Fox Collectors

Last year I purchased an XE 20 which had an issue with firing the right side. The right side hammer would not consistently fire. My initial assumption was that the single trigger was misoperating. Operating the hammers with the barrels removed showed that the right hammer was not cocking every time.

After much trepidation I decided to remove the trigger plate and trigger assembly. I found the trigger sear spring had broken. The "tine" on the right side had failed. The sears rely on this spring to insure positive engagement with the hammers. The sears may rotate into the cocked position on their own without the spring but not reliably. The sear spring can be replaced without removing the sears and butt stock. However I chose to disassemble and clean the entire action. After replacing the sear spring the gun works as designed. The Fox design uses coil springs instead of leaf springs wherever possible as coil springs are more reliable.

There are several threads in the site archives which I found invaluable in resolving this issue. My thanks to the previous posters for their advice.








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Bill looks like you did a great job. Bobby

Did you get the new spring from Jason @ Pumpkin Mt?

Jason has been very helpful when I need something. I actually had this spring on hand so to speak. The smallbore gun sear springs are different than 12 bore gun sear springs.

Bill, thanks for taking the time to post. Nice repair and good pics.

Just to confirm what xewizzard has written, the hammer sear springs are indeed different for 12 gauge and 16/20. There are small dimensional differences and while a 12 ga spring will fit loosely and usually work on a small bore, the small bore spring may not fit over the boss in the frame of a 12-gauge and even then it may affect the trigger pulls. It's possible that Savage/Utica just used 12 gauge size springs for all gauges and may have even machined all of the bosses to the same width, but earlier Philly guns will be seen with two sear spring sizes for 12 or 16/20.

PS I once posted this info on another board in reply to a question and one of the regulars there jumped all over me, said they're all the same and discounted my input. His site comrade chimed in and soundly backed the gent. I mention this to illustrate that people needing a new sear spring may find contradictory information on the net. Also wanted to validate xewizzard's info here that sear springs are gauge specific. Those with a broken spring might want to match the replacement you've found against the broken one before trying to install it.

Thank you Frank!

Frank, thank you very much for that information, I was unaware of that difference. Always appreciate your knowledge.
Sincerely,
Jason.