'s book; so, I'm hoping maybe he'll stop by and tell the Forum about these bayonets. He will do a much better job than me!

[cpatrick]

That is a beautiful Ross, which I am sure that you know. I didn't pay a dime for the one that I have, so I have never considered it a detrimant to my collection - I would just like to find a nice one, with the scabbard for around $100. I can be cheap...

 

Chris

[Bob Hudson]

 

It has the US marks as well as the Canadian broad arrow mark which means it was used by Canadian forces before going to the US. And why was that?

 

Wikipedia has an article on the Ross rifles and apparently after a tough political battle to convince key Canadian officials that the Ross was indeed prone to failure (although it was apparently quite accurate when it worked) the Canadians and British (who bought most of the Rosses produced in Canada) replaced it with Lee-Enfields for front line troops but continued to use it for training, and "More were also shipped to the U.S. in 1917 for the same reasons, freeing up supplies of the M1903 Springfield rifle."

 

By the way, the article says, "Another well-known deficiency was the tendency for the bayonet to fall off the rifle when the weapon was fired."

 

So it was purchased as a training rifle and I would imagine that when all of those Springfields came back after WWI and the US Army downsized considerably, there was no need to use the Ross for training so it probably had a short life in US service.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_rifle

[gunbarrel]

That is a beautiful Ross, which I am sure that you know. I didn't pay a dime for the one that I have, so I have never considered it a detrimant to my collection - I would just like to find a nice one, with the scabbard for around $100. I can be cheap...

 

Chris

 

Chris,

 

Thanks for the compliment. I didn't pay much more than that for this one. It was a "sleeper," as Greg calls them.