Fox Collectors

This my first post.
I just purchased a 1927 Fox with two sets of barrels.
One is an 24 inch set of barrels.
How common is 24 inch barrels?
Would this have been a special order?
Thanks
Kent

SCFox wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:59 pm This my first post.
I just purchased a 1927 Fox with two sets of barrels.
One is an 24 inch set of barrels.
How common is 24 inch barrels?
Would this have been a special order?
Thanks
Kent

Never say never, but I've only heard of a couple of factory 24" barrels ever. If those 24" barrels have zero choke, I'd assume they were cut at some point in time. PS. Since that gun is a Sterlingworth I'd say the odds of those 24" barrel being original are close to zero.

24 inches would make a heck of a grouse or woodcock gun as long as you could shoot it with such short barrels.

The shortest I've got is a 25 inch Ithaca/SKB 280E in 20 gauge choked IC/IC which is a great rainy day gun and all around good bunny gun.

Welcome.

I'm 99.44% sure that 24-inch Sterlingworth barrels were cut after market. The Sterlingworth was an entry-level gun made to "standard" specifications. The factory strongly discouraged such out of the norm items for the Sterlingworth. From the 1927 A.H. Fox Gun Co. catalog --
You can get a letter on the gun from Cody to see how it left North 18th Street.

https://centerofthewest.org/explore/fir ... ds/savage/

Detailed measuring of the bores and chokes will likely confirm the barrels were cut.

A handful of 24-inch barrel graded (A- to FE-Grade) Ansley H. Fox doubles are shown in the surviving production cards.