Very early A Grade

[Silvers]

So, while at the Northeast SxS this friend Harold comes by and casually mentions he recently found a real early AE, straight gripper with 32-inch barrels. Of course he knows that will get my heart to kick into passing gear. Here are some pics of the gun taken out in the parking area, on the seat of my shooting cart and in the sun. Not the best pics but you'll get the idea. This friend asked me to post some pics and here they are.

Serial number 106 with many later Fox refinements: Russell patent ejectors, Savage era cross-brace in the forend, Chicopee Falls 1-weight 32-inch pipes. Buttstock was replaced I believe with a newer Fox stock. An interesting gun. Mix & match but ready to shoot. Here ya go Harold.

[CJB964]

neat one. Would a letter give any insight into whether the refinements were done at the factory?

[Silvers]

Charlie, no factory record card data available for almost all Fox guns < s/n 10,000. And while Savage probably kept repair records, they were lost in the mists of time. At this point it's a "best guess" scenario.

[dino24]

Thanks,Frank

[Researcher]

With the Chicopee Falls barrel address, we know it was rebarreled between 1947 and 1960. By 1961 Savage/Stevens/Fox had moved to the new factory at Westfield, Mass.

I have a bunch of pictures of that gun, and it has the 1911, and later, style F.T. Russell ejectors, so it appears to me it was back to the factory at an earlier time as well to be retrofitted with ejectors. To my eyes that stock does not appear to be factory work, either Philadelphia, Utica or Chicopee Falls. So, the receiver is of 1905 vintage, the forearm and ejector mechanism of sometime after 1911, the barrels from the late 1940s or the 1950s, and the stock who knows! Oh, if these old guns could only talk!!