doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Interesting 20 Fox

Is Cabela's now in partnership with Ed? Too bad this gun was probably worth $2K before they started screwing with it.

It's a torch ,and I've seen better.........it's probably done with heavy oil and propane......I do know that if the metal is polished up to a mirror finish ,then dipped in the oil ,and heated from sharp corner's out, the torch will color it in second's with no great amount of heat.........

I AM NOT ENCOURAGEING THIS ,JUST STATEING OBSERVATION'S I HAVE MADE (with all kind's of metal)
Actually,I regret this post already

I doubt many, if any, 20-gauge Sterlingworths left North 18th Street and Windrim Avenue chambered for anything but 2 1/2 inch shells. Some graded guns were ordered with longer chambers. Two I know of were both 30-inch barrel, straight grip and weighed right around 6 pounds, 200108 DE-Grade and 200109 CE-Grade. In that 1913 time frame, Parker Bros. made the famous "Widgeon Duck Club" 20-gauges chambered for 3-inch shells, and the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. brought out their No. 200 pump gun made for 3-inch 20-gauge shells. In those days, most of the benefit of the 3-inch 20-gauge shells, or any gauge longer shells, was more and better wadding. The max load for the 2 1/2 inch 20-gauge was 2 1/4 drams equiv. of dense smokeless powder pushing 7/8 ounce of shot. The factory 3-inch 20-gauge shells of those days carried 2 1/2 drams equiv. pushing 7/8 ounce of shot, or the same as a Skeet Load today.

With the A.H. Fox Gun Co. policy of holding chambers 1/8 inch shorter then the intended shell, a factory original Fox 3-inch chamber would measure 2 7/8 inch.

I would agree and say none, zero.......after Savage took over in 1930 and cheapened everything up, they started the 2.75" chambers as the depression gripped harder and harder and sales tanked anyway along with the quality........

3" 20 SW's, probably never........

For a 30" ejector 20ga that still has full/full chokes for me to "rape and butcher" as I please? You betcha.

Could the chambers have been mangled? Certainly. Could they have been expertly and safely lengthened to 3"? Absolutely. The 20 and 16 ga barrels were fitted to the same breech width; there is easily .020" additional beef in 20ga chamber walls to begin with. That's what a 3-day inspection is for...to determine whether the disclosed mods are safe, and to discover the undisclosed mods with any second hand gun.

A 3" 20ga only kicks like a mule if you shoot 3" factory shells in it.

This gun is nothing more than a shooter. It has absolutely no collectors value. None. Use it or show it to others who would not know a properly refinished or original gun from a tomato stake. Worse is that they refinished it poorly from the standpoint of a original example of what it was. Wrong case colors, wrong fore end, wrong you name it.

I see a basic 30" 20 Sterlingworth that some previous owner decided just had to have 3" chambers. thank God he did not Proport it as well. I have never liked 3" chambers on a 20. Why bother. Worse is if they removed too much metal to make the chambers 3", they may have ruined the barrels. 20 Ga. shells run 10K psi without any special effort. That is a very light gun and I doubt the barrels were other than the lightest to begin with, 4 weight. It is almost as stupid as the often cited torch masters' screwing up guns, to make them look like a small pocks epidemic run amok, to fool the uninformed buyer.

If the gun was original I would not see it as a platform for a project. Rare does get respect in my books. High condition gets respect in my books. Well worn guns get respect but cheap restorations or bad restorations do not. With high condition that gun would bring as much as many 20 A grades. Rare does have extra value to many buyers. Even with no case, limited barrel blue, and a plain original stock it would be worth more than they are asking. But after the application of off color lipstick, on a gussied up pig, it just does not get respect from me. I would rather see it restored properly, which is cost prohibitive, or used to make a new custom gun.

KY....You must've had yer readers off when you made the first post...went from "decent" to a "poorly tomato stake" in the blink of an eYe.

I wouldn't be surprised if it has been re-stocked too. That open grained wood looks just like the wood on a lot of Spanish guns I've seen. It's one thing to throw a gun together like that as a shooter, as long as it's priced as such, but another thing entirely to ask $1900 for it. Yikes!

Provided the barrels are good, it would still make a great platform for a custom gun if the price was right. Looking at it even closer this morning, its got graded forearm metal on it instead of typical sterlingworth metal. I doubt if the serial number match in other words, unless it was sent back to Savage late in its life and some work done on it by the factory. I've got a Fox SW with a ejector beavertail forearm and it also has graded forearm metal on it. It however is a circa 1936 gun, not a Philly gun like this one. Also, the grip cap isn't right based on two examples I just pulled out of the gun safe. Stock has also been cut and it has wrong checkering IMO. Like I said, more wrong then right, but IF the barrels are ok, everything else is manageable. You might be able to make something really special out of that gun, but right now it looks like a pimped up Civic I see cruising around Northern Virginia all the time.

tut are you talking about the cabelas gun ? what do you mean graded forearm metal? Looks to be the regular ejector sterly round lug sticking out of the bottom of the forearm ?

How did you ever make out on the math you used to calculate you have xtra thick barrel walls on that other Fox/ CB