Ross WWI Sniper Rifle w/ Winchester A5 Scope
Bolt Action Rifles
•
6m 2s
The standard Canadian sniper's rifle of World War One was the MkIII Ross fitted with a Warner & Swasey "musket sight" purchased from the United States. However, armorers in the field did create sniping rifles using other scopes - in particular the Winchester A5. The A5 was a popular commercial rifle scope at the time, and it found its way onto military rifles for many nations - I have seen examples on Lebel and SMLE rifles as well as of course American Springfields and this Ross.
The A5 was a 5x magnification scope with external adjustments. We don't know when this example was built into sniper configuration, but it's provenance is solid (this sort of thing would be relatively easy to counterfeit). Personally, I would much prefer a Winchester A5 over the Warner & Swasey pattern...
Up Next in Bolt Action Rifles
-
German World War One Gewehr 98 Sniper
Germany was the earliest adopter of scoped rifles in World War One, and produced more of them over the course of the war than any other power. After an initial stop-gap effort to scrounge up civilian hunting rifles, a sniper conversion program was adopted by the main German rifle factories. Germa...
-
Swiss ZfK-55 Sniper Rifle
The ZfK-55 is basically a K31 action, with a bunch of modifications to convert it into a very nice marksman's rifle. The more obvious changes are the muzzle brake (very reminiscent of the second model FG-42, which makes sense as the Swiss experimented with those rifle quite a bit after the war), ...
-
Czech vz.54 Sniper Rifle
While Czechoslovakia was a part of the eastern bloc, it did a pretty thorough job of developing its own weapons rather than use standard Russian designs. For example, the vz52 pistol, vz52, 52/57, and 58 rifles, the uk59 light machine gun, and more. Well, their military sniper rifle was closer to...