Fox Collectors

Picked up my SW from Dan Rossiter yesterday. 16 gauge stocked with my wood, to my dimensions. It's a wand. Dan did the stock and the metal work, all of which exceeded my expectations. With new lumber and bluing, she is set for another 97 years!

Very nice! The blank you've chosen has a lot of unique character to it.

Thanks, Bamboozler. The blank had a bright reddish shade to it, and the finished product turned out darker than I had anticipated, which is fine with me. A guy on another board thought that the wood was over the top for a SW. My thought was that one man's "over the top", is another man's "just right"!

A real knockout Jay. Was the wood a semi finished blank? Looks to have 28" tubes? How's she choked?

I have a 16 ga SW, 28" tubes, with a custom stock and and the SST but mine has a checked butt.

Mike

The barrels are 28". Choked .004 / .009. Four weight barrels. Total weight a little over 5 3/4 pounds. The stock blank came from Oregon.

Nice piece of wood. You could always customize the Sterly in the future if you get the itch. No money wasted so far IMO.

Jay that is one unique piece of wood. I don't own a gun that would be worthy of a stick like that.

I particularly like the checkering on the forearm. I think it fits your "custom" very nicely. Somewhat reminds me of an early graded piece. You've turned a likely poor dimensional gun into a beautiful shooting piece. Nice job!

Thanks for all the compliments. Not only was the original stock of poor dimensions, but it was cracked and repaired at the head, and someone had added a beautiful Pachmayr white line pad!

Jay, very nice work indeed by Dan. Oil finish? I know you wrote the old stock had a recoil pad; is that an original hard rubber buttplate, or a Galazan or similar repro? Silvers

Silvers, the finish is Dan's proprietary oil. The butt plate I found on the web, and is supposed to be a reproduction of those found on early 16 and 20 gauge Fox guns. It even came with handling marks pre-installed at no extra charge! Perhaps you can determine from the photo if it is indeed an accurate reproduction. The original stock had been cut down to accommodate the beautiful white line pad. Jay

I was actually up with Dan and saw this stock while is was in shaping stage. Pretty amazing piece of burl Claro for sure as it was light in the butt, but very dense closer to the action and wrist areas which provided strength in the right areas. Dan does nice work indeed and that boy can checker with the best of them. He's got a piece of my wood up there right now and at some point will start carving it up to go on a 20 gauge Sterlingworth.

gorgeous piece of wood on it. looks to be some fine craftsmanship went into it

I saw the finished gun in Dan's shop and was impressed with the concept of a top grade stock on a field used, unrefinished gun. I immediately gave Dan my old 32" Parker VH that had suffered serious damage to the wood in an earlier life. It was a Pennsylvania pigeon gun, with wonderful, original tight bored barrels and safetyless with genuine Lancaster Arms Infallible trigger. It is ready for finish and checkering and will be ready soon. It is a Parker/Becker clone with straight grip, skeleton butt, and ivory inlays. It will be as Jay's Fox, all metal in original field condition, untouched except for the skeleton buttplate, which was "unengraved" to V Grade specs from its original D Grade.

Very nice wood, drop at comb and heel appear to be pretty close.