Fox Collectors

So, some of my buds and I shot yesterday at one of the local sporting courses using the tightest chokes we have. They all have screw choke guns, but did a test of sorts and put in their I-Mod and Full choke tubes. Normally they use IC's or maybe Lt Mod tightest. I used a Super Fox choked > 50 points in both barrels. Results? We all were on par with our usual scores, minus about 5-6 birds out of 100 birds per shooter. Interesting, all of the shooters started out losing some close birds on the first 25, but by the last 25, almost everyone was straight.

You have a tight choked Fox sitting idle in the safe? Take her out to the skeet or sporting course some day. You'll need an open, see what happens attitude of course! You might be surprised how well you do. Silvers

L to R
Rem 1100, Beretta, Browning, Beretta, K20 Krieghoff, Super Fox


This Super spent her time in a waterfowl blind! 32 incher, 3-INCH chambered with single Kautzky in rear position. She's never been apart as best I can tell and not a single malfunction in 100 shots. Fox sure put together some reliable guns!


One shot at 20 yards on a piece of slab wood with the Super. Shot was with the right barrel and torqued a bit right. No sloppy hits! Ya hit em or ya miss em; and if you miss you better figure out why.

Frank: I shot sporting yesterday with my SF in 20-30mph gusty winds. It was a hunter course so the targets are set close (kinda like Ernie's) . Man it was ugly, besides having no pattern the clays were wiggling all over, the guys with open chokes did fine but I picked the wrong gun for the day. Normally I like to shoot clays with my SF just to ink ball targets but yesterday was mostly just complete misses. Oh well at least I looked good with that big old Fox.

Craig, hey is that cool er what? Probably the only two Supers in the world that shot yesterday. We didn't have any wind hereabouts. Pretty calm and no funky bird trajectories to contend with. Also, targets were set more conventionally than at Ernie's. Readers, check out that pic of the slab wood. The bulk of the pattern is only about 8" diameter at 20 yards. I was telling my buds, the close targets reminded me of shooting at dragonflies with my BB gun when I was a kid. Frank

I too like to take out my old long barreled tightly choked 16 gauge Foxes to shoot clays. I use shells loaded with fiber wads and no shot cups to replicate the ammunition that these old guns were designed to shoot and have found that I can shoot equally poorly with a tight choke as I can with an open choke, however, one Sterlingworth with 30 inch barrels is showing particular promise.

I measured a 1913 Sterly today .722 bores and .035 choke in each barrel and it is a 28" gun. Smallest bore I have measured and how about those chokes in a field gun??

I've not used my Super for SCs, yet, but I frequently use an early 32" A choked IM/F, a 32" SW choked F/XF, and two 16 ga Husky hammer guns choked XF/XF and F/F. Nice to hear my shooting buddy comment "you sure smoked that one". I believe using tight choked guns will make me a better shooter.

Haven't gotten the courage to use any of the above guns for skeet though since need all the help I can get for that.

Mike

I shoot SC once per year and as long as we're not keeping score why not shoot whatever gun you've got? My Standard A5 16ga has a full choke of over .030" and gets smokeballs when it's pointed correctly--not so good when it's not. This year I've got a Full/Full Lefever 12ga to try out, and since they're so easy to assemble I'll be adding spred-R reloads to see what kind of difference, if any, they make. I've not bought factory-loaded Spred-R rounds but no reason a person couldn't do so if scores matter to some degree.

My early A Grade Fox 12ga is choked .042 and .044, and I've shot my last several rounds of clays with that gun. Some of those crossing patterns give me fits with it, but it's nice to be able to reach out and touch those long ones. Much like Mike, I tell myself that shooting with the extra full chokes is going to improve my shooting. Jury's still out on that one.

I imagine a few rounds of sporting clays per year constitutes "high volume shooting" for an 80+ yr old SxS. If they were field guns I'd bet many of them came to us with far <1000 rounds thru them. Which is my way of introducing a heads up regarding cleanliness if you're a target shooter with a Fox. On two occasions (coincidentally, at consecutive NE Classic shoots) I had potentially dangerous trigger malfunctions with my big Fox. The first was a simple failure to reset a trigger. There's a fine line between a trigger that does not reset and one that resets in a dangerous "hair trigger" mode. I experienced that distinction on the second occasion which was a slam fire that left a considerable divit in front of the Bo Whoop stand.

Upon disassembly, I discovered the problem was grains of unburned Red Dot that had migrated through the frame opening for the hammers and settled at the lowest, rearmost vicinity of the action....under the triggers.

I abandoned the New & Improved, 50% Cleaner Burning Red Dot (no longer very, very dirty....now just very dirty) in favor of E3 the "World's Cleanest Powder." Says so on the can. I'm pleased to say I've had no recurrences, nor any appreciable dirt in the action, from a little over 9,000 E3 rounds. I used to be in the camp that thought dirty powder was a moot issue with break open guns, but no longer.

Very interesting Mike.......thanx.

tjw

Yeah, I agree with Tom. That's great information, and something I never thought about. Thanks.

Your an evil man Frank!! Your post caused me to haul my Super-Fox to the gun club yesterday and shot two really dismal rounds of skeet with it. I believe this is the first time its been shot since 2003. Then got a 21 shooting a round of doubles at all stations!?! Blind hog gets an occasional acorn!!

Hey Dave, that sounds pretty good to me. A couple of warmups then a 21 bird doubles round. And I'll bet you made some of the birds turn into diesel smoke..... a lot more impressive than chippies. Yeah I know a chip is still an X but those smokers usually carry over to the post-shooting chit chat in the clubhouse.

Having recently re-read Nash Buckinghams "Are we shooting 8 gauge guns?", he claimed to have shot a 98X100 round of skeet with his Super Fox. Was he that good or did he never let the truth get in the way of a good story?