Fox Collectors

Building a custom Fox.
Have several donor Sterlingworths to select from.
Would you opt for ejectors or extractors. I have both.
In this day and age, for partridge (grouse) ejectors aren’t a necessity. Not like there will be flurries of birds. Besides, from an ecological standpoint, pulling out empties instead of searching for them after in the leaves on the ground after they left the gun is the better way.

Pros of extractors: Looking at the long term, the pros for extractors seems to be less parts to go wrong/break.
Extractor Foxes close easier than ejector Foxes.
Less wood removed from the fore-end, stronger, especially with snap on for-end of the Sterlingworth.
Pros of ejectors: cool factor. Although I believe there were way less extractor graded guns than ejector guns.

Not concerned with resale since I will be dead when that comes and wont give a hoot if none of my family wants to keep it and if you undertake one of these upgrades, recouoing your money isn’t a practical expectation anyway.
Thoughts??

.......... you bring up all very good points, on both sides.

I would go for the ejectors..... cool factor I guess. 95% of the time I eject the hulls into my hand rather than looking for them in the leaves.

t

I wrestled with the same issue. Dan Rossiter currently has my 16 gauge sterlingworth with ejectors and a second set of barrels that I bought in the white. As soon as the weather breaks I'm going up for a stock fitting.

I also agonized over whether I should use a Sterlingworth as my donor gun and not an A, due to the forend release but in the end I could not justify using a small bore graded gun as a platform for an upgrade project. I do have a 12 gauge AE that might go under the knife if I ever win the lottery though!

I've got one ejector upgrade (12 gauge) and one extractor upgrade (20 gauge). 20 gauge is in the white awaiting engraving from Bob Strosin. If I had to do it all over again I'd probably go ejector for the 20 gauge because the gun itself is fairly common (26" barrels). I actually had a 20 gauge ejector Sterlingworth I was going to use and someone talked me out of it saying that I shouldn't butcher up a ejector 20 gauge for a custom and also citing that the extractor guns were basically indestructible because there are fewer working parts as compared to the ejector gun and if I was in the middle of nowhere and the ejector gun broke etc etc. All that said, I wish now I'd used the ejector 20 gauge instead of the extractor. I do think there it is the cool factor of watching the shells fly out. PS. I've got a 30" ejector 16 gauge Sterlingworth that is in really nice shape with lots of case color. I couldn't make myself use that for a custom. If it was a silver gun I'd not think much about using it for sure. FWIW, my somewhat crazy goal is to have three different customs in three different gauges. 20 gauge for hunting up and down mountains chasing grouse/woodcock. 12 gauge for hunting out west and/or turkey hunting back east with RST's. Then the 16 gauge will be used for everything in between. At least its a rational theory in my mind.

I like the way you think!

In my experience (except for just a couple of uses) ejectors add nothing except expense. They increase the potential for problems.

But if you want them on your dream gun by all means get them.

After all, in sporting guns it is all a matter of preference, not logic.


Best,

Mike

Ejectors add weight if you are building a really light smallbore. Bobby

My present Fox upgrade gun is being built as a Becker style pigeon gun. In the early days, many true pigeon guns were extractor guns. The most "cool factor" pigeon guns were Parkers with no extension rib. They are all extractor guns and were specially built without the extension rib for ease of loading and unloading. My Becker clone Fox is an early A grade. I used the A grade because of the Deeley forend release. On second thought, it may have been cooler with a snap off forend. My upgraded Becker style Parker pigeon gun is also an extractor gun. I guess you know where I'm going with this.

well, after much thought and the realization that I had a better gun to do a stock on than the 26" sterly ejector gun, I am going to put the 20 Ga C grade engraved Sterlingworth S&U back to where it needs to be. Ill keep you posted.
The upgrade is now going to be a 28" 20 Ga. Sterlingworth that I have the ejector parts for and will convert to ejectors and do the full upgrade.
Thanks for the advice

Brian,

Is the 20 Ga. Sterlingworth an ejector gun itself? It seems not, as you say that you have the ejector parts for it and will convert it to ejectors. But, what confuses me is the receiver itself. How do you plan to convert a non-ejector receiver to an ejector receiver? I may be showing my ignorance here (probably am), but did not think this could be done reasonably. I have an A grade receiver onto which I had a set of new, unfitted Fox 32" ejector barrels fitted. The gunsmith who fitted them informed me that I had a non-ejector receiver and that he could not make the ejectors function as such, but that they would function as extractors just fine, which they do. Now, we did not talk about whether or not my extractor receiver could be converted to an ejector receiver, or not, but I assumed it could not.

What are your plans concerning this? Maybe Frank, or some of our other knowledgeable members can help out here, as well.

All my best, SRH

Can an ejector be converted to an extracor?

I ask this for the same reason as mentioned above, to keep from looking on the ground for spent shells in the grouse woods.


Vernal Pike

You could remove ejector springs. Bobby