PARKERS IN THE RAIN

[J. A. EARLY]

I have a 3" PVC tube with a cap glued on one end and an expandable cap on the other end, cut to 40". I buy a gallon of WD40 (water displacing oil) and fill it up. All available at Lowes. If the barrels get soaked on a double, I take them and with a wire attached place them in the WD40. After a while I pull them out and let them drip as much back into the tube as possible. Then I hang them and later wipe the rest off. That way I am pretty sure that the oil had displaced any water, even inside the ribs. If you know there are voids in the ribs, as Foxes are famous for, I blow them with an air compressor and repeat.

[Cold Spring]

Originally Posted by Jerry Harlow

...... If you know there are voids in the ribs, as Foxes are famous for, I blow them with an air compressor and repeat.

So I have to ask, Jerry, about your data base and furthermore if you've seen that claim in print as famous/well known faults usually are, and if so, where? I've been into Fox guns since I was a kid and have a good technical base on all things Fox. Plus I've been around many knowledgeable Fox men for many years, and have never heard anything like that - nor would I subscribe to it.

[J. A. EARLY]

Originally Posted by Frank Srebro

So I have to ask, Jerry, about your data base and furthermore if you've seen that claim in print as famous/well known faults usually are, and if so, where? I've been into Fox guns since I was a kid and have a good technical base on all things Fox. Plus I've been around many knowledgeable Fox men for many years, and have never heard anything like that - nor would I subscribe to it.

Frank,

From rebluing Savage-era Foxes (SWs I rescue from the grave); put one in the boiling tank and rust blue it a half dozen times and then blow air through the weep hole. You just ruined a good bluing job with oil streaks coming from the rib. Not all, and probably not early Foxes or high grade ones, but it does happen. Just thin solder in spots. Take a late Fox (because they have the weephole), put it in water displacing oil until it stops bubbling through the hole, wipe it clean, and put a little air (not 120 lbs.) to the weephole. Watch where it comes out. Parker not so much but I have had them also. But with no weephole in most Parkers I can't say what percentage but very low.

Probably the best gunsmith I have used told me never to drill a weephole to blue barrels. But he changed his mind when on a top quality gun he was relaying the ribs and found there was so much rust and pitting where water had been seeping in for years or from a previous bluing job..

My post was an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'll keep my help to myself in the future.