Fox & Grouse

[Upland Hunter]

Annual trip to the big woods with old friends. Spectacular weather in camp. Enjoyed the northern lights one evening.

[44whiskey]

looks like great trip,thanks for posting

[Sporrns]

Thanks for the beautiful pictures! The "gun and bird" photo is poetic, the dogs are "lets go!! and the Northern Lights shot is wonderful. I got to see a little sliver of them in Canada on a duck hunting trip a few years ago - very impressive! Kevin

[Jeff S]

Great picture with your Sterlingworth and the birds. It would look good in the newsletter.

[Upland Hunter]

Jeff, Thank you. The Fox shown in an early A grade 12 gauge with original chokes pretty well suited for grouse hunting.

[Jeff S]

Jeff, Thank you. The Fox shown in an early A grade

Thanks. If I had zoomed in I would have noticed the half pistol grip. Hard to pick out the engraving, the pistol grip should have done it for me. Those are great guns. I own an early A 16 ga.

[Foxnut]

Upland Hunter,
As Kevin said the gun and bird pic is great! Really good color, contrast and definition. Looks like an awesome trip. Have you hunted the same general location over the years or do you try different areas/regions?

[Upland Hunter]

Have enjoyed hunting in a half dozen counties each season for the past few decades. Some locations get visited every few years. Had fun this weekend hunting several spots which were all new to me yet were within an hour of one of my usual spots. Moved a decent number of grouse yet only one woodcock over the past few days. Worried about the woodcock population numbers at present.

A Grade shown from this weekend.

[44whiskey]

that is a lovely A grade, spacer appears to be wedge shaped suggesting a change in pitch.did you have this done and if so what benifits did you achieve. thanks for posting

[Upland Hunter]

The gentleman who installed the pad was very understanding of my desire to maintain the original stock without modification in the placement of the pad. The spacer was needed to add some length and to preserve the originality of the stock. This also allowed some adjustment for pitch. Very pleased with the result and the gun fits me quite well with the care shown in this custom work.

Original image shown below before modification.

[Silvers]

Just an observation: in addition to the LOP it looks like Upland's tapered spacer increased the pitch from whatever it was with the HRBP, and thus the Fox will shoot a little lower. Me? I measure and pay attention to pitch on serious shotguns and often have to do the opposite to reduce the pitch for my shooting style; in other words the thick part of the tapered spacer is at the toe not at the comb line. Again, that depends on how you mount, hold and cheek the stock. Anyway, gun pitch is important for good shooting and so few gents seem to think about it when buying a gun and/or evaluating how it shoots for you. A spacer with or without a taper can easily be done by a good stock man and without altering the stock on a high condition collector Fox or whatever. frank