SIR CHARLES’S BABY, 110 YEARS ON

Feb 28, 2018 | News, On Ammo

If backed into a corner at gunpoint and forced to name my candidate for “most influential cartridge” of the 20th century, I would probably say it was the .280 Ross.

There is no shortage of candidates, and the .375 H&H would be my second choice. But while the .375 H&H has the most grandchildren, it was hardly the most influential. The Ross set in motion a quest for small-caliber, high-velocity performance that continues to this day. We can trace that influence through the .275 H&H, .270 Winchester, and 7mm Remington, right through to the over-long, over-wrought 7mm creations that are now raising dust and causing deafness.

The Ross’s standard load of a 146-grain bullet at 3,100 feet per second (fps) was the first commercial cartridge to breach the 3,000 fps barrier. That velocity instantly became the goal for others, and the benchmark for measuring every new cartridge to come along.

The Ross had a stormy history, to say the least. Designed by Sir Charles Ross and F.W. Jones, it sprang upon the world in 1908, first as a match cartridge and, once it became ruler of long-distance shooting at Bisley, it took up a new career as a hunting cartridge. Its performance at Bisley inspired the War Office to design a new military round to replace the .303 British (.276 Enfield) and a new rifle to go with it (Enfield P-13). Only the outbreak of war in 1914 caused that project to be shelved.

Although the most famous rifle for the .280 Ross was the remarkable Ross M-10, it was so good that Mauser adopted it as a standard chambering for the Magnum Mauser sporting rifle, and a great many custom rifles were chambered for it or rebarreled. Charles Lancaster, which had a close association with Sir Charles Ross, built a pair of double rifles in his .280, with their oval-bored rifling, and King George V used them on his 1911 grand tour of India as the newly crowned King-Emperor. He used them on anything up to tigers and rhinos, and pronounced them “excellent.”

Few remember the King’s hunting tour of India, but many recall that other incident in 1911, when George Grey (brother of the British foreign secretary) wounded a lion with a .280 Ross, and was killed when the high-velocity bullets failed to stop its charge. Blaming the Ross for that failure is manifestly unfair. Dying in hospital in Nairobi, Grey stated frankly that it was his own fault for riding too close to the lion. He was hunting on a farm in the Aberdares, and the informal rules of hunting lions on horseback was, one, never to get too close, and two, never to shoot from less than 150 yards. Grey did both and paid the price, but the .280 Ross has been paying as well, from that day to this.

In connection with the .280 Ross, Sir Charles Ross made several other significant strides, ballistically speaking. In the U.S., he persuaded du Pont to produce a new, coated, slow-burning powder (DuPont #10). It made possible high velocity with heavy bullets, and was used in the later .250-3000 (the first American commercial cartridge to reach that velocity) and fathered a whole family of ever-slower “Improved Military Powders” (IMR) from du Pont. Sir Charles also pioneered the use of heavy-for-caliber bullets with spitzer noses and long ogives — what we would today call “extra-low drag.” The .280 Ross, loaded with Sir Charles’s 180-grain match bullet, was unbeatable on either side of the Atlantic.

In 1920, advised by his doctor to get a good rest, Sir Charles booked a long safari in East Africa with his extra-marital friend, the New York big-game hunting socialite, Mrs. Emily Key Hoffman Daziel. He shot almost everything on the ticket with the .280, to prove that allegations of inadequacy were wrong. When he got home, he commissioned a bust of himself in safari garb; the marble Sir Charles’s marble cartridge loops were occupied by marble .280 Ross rounds. The bust still resides at the Ross ancestral home, Balnagowan, near Inverness.

It is impossible to say how many rifles were chambered for the .280 Ross, but it must have been substantial. Eley-Kynoch kept the cartridge in production until 1967. There is still a demand for brass from handloaders, and Quality Cartridge does periodic runs.

Oddly enough, no other notable cartridges were designed using the distinctive Ross case — long for its time, with a marked taper and a semi-rimless head. Nor did anyone create a wildcat cartridge. It’s too bad: The tapered case would be excellent in hot climates to prevent sticking, while the rim would give more purchase than a standard rimless, without the feeding difficulties of a rim. It has about the same diameter at the base as the later .375 H&H belted case, so there’s no shortage of powder capacity.

The one exception to this was the strange case of Harold Gerlich and his .280 Halger, in the 1920s. The Halger was simply the Ross case with a different headstamp and a raft of opium-induced claims. Possibly this is the sincerest form of flattery, but I rather doubt Sir Charles Ross would have found it so.

LOADS FOR THE LADY (AND ME)

Dec 9, 2017 | News, On Ammo

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]LOADS FOR THE LADY (AND ME)

Buckets of ink are spilled annually analyzing what rifle and ammunition is best to take on safari, but almost all are aimed at men. Little thought is given, it seems, to what rifle a woman should use.

There are women who hunt big game on their own, and do so with the same implements of destruction as their male counterparts, but they are rare. Most women who go on safari and shoot a few animals are accompanying their husbands as he makes his dream trip.

It is a fact that women are generally smaller and lighter than men, and that they do not like recoil. In reality no one does, but men are likely to grimace and insist they don’t mind it. Women, sensible creatures that they are (on this subject, at least,) have no ego-driven impulsion to pretend they like being battered by a rifle.

In recent years, the most famous of women big-game hunters was Jack O’Connor’s wife Eleanor. She accompanied him on big-game hunts from mountaintops in the Yukon, to tiger-hunting machans in India, to safari cars in Tanzania. Early in their marriage, she hunted with a .257 Roberts. Later, she moved up to a 7×57 and shot most her game with that thereafter, although in some instances (tigers and her one elephant) she used a .30-06. Mrs. O’Connor fired her husband’s .375 H&H one time, he reported, and decided he could keep it.

The key to Eleanor O’Connor’s success with the 7×57 was precise shot placement, and the fact that she insisted on stalking as close as possible before pulling the trigger. She took no misplaced pride in making a long shot if it wasn’t necessary, although she was good enough to make one when she had to.

O’Connor himself was a great admirer of the .270 Winchester, but he loaded his own and loaded them hot. A hot .270 has both a bark and a bite, and this did not appeal to his wife at all. However, the .270 Winchester can be loaded in such a way that it is both relatively (!) quiet and well-behaved, yet still pack all the punch most of us need.

I once put together such a load for a lady of my acquaintance. We used a 130-grain Sierra GameKing spitzer bullet. Sierra makes both a spitzer and a spitzer boat-tail in the GameKing, but the flat-base was more accurate in this load. With a muzzle velocity of about 2,800 fps, it was both deadly and deadly accurate, and no more uncomfortable to shoot than such noted pussycats as the .257 Roberts.

For the non-handloader, finding comparable factory ammunition was difficult. Now, a company called HSM (hsmammunition.net) is marketing an extensive line that includes specifically low-recoil combinations. Among their .270 Winchester loads is one that more or less duplicates my handload, using the Sierra bullet. They say (and I have no reason to doubt them) that it has 53 per cent less recoil, and my own experience with it would tend to confirm it’s somewhere in that neighborhood.

I chose the Sierra GameKing for my own load because it’s accurate, and also because it expands well at lower velocities. Put the bullet in the right place, and it will expand and do the job. In this age of premium and ultra-premium bullets (with prices to match) the Sierra GameKing is often overlooked. It should not be. It is one of the world’s great all-around hunting bullets.

HSM ammunition is available from a number of sources, including MidwayUSA, which makes it easy to find.

One should add that, just because a load is civilized, its use is not limited to women. I will always load my own .270 ammunition, and some of it’s pretty warm, but I’ve developed a distinct taste for using my “ladies’ load” for practice. One of these days I may just forget and take it hunting. If I had to bet, I would say I would notice no difference as long as the bullet went in the right place.

And, a .270 for a lady’s rifle on safari makes a good back-up as well, in case something goes awry with the main armament. You may have to arm-wrestle her for it, but that’s your problem.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”12636,12637″][/vc_column][/vc_row]