TB, you needed to keep reading in McIntosh's book: " . . . selected according to how little hand-work would be required FOR A FINISHED GUN OF PREDETERMINED WEIGHT." Mr. Smith wants a 12ga for upland hunting. If I look in my 1940 Shooter's Bible, I find that--assuming Smith wants a gun at the lighter end of the scale--he can get one, 26-28" barrels, right around 7 pounds. That "predetermined weight", based on Smith's order through his local dealer, is almost certainly going to end up with 4 weight barrels, to get him what he wants. If he later decides he wants a heavy waterfowler (without going to the Super Fox), 32" barrels weighing right around 8 pounds, he can get that too--but it'd be with #1 or maybe #2 barrels, to match that predetermined weight. And since we agree that the barrels are key to dealing with pressure, and since we also agree that a heavier gun will handle increased recoil better than a light gun . . . you buy your gun for the purpose in mind, and you use the loads that make the most sense for that gun and that purpose. You might well shoot those new Super-X loads in your waterfowler; you might not in your upland gun, especially if it came from the factory with 2 5/8" chambers. Especially if we're talking prior to WWII, there were still WAY more factory 12ga shells offered in 2 5/8" than 2 3/4".
Now Mr. Brown lets talk a minute about the all time best seller of the Fox line, The Sterlingworth model. I hope that you will agree that they were made with all four barrel weights. How many of those do you suppose were ordered to a set of specific specification? We could ask Resercher but I think that we would find that they were primarily ordered as a "stock" gun for sale at retail Sporting Goods stores and Hardware stores of the day and that relatively few were ordered to a set of specifications.
Now compare the number of Sterlingworths to the number of graded guns and I think that you will find that following my logic most Foxes were not ordered with a specific barrel weight and if you consider the variance in wood even if a gun was ordered to a specific weight the density of the wood will have more influence the the variance in barrel weight. By the way my Sterlingworth with #2 wieght 32 inch barrels weights 8 1/2 lbs on he nose. So is the differnece in weight between your 8 pound gun due to the weight of the barrels before striking or is it due to the density of the wood.
