Fox Collectors

Good Evening.

A friend just gifted me his uncle's 20 gauge Sterlingworth. Serial Number 252076. From What I found a 1913 gun. She has 28 in barrels tightly choked, solid rib, beavertail forearm. Silver receiver, I assume formerly case colored. Shot well today on five stand, and remains tight even with the condition a well cared but well exercised gun.

I am new to Fox guns from receiving this gift, so forgive a little ignorance. Why is this style gun a 1927 Sterlingworth when the database I found online point to a 1913 year gun. Thanks for any help.

Not sure why you are describing it as a 1927 Sterlingworth? With that serial number it should be a very early Sterlingworth made in the first year or two of production. Also, a beavertail forearm on an early gun is pretty unusual. I'd recommend you post a few pictures of the gun for us to take a look at and we can then provide more info. Detailed pictures of the watertable and forearm metal with serial numbers would be nice to see.

PS. If you are looking at the home page at the 1927 Sterlingworth being displayed there under the various Fox gun grades, that just indicated when that particular Sterlingworth shown in the pictures was made (1927). It not in itself a grade of Sterlingworth. Regular Sterlingworths pretty much looked like that from 1912 until Savage bought them out in the 1930's, when some cosmetic changes were done in order to decrease production costs, or new models of Sterlingworth were marketed by Savage. Hope the above helps..

A beavertail wasn't a catalogued option on a Sterlingworth until 1937, though it was an option on the Fox-Sterlingworth Skeet & Upland Game Gun from its introduction in 1935.

For what it's worth.... Saturday morning I was at a gun shop and I held a Sterlingworth that had a beavertail forearm. I think it was a 16 ga. What seemed odd to me was that it was an extractor gun, but the forearm had that little "button" on it that usually indicates that it's an ejector gun. I have no idea if the gun was original, because I wasn't particularly interested in it. I think they had 3 16 ga. Sterlingworths, mostly restored.

I once bought a 20-gauge Sterly with s/n 2537xx that had a factory beavertail. The gun had other issues and I sent it back but did log it in/out of my record book which is where I found the s/n. This serial no dates to about 1914. How do I know it was a factory beavertail? Well, besides having the proper patent stamps and dates, the forend iron was forged with an integral recoil brace = wings on both sides of the iron. Checkering and original finish matched the buttstock, and the beavertail had "beads" that aligned with the side beads on the f/e iron. The gun had just one Fox Proof/oval stamp, all numbers matched and it otherwise looked like an early Philly gun. I had pictures of the BT and that braced f/e iron but can't locate them right now. They may have been lost when I transferred files to the computer before this one.