Fox Collectors

This is on a late Philly era Super-Fox. I have never seen a bead this off center. Anyone else?

I’ve never seen one that far off center. If that were my Super I’d pull the sight and set up the barrels on the mill, pick up the exact center of the rib, and plunge mill for a period Lyman ivory ferrule type sight. Can’t be done with a regular drill bit. The Lyman’s ferrule diameter is much larger than the shank on the original Fox metal sight and it looks like there’s enough “meat” on the narrow side of the rib to get that Lyman dead nuts on center.

frank

ADDED: Jason, I forgot to mention the vintage Lyman (and Marbles) ferrule type ivory sight is a taper-fit and thus you’ll want to get the taper reamer that goes with the sight. Back in the day they were packaged together as well as available separately, and often I’ve seen the sights on Ebay etc but sans the reamer.

Silvers wrote:I’ve never seen one that far off center. If that were my Super I’d pull the sight and set up the barrels on the mill, pick up the exact center of the rib, and plunge mill for a period Lyman ivory ferrule type sight. Can’t be done with a regular drill bit. The Lyman’s ferrule diameter is much larger than the shank on the original Fox metal sight and it looks like there’s enough “meat” on the narrow side of the rib to get that Lyman dead nuts on center.

frank

Good idea. Thanks Frank.

I recall an early Pin Gun I had that was off center by a good amount and interesting it was like yours in that it was off to the left. Drove me nuts. I ended up selling the gun at one of the NE SXS events a few years ago. Was a damn nice pin gun. Factory 26" barrels and came in at under 7 lbs and only had a 2 3/4" DAH. Grouse hunter bought it and he was happy happy.

Jason,

Be sure to take some measurements when you get the original pulled to understand exactly how much you are off center.

Then get the measurement of the over-sized bead to make sure it takes up the difference.

If you can't quite get there then I believe I would index off the side of the existing hole and shift the bead closer to center rather than cutting a new hole at center only to find you have a partial cavity outside of the bead.

If it is still not quite what you want, I believe that the Mammoth Ivory beads that are available are larger than the ones that Frank mentioned.

I have some Marbles and Lyman's that I can measure if you don't have one for a reference dimension.

Good Luck, Will

I once owned a 16 gauge skeet and upland that the bead was off center. Bobby

Don’t look at the bead. Lol

An extremely rare factory defect------makes the gun even more valuable

You don't aim a shotgun, anyway. And, it will catch the bark on a tree while you pee, so why mess with it?

This is just me, but my eye picks up something that is off center immediately, and it becomes a distraction. I cannot tolerate something that takes my attention away from the target, dove, duck, even the slightest bit. I'm a Libra, I can't help it. I'd fix it if it were mine. I have fixed more than one that was like that, with no evidence that it was done, other than that the shank of the bead I put on was larger in diameter than the one I replaced. I did two mid-beads a couple years ago, on two different sets of barrels for a gun.

SRH