I've had some questions on my Fox J Grade SBT gun that's in the pic with Dave. She has some history. Record card shows shipment in the early 1920's to George A Emmons, a shooter of some note at Washington DC and MD area clubs. I've been told that Mr Emmons shot with gents like the then Col Billy Mitchell, early advocate of military air power. The Fox was found in about 2009 with a bunch of vintage military rifles at an old shop in Maryland; and it had been rather crudely converted from the original half-grip configuration to a straight grip with narrow wrist. Trigger guard tang had been straightened for that work.
I bought her at a show in CT after missing it in the back of a rack, and then getting a heads up by friends Steve and Paul. I had the original stock reverted to half-grip style by Craig Libhart of Susquehanna Stockworks. Craig spliced a piece of matching Turkish onto the toe line of the stock, checkered the new wrist, and installed a NOS Hawkins pad. Stock now measures 1-5/8 by 1-7/8 by 14-1/2" LOP. Metalwork is all original with loads of bluing wear from shooting but lever is way right and the barrel is still tight as a tick on the breech face. 32-incher with double ivories and 42 points of choke. This one and a couple of other Fox SBT's I've studied and measured has a "tight" chamber similar to the earlier Super-Fox guns, undoubtedly to center the shell for a good repeatable start to the shot charge. Bore is bright as a mirror and doesn't vary more than 1/2 thou in diameter along its entire run.
Not much to look at as compared to a high condition SBT, but over the years she's sure been in some good hands at neat places. And she'll still turn clays to diesel smoke when I do my part. All told, I'm honored to let friends like Steve, Paul, Dave, etc shoot her.
06-09-2015, 09:18 PM
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