I will relate one example of just a few short years ago, maybe six years. I was really wanting a 32" Fox for doves, in 20 gauge, but I might have settled for a 16 had everything else been copasetic with the gun. I found not one, but two 32" Fox 20s at the Brays Island Exposition at a booth manned by a New England based vintage gun dealer. One was a Philly Sterly and the other an Philly A grade. They were in very, very nice condition, as I wanted. But, the prices were way above my pay grade and conscience. The Sterly was somewhere around $16K, with the A grade being well up into the $20Ks. I quickly passed, but the condition of those two lingered.
Fast forward about a year and I was contacted privately on the PGCA site by an elderly gentleman who was gradually paring down his collection of nice American and English vintage doubles. He had read and seen pictures I had posted of dove shooting with my vintage doubles and knew of my love for long legged, small-bore ones. He offered me a chance at his 1929 Parker DHE two barrel set. We exchanged many emails and a few phone calls and the DHE came to Georgia, where it remains. The gun is in extremely high condition, bores perfect, beautiful wood, and has 32" barrel sets in 16 and 20 gauge. The exact price is not important for this conversation, but suffice it to say that it was a bit over half as much as the Fox Sterly.
Take from that what you may. The Parker is a gorgeous small bore for doves and I have enjoyed it immensely.
I will hasten to mention that, in answer to observations that A H Fox guns have "crude" internals will little finish, I own about seven of them in various grades from a 20 Sterlingworth Ejector to my big HE grade super Fox 3" chambered, 32" barreled, duck gun. I have used them all extensively. Not one of them has ever had a trigger problem. The trigger pulls have always been very nice, and I am anal about shotgun triggers. The Parker had absolutely the worst triggers I have ever encountered on a vintage gun. Either one would hold the weight of the gun, with the safety off, without tripping the sear. Over seven pounds on one with the other being even higher. A fine old doublegun man from Darlington, SC sorted them out for me and they now stand at about four pounds (or slightly less) each, as they should have been.
All of my Fox doubles have ejectors with the exception of the first one I ever bought, the Sterly 12 with 30" tubes. I don't just like ejectors on dove, duck and quail guns (and competition guns), I REQUIRE them. The idea that they scatter litter all over the landscape is absurdity in the extreme. I trap all my empties as they're being ejected in my right hand and toss them either in the trash can or into the rear game bag or pocket of my shell belt or coat. This allows me to reload much faster than with any extractor gun. After shooting that first Sterly all one dove season and missing many opportunities at shots while I was digging empties out of the chambers I knew it would be ejector doubles for me, from that point on.
As much use as my Philly Fox ejector guns have had over the ensuing years I have had only one failure with a Fox ejector. On my 32" BE grade, built in 1918, the tiny guide rod on the back of an ejector blade broke off. I removed it from the guide hole, fabbed a new pin, silver soldered it into the original ejector and re-installed it. It worked, and continues to work, perfectly to this day.
Now this is opinion, and opinion only . . . . . A H Fox guns have the most elegantly designed action profile ever built on a S X S shotgun. Almost all doublegun makers started by designing the internals, then designing the action around the internals. Parkers have 16 moving parts per lock, hellishly complicated. Nicely finished, yes, but more prone to problems because of the sheer number of moving parts. In comparison, A H Fox guns have 3 moving parts per lock. As others have mentioned, they just don't break. They can be dry fired indefinitely because of their design and the strength of the hammers and rear breech area. Because of and in light of this scarcity of internal parts, the Fox action is smaller and lighter without being weaker, and can have the beautiful "sculpting" that is evident on the action sides.
And, amazingly, the gun was designed and patented by an eighteen year old Ansley H. Fox. He evidently didn't have the business acumen to compete with Parker, Smith, and Ithaca. But, he was a brilliant inventor and designer. The fact that the Sterlingworth outsold the Trojan,by so many multiples, is evidence of the respect the Fox guns had in that day.
I enjoy my Parker greatly, but first place in my American built stable will always be my Foxes. I will not let go of the big HE until forced to, or death separates us. It is the only gun I have ever taken a 6 duck limit with, in flooded timber in Arkansas, with six shells. Only another 20 ga. Fox Ejector could take the place of my Sterly quail and woodcock gun, and it would have to be a graded gun. I have won with the BE Fox at Regional NSCA S X S concurrent events, and taken ducks and doves with it.
All of this just my observations and opinions.
All my best, SRH
