I stumbled on this 16 ga. Sterlingworth when picking up another gun (a 20 LC, i sheepishly admit). It's been refinished of course, but looks nice and shoots well...dropped a pheasant a couple hours after I picked it up and before I had the bores opened to Skeet 1 and Improved, a favorite combination that even brings down Old Squaws (did that with my identically choked 16 ga. hammer Bayard a couple of days ago)
It weighs 6.4 lbs. per my scale, and is on a 20 ga. frame, ergo it fits nicely into one of Jeff Outfitters compact cases for the 20/28 with a 28 inch barrel. Couldn't resist putting on a label for the case.
Probably going to be a favorite gun...lighter than the LC Smith 20 ga. field, and ironically the same weight and feel as my Knickerbocker 16 ga. which a friend gave me long ago and I'm now treating with more respect.
So, thought I'd share it...will shoot low pressure loads in it and 2.5's from now on.
This link might work...worked in the preview for me. Edited a few of the photos for slightly better quality...ergo some duplicates.
https://picasaweb.google.com/1003949887 ... Juci7_31AE
Copy and paste it if necessary[/img]
First Fox: 16 ga. Sterlingworth
Re: First Fox: 16 ga. Sterlingworth
My first fox was a model B 410 guage.I was around 10 years old when my mother told me that the shotgun that my father stored in his closet was for me. She explained that my father had purchased the 410 Fox when she was pregnant. When my mother asked my father why he had purchased the gun, he explained that he had bought it "for the baby, if the baby turned out to be a boy". To this day, don't know if that was the truth or a convenient excuse, but either way, my mother held my father to his claim and I acquired the Fox 10 years later.as I boy, I hunter rabbits and squirrels in the woods behind our home. I also went hunting with my uncles, and the little Fox went along. I still have the Fox, and it was the first shotgun that my son fired when I began taking him to shoot sporting clays. I now have a few more vintage side by sides to keep the 410 company on the rack; an A grade in 12 g, and 16 g, Philadelphia Sterlingworth, and two more model Bs, in 12 and 20, along with a couple of LC Smiths and a Ruger Gold Label. I'll keep that little Fox as long as I live, and I hope my son will do the same when I'm gone.thanks Dad, and Mom. 
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MARSHFELLOW
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Re: First Fox: 16 ga. Sterlingworth
Nice.
IN GOD WE TRUST. SPE Skeet & Uplands and AH Fox vent rib guns a specialty
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Silvers
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Re: First Fox: 16 ga. Sterlingworth
Fox Fan, what a great story. Thanks for sharing with us.
I often think of my parents' neighbor Mr. K who got me into Fox guns. Mr. K was a semi-disabled coal miner who kept beagles and he somehow scraped together enough money for a 12 gauge Sterlingworth. How I admired that gun when he let me handle it after coming back from hunting! I was a pre teen at the time and I often heard Mr. K say his Fox was the finest gun in the world. I believed him then, and today I would say his statement/Fox design is very very close to the truth. It was more than a decade later when I learned that was Fox's advertising slogan.
That was when hunting rabbits on the outskirts of our small town wouldn't precipitate a 911 call like it would today. Hunters would also hang rabbits and other game on the clothespole or porch to age and tenderize the meat. Game wasn't shot except to eat. Mr. K passed years ago and one of their daughters moved to the home to care for Mrs K until she passed too. She still lives there. I stop and visit her once in a while when I'm in the area, and once asked whatever happened to her Dad's Fox shotgun? Seems that one of the sons in law got it. I sure hope he or one of his kids still has that old Fox. Silvers
I often think of my parents' neighbor Mr. K who got me into Fox guns. Mr. K was a semi-disabled coal miner who kept beagles and he somehow scraped together enough money for a 12 gauge Sterlingworth. How I admired that gun when he let me handle it after coming back from hunting! I was a pre teen at the time and I often heard Mr. K say his Fox was the finest gun in the world. I believed him then, and today I would say his statement/Fox design is very very close to the truth. It was more than a decade later when I learned that was Fox's advertising slogan.
That was when hunting rabbits on the outskirts of our small town wouldn't precipitate a 911 call like it would today. Hunters would also hang rabbits and other game on the clothespole or porch to age and tenderize the meat. Game wasn't shot except to eat. Mr. K passed years ago and one of their daughters moved to the home to care for Mrs K until she passed too. She still lives there. I stop and visit her once in a while when I'm in the area, and once asked whatever happened to her Dad's Fox shotgun? Seems that one of the sons in law got it. I sure hope he or one of his kids still has that old Fox. Silvers
Last edited by Silvers on Mon Dec 24, 2012 7:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: First Fox: 16 ga. Sterlingworth
Silver, I agree with your comment about the 911 call. In those days, folks thought nothing of a young man rooming through the back yards tht adjoined our own, with a shotgun at the ready. I lived in a suburban neighborhood, but the neighbors new me and trusted that I would handle the firearm safely. Times were different, that's for sure.
Despite the violence in our society, and the tragedies that are commited by deranged men with rifles and handguns, I hope that gun laws will never prohibit young men and women having the opportunity to bond with their elders while hunting or target shooting. I wouldn't trade the memories I have of hunting with my father and uncles when I was a boy, or years later, the memories of taking my own son clays shooting, for anything. I hope the tradition will continue.
Merry Christmas to All!
Despite the violence in our society, and the tragedies that are commited by deranged men with rifles and handguns, I hope that gun laws will never prohibit young men and women having the opportunity to bond with their elders while hunting or target shooting. I wouldn't trade the memories I have of hunting with my father and uncles when I was a boy, or years later, the memories of taking my own son clays shooting, for anything. I hope the tradition will continue.
Merry Christmas to All!