Fox Collectors

This is the page from the 1914 "Fox Gets the Game" catalogue that gives chambering information and recommends loads for the Ansley H. Fox gun --



A.H. Fox Gun Co. was only recommending 1 1/8 ounce loads in 12-gauge, 1 ounce loads in 16-gauge and 7/8 ounce loads in 20-gauge. On the other hand, from even before the A.H. Fox Gun Co. was founded in 1905, the ammunition factories were pumping out 12-gauge 2 3/4 inch shells with up to 3 1/2 drams of bulk smokeless powder (DuPont, E.C. or Schultze) pushing 1 1/4 ounces of shot or 28 grains of Ballistite or Infallible dense smokeless powder pushing 1 1/4 ounces of shot. Their recommended 16- and 20-gauge loadings are about what the ammunition companies were putting out in 2 9/16 inch 16-gauge shells and 2 1/2 inch 20-gauge shells, but those 12-gauge recommendations are way on the light side.

Aaahhhh, for those simpler days. No digital chronographs, no pressure transducers, no restrictions on lead shot .... you went to the hardware, got a box of X brand shells they kept in stock..... you made two decisions: high or low brass, and shot size. Drams or dram equivalents were a vague, insignificant concept to most. Then you had at it for rabbits, ducks, woodcock, whatever. Hunting for small game here in the east? 6's would do for everything.

Now if I were shooting a 12 gauge Fox back in the day, and read somewhere that they were normally chambered 2-5/8", here's what I'd be getting at the hardware store. Take note of the shell length, also the store's date and cost basis code on the box. There must have been a decent demand for these shorter shells, for Peters to have put them up into the 40's. By 1952 (Stoeger's catalog) the 2-5/8" 12 gauge seems to have been phased out. 2-3/4" in standard 12 gauge were the only ones listed in that issue. But by then 2-3/4" had been standardized for 12 gauge by US arms manufacturers for about 20 years. Silvers

All the U.S. ammunition companies offered the 2 5/8 inch 12-gauge, and 2 1/2 inch 20- and 28-gauge shells until just after WW-II. By 1948 they were disappearing from all the listings. The 2 9/16 inch 16-gauge shells hung on into the early 1960s.