The .280 Ross
The "High Velocity" Deer Stalking Rifle
While short-lived, Sir Charles “High Velocity Scotch Deer Stalking Rifle”
in .280 Ross is elegant, finely machined and beautifully crafted.
In gun shop parlance, there are “safe queens” and “floor queens.” This is the story of a unique floor queen. It sat there in the floor rack for weeks, untouched and unloved. It wasn’t pricey. It wasn’t that it didn’t have class. Indeed, it looked ever so much like an elegant custom rifle.
The action was a bit odd, being a straight-pull but customers were used to seeing Schmidt-Rubins on the floor. No, what kept this sleek centerfire rooted in place was its odd caliber — the .280 Ross — the world’s first commercial cartridge breaking the 3,000 fps ceiling. I took one look and bought the floor queen, which came mounted with a Weaver K3 scope. The rest of the story defines the term “Gun Nut.” I had no idea what I was getting into.
Cutting down the left side rail of the action aids in venting
gas should a cartridge rupture upon firing.
In operation, the long bolt throw of the Ross magnum-length
places the end of the bolt very close to the shooter’s face.
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.
In its day, the 3.5" long Ross .280 cartridge required a Model
10 Ross or Mauser Magnum action to house it.
Down To Cases
Looking at the .280 Ross case, it’s an odd duck. It’s a steeply tapered case. In fact, it has more taper than any other commercial case and I’m sure Frederick Jones purposely designed it this way to facilitate extraction with a straight-pull action. By modern standards, the extreme taper is unnecessary and creates excessive pressure on the bolt head. The head diameter of the case measures 0.525,” larger than a common H&H Magnum-derived case measuring 0.513″. As loaded to an overall length of 3.5″, the Ross is a long, snaky cartridge requiring in its day a Ross Model 10 or Magnum Mauser action to contain it.
The other odd aspect of the .280 Ross I was soon to discover is it does not take a common 0.284″ diameter bullet. Nope, not this baby. It needs bullets with a diameter of 0.286″ to 0.287″. This may have been a proprietary marketing move by Ross and interestingly, Holland & Holland adopted the same diameter bullet for its .275 H&H Magnum cartridge.
About this time, I was beginning to break out in a cold sweat, thinking that I was going to have to turn belts off H&H brass, ream necks, you name it, for reforming existing brass into a long, tapered 7mm case. Where could I find .280 Ross brass and its odd-sized 7mm bullets?
Thank the Lord for the Internet. It turned out Graf & Sons (www.grafs.com) stocked .280 Ross brass produced by Quality Cartridge (www.qual-cart.com). The price was choking at $135 for 20 cartridge cases. No need to hit your calculator — it’s $6.75 per case!
Odd ball 7mm diameter bullets were a bit easier on the pocket book with Buffalo Arms (www.buffaloarms.com) offering a 130-grain soft point spitzer with a proper diameter of 0.287″. At $42.19 per 100, I considered them a bargain. The only remaining lynch-pin was a set of dies.
My rescuer proved to be Lee Precision (www.leeprecision.com) whose custom shop is back in operation following some disruptions caused by COVID. Based on the cases and bullets provided to them, Lee Precision will custom-make a die set consisting of their neck-sizing collet die and a seating die for $100.
Neck sizing cases fired in a bolt-action rifle with the Lee collet die is a unique experience. The case requires no lubrication nor is the case neck affected by pulling an expander button through it. The case neck is simply squeezed down against a precision mandrel. The only trick is to rotate and size the case several times to achieve a uniform neck tension.
On the other hand, I don’t favor the Lee seating die because the case neck is not fully supported when seating the bullet. Looking for an alternative, I used the seater die from a set of Hornady match grade dies for the .280 Ackley Improved. Not ideal, but it worked to keep cartridge runout to a minimum.
The only remaining question was whether or not my handloads would break the historic 3,000 fps mark.
The .280 was factory loaded with medium game-level bullets,
circa 1910. Hunters did get in trouble using them on dangerous game.
Other than powder and primers, the three essential elements needed
to handload the .280 Ross are custom dies, 0.287" diameter bullets
and factory or reformed cases.
Two of the popular factory game loads, were the 140- to 150-grain
soft-point spitzer and the 160-grain round nose hollow point.
These are “flanged” examples.
Here We Go
Fellow scribe, Terry Wieland, had worked with the 280 Ross and had good luck using H-4831 as a propellant. Starting with a fire-forming load of 60.0 grains and measuring velocities with a Garmin chronograph, I worked up to 63.0 grains of H-4831 that clocked 2,990 fps. Loading five more cases with 63.0 grains, the second round fired passed the magic 3,000 fps ceiling with a velocity of 3,005 fps. All subsequent rounds fired grouped into 1.75″ at 100 yards. Success!
And the Ross Rifle Company? Well, the Canadian Mark 111 military model with its finely threaded locking lugs proved to be a disaster in the dirt and mud of the WWI trenches. By September of 1916, all the Mark 111 rifles were withdrawn and the Canadians issued Lee-Enfields. Canada expropriated the Ross factory in March, 1917 paying Sir Charles $2 million. The machinery was sold off and the building demolished.
And Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart Ross? Well, his last years were spent in St. Petersburg Beach, Fla. where he enjoyed venturing forth in “a pith helmet, pajama bottom and old slippers.”
A remarkable man, a remarkable rifle and cartridge, and if you are lucky enough to own an elegant Ross sporter, you are fortunate indeed.
