doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com fox sterlingworth

I'm considering purchasing a fox sterlingworth philadelphia gun. the price is 325. and the gun looks pretty good with one exception - the inside of both barrels are covered with spots. is this something that can typically be fixed without a great deal of cost or is it something that can be done without much difficulty. i realize this all depends on how deep the corrosion is but it doesn't appear to be too bad. I'd appreciate any help that can be provided.

Scott

The price is very low by today's standards. I would look closely to see if they are frost spots, filth, or pits. I would clean the barrels thoroughly before any assessment. I was recently given an LC that looked awful in the barrels, after cleaning, the bores were in good shape with some slight frosting.

If after cleaning, they look like deep pits I would get the opinion of someone who is qualified in double guns. Keep in mind if this is an older version the chambers will not be 2 3/4 unless some one has had them reamed.

Jim

A good double gun gunsmith could measure the bores and if barrels are thick enough could probably remove all or most of the pits. Mike Orlen would be a good smith to send barrels to. Bobby

Spots come in different sizes and depths. The price is great,if they polish out without problems but someone needs to check the thickness of the tubes.
bill

Scott: Fox Sterlingworth has one of the strongest boxlock actions ever built on either side of the pond. I've never seen one "shoot loose. The barrels are almost always "Sterlingworth Fluid Compressed Steel" & is comparable to Krupp or the best fluid steel in this country at that time. The advice Jim gave about cleaning is great. If the spots remain after cleaning take the gun to a qualified gunsmith. At that price you can afford to spend some money on it.

George L

Fox SW barrels are typically heavy-walled and what looks like a cordurory road can be cleaned up with .004-5" off the bore wall. I'd worry a bit about continuous "ring" corrosion that can't be honed out--say at the chamber intersection with forcing cone. We've had a couple of posters here and on a "safe with modern ammo" query state with conviction that you can take the safety margin in these 80-90 yr. old guns for granted simply because it says Fox or fluid-compressed. I had a 3C SW derelict that handled a few Federal game loads without blowing up. So What? The truth is the safety margin is in ONLY shooting SAAMI max pressure loads in guns made in the SAAMI max era. For suspect guns which have been "renewed", buy, reload, and shoot loads with pressures certainly no greater than the standard pressure of loads available when the gun was new. And the Newtonian penalty of heavy shot charges (recoil) does absolutely nothing good for 90 yr. old wood either.

jack