Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny Graft
Tom..... it was the gun sold on G.B. I have been looking for a Philly 16ga. SW with ejectors since you posted this thread. I want to have a Fox gun done for me. I have looked and looked at all the fine guns originals and up-grades but never could find the perfect one, always some issue about the gun. Its time do one just for me. I got a good buy for a clean gun with minty barrels choked F/F for this project. It will be here next week to inspect. My dog Ruby will grace the belly of this one too. Ruby is my first setter dog and first bird dog I ever owned, she is part of our family. She is a solid grouse dog that only needs more bird contact. This gun will have birds and landscapes. Color case metals, twin ivories and skelitin but plate. What you think about a parker hinge pin? That would look kool....(-: SEE RUBY
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Parker Hinge pin is certainly doable. Dewey Vicknair did a custom Fox a few years ago (12 gauge) where he made side plates and did a Parker style hinge pin. Pretty amazing gun. The first Sterlingworths (12 gauge only) all incorporated a Parker style hinge pin because they used leftover frames from Philadelphia Arms. Whomever you get to shape the metal will no doubt have ideas on what can be done. I utilized Dan Rossiter at Custom Stocks and Steel. If you take a look at his website you can see lots of custom Foxes with varying degree's of metal shaping. Believe Doug Mann has also done more then a few as well. The only word of caution is expect it to take a while. The Abby gun was 3+ year project. Many long poles in the tent, but I'd say the longer one include having an idea of what engraver you want to use and see if you can get in his que right away. Most of the good ones are backed up for 18 months or more. Heck, I believe both Dan and Doug are backed up that long as well for the stockmaking/metal shaping process.
PS. I think you can expect your gun to come in right about 6 lbs. It will lose some weight in the metal shaping process, but may gain some weight during the stock making process (unless you are going to a straight stock) because you will probably have some figured walnut (which weighs more) and may have to have a longer length of pull then what was the norm back when that gun was made. Think the Abby gun started out a 7 lb 5 oz and ended up at 6 lb 14 oz.
Custom gun projects are fun. Nice to design something from start to finish and have control of the entire project. I decided on the metal shaping, picked out my own walnut and stock style and checkering pattern and then took months and months just trying to decide exactly how I wanted it engraved. Nice tribute to a great dog and even when she's gone I'll still always her a piece of her with me every time I take the gun into the field.
Double PS. One additional small piece of advice, and that's go high end on the walnut. Some folks don't care much about engraving, but everyone cares about high grade walnut. You can spot it clear across a room and it gives a gun life and pizazz. IMO the Abby gun would have looked nice with the case colors and zero engraving because everything else flows nicely and I found a really nice piece of English with consistent figuring on both sides. Quartersawn wood IMO is more consistent from side to side then slabsawn, and that's why I selected the blank I did for the Abbygun.
09-06-2013, 10:35 AM
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