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

Bill, Mine is #8734. Possibility of our guns being bored by the same individual and same tooling. Maybe even sharing the same rack in the assembly line. I brought up the bore diameter question as this particular gun has exceptionally mint bores. The gun seems untouched in all manner. With the bores being in such mint condition, I wonder if it could have come from the factory at .731". Did you ever get a letter on your gun? I've sent for one and it would be interesting to share info to see how close they were in date of production. Mine is an A grade with 30" barrels? Thanks for your reply.

Mike, I agree, the # is just a pre-assembly note to the Fox barrel filer guy/gal and insignificant beyound that point. But a weight number other than #3 might indicate a special order for some reason or other. If I would find a Fox gun on auction and looking for a heavy waterfowl gun, I might stay away from a #4 barrel weight gun and keep looking for a #1 wt barrel. This of course if the actual weight of the gun was not listed. Thanks for bringing it up.

Randy

Larry,

As 8Bore says, they were likely struck off. The number, if present, is somewhat helpful if you're describing or reading about a gun for sale..."the 30" 12ga barrels are stamped #4"....."ooooh, that's gonna be a light gun." It's at best just indicative of where the gun will fall in the range of weights for a 30" 12. But it's sort of analogous to "the chokes are IC/Mod." If we know the weight of that 30" 12ga or the bore dims, we have the real story in spite of what the markings are.
If I were looking to build the heaviest 12ga I could, I'd be interested in checking out any with #1 barrels. But I'd much rather have the exact weight of the barrels in ounces.

The majority of 16ga SW's I've examined are 28" marked #3 (medium-light) or not at all. Seems reasonable that would be by design for a mass-produced gun with no option for specifying gun weight. They come in at 6 1/8 - 6 3/8 lbs. Average gun = equals average barrel weight. If you ordered a graded heavy 30" 16ga choked F/F, you likely specified "7+ lbs", not #1 barrels.

You got it, Randy. We were posting at the same time.

Thanks. I have seen far more Fox barrels with barrel weight numbers that could not be read than could.

Randy, no letter on my gun and no visible barrel marking. The order card on my gun is not in the records. You can measure your outside diameter if you want to compare our two guns, both of which are A Grade and 30". My gun is .800 in the front half and tapers up to .890 at the forend lug. I don't know what the gun weighs right now because it is under construction as a pigeon gun and has no wood at this time. The barrels weighed 3-10 when I bought the gun. Total gun weight with a bad replacement stock was 7-8. I think the chart in McIntosh' book says these barrels should be #3.

Bill, Outside right barrel diameter is .803" upper barrel, .884" at the forearm lug. gun weight is 7# 4.8 oz. barrel weight is 3# 10.2 oz. Chokes R .042" L .035" Guns very close. These may have been standard issue. I'll share the letter to this gun if one exists. Randy