Shot yesterday with a friend at the Whittington Center. He had his pride and joy, a CSMC Fox CE, a pretty high dollar gun. While it was in a gun rack I noticed the muzzle and looked closer--the top rib has broken loose for about four inches and is just flopping around. Not the first problem he has had, the gorgeous wood was selected strictly for figure without any concern for strength and a couple years ago a serious sideways crack developed near the head and had to be returned for repair. To the credit of CSMC they repaired it without charge. But it just seems there are way too many of their guns sent out with serious problems. They just seem to have very poor quality control.
A personal pet peeve of mine is wood selected for figure only. I have seen a number of factory guns (included the CSMC Foxes) with amazingly poor layout. An accident waiting to happen. I doubt most would crack/break strictly on recoil, but they would easily break given a fall in the woods. I do know of more then one Parker Repro straight grip that broke/cracked in the wrist while firing.
PS. To show I'm not that smart, I once bought a blank of Circassian based on poor pictures. I thought layout was marginal but the figure was amazing. Once it arrived I realized my worst fears were confirmed. Tremendous cross grain in the head and the grain flipped in the grip and was cross grained in the opposite direction. Didn't know a tree could even grow that way.
Took it to my stock maker and he/we made the decision to band saw it into forearm blanks. An expensive lesson learned.
