HE Super Fox

[Frank Good]

I picked up this 1923 mfg HE Grade, 27xxx serial #, 3" chambers.

The good? Overall the gun is in good condition. Bores are shiny, no pits or dents. Very little colour left on the receiver or outside of forend iron but some left on inside of forend iron. Bluing is very good still with a bit of wear around the muzzles. No pitting or rust on the barrels. Gun locks up tight. Wood is good with a few marks from a lifetime of hunting but no cracks, chips or pieces missing. Checkering is still crisp and the Hawkins pad is not crushed or dried out and cracking. Screws are still timed perfectly and not chewed up. Top lever sits just a little right of centre still. Engravings and barrel stamping is still crisp and sharp.

The bad? Someone shortened the 30" barrels to 28" at some point. I'll have to mic them to see if there is any constriction left. Looking down the inside of the barrels there appears to be an inch or so back from the muzzle where the bore diameter appears to still have some choke taper. There is plenty of meat left for a set of Briley thin walls and I may go that route. There is a few tiny pit marks in the receiver on the right side but the rest is good. The trigger guard bluing is faded in comparison to the barrels and completely worn off on the tang but the engraved serial # on the tang is not worn. The ejector rods have been removed and the previous owner did not have them or even realized they were removed. He never fired the gun. The auto safety(if they were made with one) has also been disabled. It's manual only. The pistol grip cap appears to have been set on or near something hot at one point as it appears to have a divet melted into it but is still intact and fits the pistol grip perfectly.

A good cleanup and a few repairs and this should be a good shooter. Collector status is gone but I wanted a good robust waterfowling piece and at 1/4 the price of an unmolested collector and in Canadian $ not $US this will fill that niche quite nicely! I'll post better pics tomorrow when I have better light.