Cut barrel

[birddog4me]

Hello everyone.

I found a very nice Fox CE in very good condition. But the original barrel was 30", and it was professional cut to 26". Should I be interested in this gun, and at what price. Thank you very much.

[vaturkey]

I wouldn't be at all unless it was a small bore and even then very very discounted.

[Silvers]

JMO, whether a 12 or a smallbore it depends on your possible use and its pricing. If cut 4" there's probably not much if any choke in the tubes. Foxes with cut barrels can be great classy guns for short range quarry or clays, and they have a story to tell. In my mind the key parameters are overall condition, quality of the cut, refit of the keels, centered sight bead, re-cut of the C-Grade rib scallops, and of course the price. frank

[edgood]

and with 4 inches cut off the barrels gun may no longer shoot both barrels to point of aim, thus requiring re regulation, which is a big deal...

[Researcher]

This is a bit off topic, but a 12-gauge Savage-era Fox Sterlingworth Standard showed up on GI and the picture of the muzzle of the said to be 30-inch barrels shows a gap between the tubes and clearly a keel.

138693 01 30-inch.jpg (52.27 KiB) Viewed 1134 times

May be a nail for the coffin of the old mantra that if there is a gap between the tubes, they have been cut.

[Silvers]

and with 4 inches cut off the barrels gun may no longer shoot both barrels to point of aim, thus requiring re regulation, which is a big deal...

Regarding "regulation" we're not talking here about double rifles. As many know I had tapered choke reamers made to Fox specs and have opened the chokes on about 25 Fox barrels. That's done from the breech end with a long drive rod and the reamer is double-piloted in the bore and accordingly it cuts true with the bore. After that work and looking in the muzzle end, you can see the new reamed finish and if the last 4" or so are concentric with the leade into the choke, and I have yet to see one that wasn't. I know that's kind of technical but in layman terms that means that last 4" or so are not canted to "regulate" the shot charge from the right and left barrels. That's done farther back from the muzzle as the tubes were aligned/soldered in a fixture and then the ribs soldered on.

Another consideration is that the individual barrels on double-guns (that haven't been cut) will usually shoot to different centers points of impact when using different shotshells, and even when firing the same shotshell but from a factory production "lot" made at another date. I wrote about that separately here in the past.

Armchair theory aside, ime properly cutting 4" off the end of A H Fox barrels and redoing the muzzles is very unlikely to affect the "regulation" any more than using different shotshells will do that.

Now I do know that some very few Foxes and other makers both vintage and modern were made with ill aligned tubes through inattention or human error, and they will require special work to correct. But that's beyond the theme of this post.

frank

[birddog4me]

I wanted to thank everyone for your advice and valuable information. There is so much to be learned about Fox shotguns. The wealth of knowledge on this forum is outstanding. Sometimes there is a lot to consider when purchasing a Fox. Thank you again for all your help. Victor

[edgood]

frank, with regard to doublegun regulation...you claim barrel regulation was/is achieved more than 4" back from muzzles, when barrels are joined...

it is my understanding from a custom gunmaker, that barrels are first joined from breeches to about 4" from muzzles...a jig is then utilized to clamp the muzzles for test firing or regulation to insure both barrels fire to the same point of aim at a specified distance, typically, 30 yards...then, after the barrels are regulated, the last 4" or so are joined...

perhaps, if we have any custom gunmakers here, they will join in and describe their methodolgy for barrel regulation...

[Silvers]

I report here only what I've personally observed while re-choking 26 Fox barrels and 42 of their tubes, some only wanted one choke done. Also let's remember that Foxes were production guns with well over 100,000 guns made. And while the earlier Super-Foxes and some Graded guns per order were test fired for pattern efficiencies (percentage) I've looked over thousands of Fox Graded Record Cards and have never seen one that specified barrel "regulation" testing or some similar term. I suppose there could be a few but I haven't seen any. Bottom line, the Fox companies were in a competitive market and didn't have the time nor inclination to be firing guns to check/adjust barrel convergence. On the other hand, custom double-gun makers and retubing gents have way more time and often picky customers and hence they do what they do. frank

[edgood]

it makes sense, that in a production environment, not a lot of time would be spent in adjusting doublegun shotgun barrels to shoot to a similar point of aim at a specified distance...