Fox Collectors

Who is this dapper gent Fox Skeeter shooter pictured in the 1933 Du Pont Skeet Handbook?

Bing Crosby ?

Look at that, when men were men and "low gun" actually meant low gun!!!!

Well Dave, if it's not one thing it's another!!!!!!!!!!.....the neat stuff you come up with. .......o.k., now where's the gun??

I don't recognize him. In the second picture he looks a little like Colonel Askins, but, no, couldn't be. Not shooting skeet.

This gent is certainly older then Askins Jr. would have been in 1933. In three other pictures in the handbook this same gent is shooting a Parker Bros. double with a slim forearm. Perhaps the reason for the big glove on his left hand.

The Fox Skeeter was only priced in the 1931 Retail and Wholesale Price Lists, but Savage used the same retail catalogue from 1931 thru 1934 with the black felt paper cover and the Lynn Bogue Hunt duck hunting scene cover applique.


1931 Retail Catalogue


1931 Wholesale Price List

OK two questions come to mind.
1. Does anyone here own an original Skeeter or has anyone even seen one?
2. Was this a typical SxS skeet gun set-up back in the day. Where the right barrel is choked tighter than the left barrel? I've seen a few guns choked this way and have always wondered why.

In this thread a member shows us a Fox "Skeeter" and the John Callahan letter for it. However, this gun has the smoother Field/Skeet style beavertail rather then the big schnable-style shown in the catalogue and that the gent is shooting in the 1933 DuPont Skeet Handbook. I have heard of a couple of others. While the Fox "Skeeter" is rather scarce, the SPR-Grade Skeet & Upland Game Gun, shown only in 1936 paper is probably rarer.

http://foxcollectors.com/My%20Forum/php ... php?t=1161

My later Skeet & Upland Game Guns are more open in the right barrel. I have two Ithaca skeet guns from the 1936 time frame and the 12-gauge is choked .009" right and .016" left and the 20-gauge is .008" right and .014" left. Certainly a lot more then any of my Browning Superposed New Model Skeet Guns.

Researcher,
Thanks I had forgotten about the post you gave the link to. I'd still be interested in knowing how many of the skeeters were actually made and sold? These have to be pretty rare finds when you come across one.

I'm sure not a skeet authority, but I think the chokes were sometimes referred to as "skeet in" and "skeet out." Since the away, or "out", bird is typically shot first in the double, the first barrel would (could) be choked tighter.

Maybe some makers felt this was a bit of over-analysis and used the conventional right-open, left-tight. But it does seem, if you're going to use two different chokes, you'd want the first barrel tighter. I once owned a very early superposed marked Sk/Sk that measured .012/.012. I think cylinder is not uncommon these days.

The 2-choke concept for skeet was probably a combination of early shotshell performance and naivete, something like the fascination with barrel porting that seems to have peaked and, thankfully, waned in recent years.

There are some guns choked with the right barrel tighter than the left. Some of these were used for driven birds. The first shot is taken out front and the second would be at less distance. The only driven birds I have personaly experienced were flushed at me by my trusty lab. Much cheaper that way!

Researcher,

I agree with your position that the SPR is way way up there on the Fox rarity scale. I have only seen ONE in thirty years of collecting. I've heard of one other....never substantiated.

In my opinion I believe the SPR is the rarest Fox grade ever produced in all three gauges....the fabled G grade not withstanding.

Your thoughts????

The SPR-Grade on our A.H. Fox Collectors Association, Inc. table at Las Vegas is the only one I've ever seen, and a 16-gauge to boot!!