20 Gauge Custom Fox Completed

[tom tutwiler]

Morning all,

Some of you folks who went to the Southern saw this on display on Dan Rossiter's table at Custom Stocks and Steel. For those who didn't I thought you might enjoy some details.

Picked this up from Dan on Sunday evening who did everything from Soup to Nuts. Started life as a Savage made Fox Sterlingworth 20 gauge extractor gun with full/mod 26" barrels. Certainly lots of work and I've posted before on this gun. Details are the gun was restocked in Circassian Walnut I provided to Dan. Extensive metal shaping by Dan to say the least. Metal sculpting pattern was made up by my devious mind and Dan had to figure out how remove a ton of metal and then how to inlet and stock this. Goal was to make a light Grouse/Woodcock gun for trudging up and down Va mountains. Because of the density of the walnut Dan had to remove weight out of the buttstock which was further complicated by this gun having a skeleton buttplate. We went for small beavertail foreend as well so I'd have a bit of something to hand onto and also to give a bit more weight on the front end to make it balance correctly. Gun was made to my dimensions. Barrels were opened up by Mike Orlen to .004 and .012 as I recall and twin ivories added. Gun weighs exactly 6 lbs.

Wonderful engraving by Bob Strosin who I gave pretty simple instructions. Keep it within budget and I wanted some of his super scrollwork and also a Fox with a Grouse in its mouth on the bottom and a Woodcock engraved on the Forearm Escutcheon. Dan removed most of the case coloring so the engraving would pop. This is number 2 of my custom Foxes and my bird gun. My Abby gun has already been mentioned many times before. Have one more in the mix down the road (16 gauge) and that will be my dove gun. Anyway, enjoy the lousy pictures I just took outside. Will take some more down the road.

PS. That's a Parker Repro Case with a Galazan reproduction Fox label. Really works well for this gun although its a bit tight.