How about the Ross rifle? The Brits wouldn't sell us Lee-Enfields during the Boer War, so we decided that we should set up domestic production in Canada in case we ever found ourselves at the bottom of the list for new weapons during a war again. Great idea, but instead of just building the proven Lee-Enfield in Canada, we adopted a very advanced (for the turn of the century) sporting and target rifle.
The Ross was and remains just about the most accurate military rifle ever made, but that was about all the good you can say about it. It's long, it's heavy, it jams, it wasn't until the Mk.III that they put a decent magazine on it, and the Mk.III was also the model where you could put the bolt together wrong and still fire it! You had to be profoundly stupid to do it, since it look alot of force to get it into the weapon that way, but never underestimate the supidity of a panicked untrained Private. We ditched it for the SMLE in 1915, but by then half the CEF were carrying Lee-Enfields they scavenged, bartered for or flat out stole from British troops.
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