Fox Collectors

I thought you guys would find this info interesting:

I few weeks ago a poster brought up a 16g Sterlingworth that appeared to have bulged chambers.

The gun belongs to me and I finally had some time to go over the bbls and try and figure out what was going on with them.

The gun is a standard non-ejector Utica model Sterlingworth. The chokes are still tight and the finish on the bbls is original.

My 'smith and I could see a bulge in each tube, on the top of the bbls, on the inner half, rib side. The bulges looked like they were ahead of the chambers, at the end of the forcing cones, maybe 3" down from the breach.

The bulges were visible when you sighted down the tubes from the muzzle end. Other wise, you could not see or feel them. They were not visible from the inside, either.

We checked the inside of the bbls and found nothing: bores sizes were fine, chambers were good, forcing cones were original. There were no interior bulges or distortions and the bbls did not look like anyone had been inside them to ream them out.

So it looks like the bbls left the factory with the bulges. I guess the guys at Savage just didn't pay that much attention to how well they struck up the bbls.

I do understand the buyer's reservations, though, and I have no problem with him returning the gun. If he wasn't happy with it, I didn't want him to have it.

Thanks

OWD

Such "bulges" as you describe in front of the chambers are seen now and then on 1920's Foxes especially HEs and Sterlingworths. both of these guns were built to a price. I put it down to sloppy barrel striking and even worse quality control but this happened in Philly as well as Utica. If you see a Fox with these slight bulges that have no corresponding "witness marks' in unaltered bores then you are looking at one of these guns.

Amen.

I can understand the occasional Monday or Friday gun but I would think that these imperfections would be random with bulges occuring on one barrel and not the other. There must have been something else in the manufacturing process that would cause these imperfections to occur in the same location on barrels manufactured over the span of a number of years. Anyone got any ideas?

I don't have an answer to your question about "why". However, I have never seen this phenomenon on other makes of gun but have seen it on more than one Fox and heard of others. One person who posted that he has seen this phenomenon (Mr. Kaas) has probably owned and seen more Foxes than anyone on this site. The person I alluded to earlier who first told me about it during a conversation in Las Vegas has probably seen and owned more Foxes than Ansley Fox and Mr. Kaas put together. Like I said, I don't have an answer, but I know that no other brand of gun that I am aware of shows this "defect". I don't think it is caused by a shotgun shell.

Thank you, Don. You said it very well. When I casually asked "The Thin Man" whether the big gun I was contemplating purchasing should be passed on because of the bulges ahead of the chambers, he asked if it would be alright if he bought the gun after I was through looking at it. He was deftly reaching for his wallet as I reached for mine. After that, I kept my nose to the ground for bulged chamber areas on Fox shotguns and found more than my share. The gun that I received such professional advice on so many years ago is still one of my favorite Foxes, and the biggest. By the way, the seller offered the gun at a very fair price and brought the bulges to my attention.

I think everyone here should take a long, long look at their Sterlingworths and report back. We're sure to find out something interesting.

My friend checked the bbls several times with an extremely precise bore mic. If there was a problem, I'm sure he would have sniffed it out.

It is odd that the bulges were both in the same place and that others have seen them in different guns. It makes me think that the bulges were more than poor work. Maybe they're a by-product of a fixed step in Utica's bbl finishing process?

And who is this thin man? I would like to talk to him about the bulges. If he's still around and you know how to reach him, please PM me his contact info.

Thanks

OWD

I would be first to admit I know little about the Fox manufacturing process but I would expect barrels were finished in batches. Could these batches been large enough for the serial numbers of the finished guns that incorporated these barrels span several years? Could the seeming variability of the bulges be the product of one batch?
jess

We have measured these bulges on a number of HEs including my current HE project gun with proper bore gauges and wall thicknesses gauges (and, yes, we are familar with chamber dimensions, in any case the bulges are beyond the chambers). There was no corresponding deviation whatsoever in either bore. I had the barrels restruck to remove the bulges when we sculpted and rebated the action.