Pheasants for Me and my Fox CE
 

I picked up a 26" 12ga Fox CE at the local gun show a few weeks ago, a nice upland gun weighing in at 6lbs 7ozs and choked IC/MOD. This gun has the original owners name engraved on the trigger guard (W.M. Falk), and was originally ordered with gold plated triggers. I took it out for the first time last weekend, and then again this Saturday. Headed out to Beaver Pond in Snow Camp, NC for some driven pheasant hunts. it sure was great to get out into the fields again. Here are a few pics of the last two hunts with my new Foxy Lady.

Last Weekend
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Yesterday
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Hi Mike! What a great pile of birds! It looks like you had a pretty good time.

That's a nice looking Fox... can we see some close ups?

Those are some very nice pictures, by the way.

Great pics as usual Mike, thanks for sharing.

looks like you boys had a field day as they say...very nice fox you got there... and and as they said the pictures are great...only one hitch you shore got a big pile of birds to clean..ha charlie

Looks looks you guys were "wackin-n-stackin". Nice mess of birds! Thanks for shareing.:):cool::cool:

I counted 60 + birds as we put them in the back of my truck for a group photo. Fortunately for us, there was a young lady there (13 years old) cleaning birds to earn some extra Christmas money. I gladly paid her to clean mine, and by the time I left that day, I think she had cleaned all but about 10 of them :bowdown:

Dean, you know I'm never short on photos, so here are some close ups of the new Fox CE. I've even included a copy of the original order card. Other than the replacement White Line pad, the rest of the gun matches the card. I picked it up at the local gun show a few weeks ago. It was sitting on the second table I saw that day, and I knew what it was from 20 feet away. As I walked up to the dealers table, I was wondering to myself just how absurd the price was going to be, mentally having already given up on owning the gun. When I asked the price, I ended up having a REALLY hard time keeping a straight face, and couldn't get to my wallet fast enough! My only concern for the gun was the length of the barrels, as they appeared to be cut, yet had the appropriate length chokes for an early Philadelphia gun. You'll notice on the order card that 28" is scratched out, and 26" is penciled in. This almost completed gun likely fit the majority of the desired specs except for the barrel length, and was pulled from the rack and cut two inches to fill the order.

Mike


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Note the W.M. Falk engraved on the trigger guard, and the remnants of the gold plating that once covered the triggers.

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Once again, being in the right place at the right time has paid off handsomely! What a nice CE that is!

Have you researched W M Falk?

Did you buy the gun suspecting the barrels had been cut? That's not like you Mike :whistle:

Nice gun it is.

Mike, Congratulations! Thats a wonderful C Grade Fox.

Wow Mikey you hit a home run on that one! Fabulous wood and engraving. You are going to be dragging alot of guns to the Southern to shoot and tell.:)

Wow,

I see it originally came with a Silvers pad according to the order card. Is the current LOP still the 13 3/4" specified on the order card? I also love the fact that it was factory choked at cylinder and mod. That screams of a gun that was designed for quail over them pointy dogs about 100 years ago.

PS. I'm a big fan of the wood they used as well. Super Super Gun.

Double PS. Fox often lopped off a couple of inches to make those 26" barrelled guns. Long as they track back to the order card they are the still the real McCoy. Love to have that one when shooting just about any upland bird for sure.

I can see why you were able to spot that gun from twenty feet away! What a nice Fox!
You must have been one of the first in the door to get that one!
Thanks for the pics!

Dean, I measured and inspected this gun like I do all of them. The length of the chokes are what made me feel comfortable about the barrels being the original length. Early Philadelphia Foxes have nice long chokes that can be 4 inches or more. The chokes in this one do start about 4 inches back and taper from back to front like they should. If it had ben cut somewhere besides the factory, they wouldn't be that long. Unfortunately, the later Savage era Foxes don't typically have chokes this long. I've got several Sterlingworths with factory chokes that are closer to 2 inches in length. I guess you could say it was an "educated chance" that I took. Much like the Parker serialization book, it's nice to have access to the order cards to validate my assumptions.

Tom, the gun still sports the original 13 3/4 in LOP with the White Line pad. I'm considering replacing the pad with one of the current Silvers pads that are available. I'm closer to a 14 1/4 in LOP, but after shooting it the past two weekends with a jacket and my hunting vest on, I actually haven't minded the shorter length.

Daryl, I'll have quite a few to drag to the Southern this year. If I get my way, I'd like to be toting a nice 12ga Parker Hammer Gun by then. It's next on my wish list after seeing so many at the Fall Southern.

David, I think I was just meant to have this gun. I usually show up at the shows first thing in the morning when I can, before the "low hanging fruit" is snapped up. In this case, my wife was running in a race that Morning, and I couldn't make the show until about 2:00 on Saturday. The dealer said that a few people had looked at it, and three others inquired about buying it while I was standing there taking my measurements. I was certainly surprised to see that it lasted that long on the table.

Mike

Yeah, me too Mike.

I think a lot of gun show attendees lose out on some fine guns thinking they can come back at the end of the day or end of the last day and throw a low-ball price expecting to have their low offer snapped up. NOT SO in a lot of cases... Quality will always sell at its true value.