Fox Collectors

Last month I bought a drawbolt Sterlingworth on GunBroker (see the picture section on this forum for a picture). Today at the Richmond gun Show I saw another one. It had some mechanical and wood problems and the seller was asking too much for it, so I passed.

The crazy thing was it was serial number 133897, exactly one number higher than the one I got last month! I've never seen that in all my years of gun collecting (accumulating?). Even with the poor condition and high price, I was tempted to buy it just to have consecutively numbered guns.

(For those of you who don't know, a drawbolt Sterlingworth is one made with a long bolt running through the stock from the rear to hold the buttstock to the frame. They are easily identified by the wider straight frame tang with a machine screw at the end.)

I've read somewhere that probably less than 200 of the draw bolt Sterlingworths were made by Savage. I may never see another one for sale, but I thought it pretty odd that I've seen two in the past two months.....

I've read somewhere that probably less than 200 of the draw bolt Sterlingworths were made by Savage. I may never see another one for sale, but I thought it pretty odd that I've seen two in the past two months.....

From the serial number spread of those I've recorded you could very likely put a 2 in front of that number.

thanks for that information, i did not know what drawbolt was,learned something today

Researcher wrote:

I've read somewhere that probably less than 200 of the draw bolt Sterlingworths were made by Savage. I may never see another one for sale, but I thought it pretty odd that I've seen two in the past two months.....

From the serial number spread of those I've recorded you could very likely put a 2 in front of that number.

I got that "less than 200" number from Tom Kidd's Spring 1997 DGJ article. He referenced Roe Clark and Mitze Bielin who were Savage workers at the time and they believed that between 100 and 200 Drawbolt Sterlies were made. Frank Srebro stated in his Winter 2014 DGJ article that the Drawbolt guns are found randomly in the 132454 to 133924 serial range and also at random between the 143xxx and 161xxx range.

Dave, I also suspect the actual number is greater than 200 but I don't have any data to back that up. What is your best estimate of the number of Drawbolt Sterlingworths produced?

All the guns I've recorded in the 133xxx serial number range are drawbolts and the serial numbers range from 133022 to the 133897 you just saw. All the guns I've recorded in the 143xxx serial number range are drawbolts and the serial numbers range from 143095 to 143815. The final block is 26-inch barrel guns from 161380 to 161520. I have not recorded a regular frame gun in these ranges.

The guns I've recorded in the 132xxx range are regular frame guns up to 132589. All the guns I've recorded from 132649 to 132927 are 30-inch guns built on the flat-sided SP-frame.
Years ago I got a letter on 132818, an SP-framed gun, from Roe Clark.
More recently I got a letter on another SP-frame gun from John Callahan --

Very interesting topic! Thanks Dave.

thanks again dave,you are a valuable asset to this group

Thanks Dave, based on your evidence it seems there were many more Drawbolt Sterlingworths made than I originally thought. I guess we can't know the exact number, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than two thousand of them produced.

BTW, if you are keeping track, that Drawbolt Sterly I saw Saturday (#133897) was an extractor gun with 30" barrels and no grip cap.

Here’s another for the records. #133313. 12 ga. 30” M/F extractors, capless PG, standard savage style forend. Picked it up last weekend. Heading to SD tomorrow to chase some pheasants. Interesting that the butt end of the stock also has the serial number stamped in it just above the draw bolt hole.