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
