Talk:Ross rifle
I've made corrections to the chart. I recognize the chart given, but the copy/scan/whatever they were reading must have been too blurry. The original poster has put down Mk II** in places where it should read either Mk II3*, 4*, or 5*. This was generally how the stocks were marked (3* rather than ***).
And, I've made further corrections to the chart. The original source The Ross Rifle Story , while the most extensive and authoritative source on the Ross Rifle that I know of, appears to have a corrupted chart printed in it. It is missing the Mk IIIB and has one incorrect number for the Mark III. The correct chart (originally by the Army Historical Branch) was also reprinted in A Question of Confidence without the apparent corruption. I also added reference footnotes for the chart next to its title. I also cleaned up the referencing for a couple books to reduce duplicates. And, I added a note below the chart about one model the Army Historical Branch had omitted (100% of which no longer existed at the time the document had been produced).
I added a complete listing of the military variants, describing as best I can what the differences are. There is an especially large amount of vague information and misinformation out there regarding this. I hope what I have provided clears this up. If you catch me in a mistake, please inform me.
I've added a number of new references and external links. One should read any of the reference sources listed knowing that all of them have mistakes, some of them significant. The Ross Rifle Story by Philips, Chadwick, and Dupuis is easily the most thoroughly researched and authoritative source, and even it has a messed up chart. A Question of Confidience by Duguid has an un-corrupted version of the chart, but the author refers to the long-barreled Mk II** as the Mk II* throughout (excepting in the chart which came from the Canadian Army Historical Branch). This does not mean that the various books and articles don't provide valuable information. But, there seems to be an unusually large amount of misinformation out there on this particular subject (The Ross Rifle), and you should read with that in mind.
