Hello All:

I've come across a Fox Sterlingworth "Skeet and Upland" 12 ga. with 26 inch barrels and extractors, factory pad, splinter foreend and double ivory sights, shipped in the model's launch year of 1935. It is an Utica gun, but this is where this model originated (not Phili.). Skeet had only been invented a decade or so earlier and I don't think they even settled on the name "skeet" until ~1926.

It has been carried, but not shot much at all, and is in very high condition. Any idea how scarce the gun is, and what the market values these at?

Regards, GG

From my decades of observing and recording Sterlingworths, there are some 12-gauge guns in the 1306xx serial number range, both 26- and 28-inch and these guns have the long back-strap trigger guards as appear on straight grip graded guns. Then there are a handful of 28-inch barrel Fox-Sterlingworth Ejector Skeet & Upland Game Guns in the 1356xx and 1357xx serial number range. In the last two decades I've easily put 10,000 rounds through this fellow --









Then I've recorded nineteen 26-inch barrel Fox-Sterlingworth Skeet & Upland Game Guns, both extractor and ejector, from 160076 to 160818. However, within that block I've recorded two regular Fox-Sterlingworth Brush guns as well. Interestingly, half of these 26-inch barrel guns in the 160xxx range have barrels roll-stamped STERLINGWORTH FLUID COMPRESSED STEEL, not the SPECIAL ALLOY -- FORGED STEEL one normally associates with late Savage era Fox guns. Of these guns in the 160xxx range that I've seen letters on two were shipped in 1935, one in 1937 and one in 1938, showing how worthless that old Lightner Library serial number chronology that is posted various places on the web is.

From Savage's 1935 A.H. Fox catalogue --



1937 --



1939 --



In the 16- and 20-gauges I haven't recorded enough guns to see any patterns develop, but there are four 16-gauge Fox-Sterlingworth Skeet & Upland Game Guns in the 370xxx range

Hello Researcher:

Thanks for all your information on Sterlingworths. Your Skeet and Upland looks to be holding up well after 100K through it!

The one I've looked at is in the 1602XX range. I'll be handling it again in a week and will check to see how the roll stamp reads. It is a short tang (but I wish it was a long!).

Do you have a general idea of how many Skeet and Uplands were delivered in 12 ga.?

Regards,
GG

My best guess would be "less than 1000."