Two side by sides functioning

[RifleBowPistol]

A few years ago, I bought a Savage Fox model B in 12 ga., it was in pretty good condition. I figured out it was made in 1975. It looks nice, but I figured out quickly the left barrel would only fire, maybe once every 4th or 5th shot. I bought a new firing pin for it, hammer spring and the screw that retains the firing pin.

I found someone had made a custom firing pin for the left barrel trying to fix the problem. Their custom firing pin just created new problems, did not fix anything. I found the custom firing pin, was too small in diameter on the front end, then stepped up to a size that was too large. The firing pin was not able to travel far enough out of the receiver to properly set off a primer. After I replaced the firing pin, hammer spring and the firing pin retaining screw, it seemed to be working, but after about three shots, it went back to only firing the left barrel about once, in four or five times of pulling the trigger.

So I had to look it over a bit more thoroughly. I finally realized the left firing pin bore was at least 1/32", I think more like 1/16", lower than the right firing pin bore. So I just put the gun away, till I decided how to fix that problem and had time to fix it. The last time I worked on the gun, was at least a year ago.

I bought a new clay pigeon thrower, the other day, got me an electric one, it works great. So I need all of my shotguns working properly. I had some time yesterday and decided I would TIG up the bottom of the left firing pin bore, then open up the top of the pin bore. The only thing I had to raise the top of the pin bore was a small round file. So I welded up the bottom of the pin bore, then went to work filing the top of the pin bore. After doing that, I found the left firing pin, which had been plenty long, was now too short. So I welded the rear end of the pin and built it up. That got it back to being long enough to protrude the same distance out of the receiver, that the right firing pin protrudes. So it was looking like I may finally have both barrels working on that gun.

Then I have my old L.C. Smith, that was made in 1901, it's also a 12 ga., It had a cracked butt stock, then a broken return spring for the lever you open the action with. Then the bottom of the lever that opens the action, was all types of messed up. I replaced the spring, the had to repair the lever. Then there is a cylinder or barrel, that rolls inside the receiver, it is the latch for the barrels. The pin that rolls that connects that barrel to the release lever, was broken. I had to get a new pin, then shape it to fit the gun.

Then I made a cheap repair on the stock with some Accuglass. I got that gun working over a year ago. I have been killing squirrels with it, it's a great squirrel gun. It has long 30" barrels, that are very small in diameter for a 12 ga., they look more like 16 ga. or 20 ga. barrels, not 12 ga. So I knew the gun would be very tightly choked, and it is. I have shot squirrels in post oak trees, that are covered in leaves. The gun will blow a 4" to 6" diameter hole through the leaves, at 25 yards. Kills squirrels dead, quickly at 30 to 40 yards, no problem. Eventually, I am going to get a really nice pair of semi finished stocks for the gun, then finish them out and put them on the gun. For now, it's just an old squirrel gun.

So after making more changes to the Savage Fox model B, I was hoping it was finally working on both barrels. I decided to get both double barrel guns out and shoot them, to make sure they are both working properly.

I started shooting at a large wooden wire spool, from about 30 yards, both guns fired both barrels like they should. I then decided to try shooting at 20 yards, then went down to 10 yards. I was shooting some Federal low brass 8 shot, in both guns. The Savage makes about a 4" to 5" pattern at that range. The L.C. Smith blows 1 1/2" diameter holes through both layers of 1" pine boards. I was interested in seeing how they compare on patterns at various ranges. Then last week I shot a squirrel with the L.C. Smith, things did not go like I expected and I wound up getting a lot closer shot than expected. It blew the squirrel off the tree, completely gutted and almost blew the squirrel in half. There were squirrel chunks stuck in the tree. After that I was kind of curious how small the pattern was at various ranges.

Shooting at 20 yards, I think the L.C. Smith made about a 6", most of the shot was inside 4". Then the Savage, made about a 12" patterns. At 30 yards, the L.C. Smith made around a 12" patterns, where the Savage made patterns over 20" in diameter. On that spool that had been shot previously, it was hard to make out exactly how big the patterns were, if they go over 15". I want to say 20" to 24" at 30 yards for the Savage. I took pictures of the patterns from 20 and 30 yards, but they were hard to make out. I need to shoot at some large white pieces of paper to really be able to see the patterns, that each gun produces at 20 and 30 yards.

There is no question the L.C. Smith was made at a different time, with a different belief in how a shotgun barrel should be made, than the Savage.

It was very surprising to see the 8 shot blow through two layers of 1" pine, from 10 yards. I would not have been surprised to see the 8 shot blow a hole clean through 1/2 plywood, but two layers of 1" pine, I did not expect.

The Savage should make a pretty good dove or quail gun. The L.C. Smith, I know is good for squirrels, it should make a good turkey gun also, or I could use it for shooting those dove that think they are out of shotgun range.

The first three pictures are the two shots from ten yards, from the L.C. Smith, first two from the front, the third picture is the back side of the spool. The fourth and fifth pictures are the Savage from 10 yards. I would guess those to be 4" to 5" groups. There are some other pellet holes above and below, the second Savage group, both patterns are both around 4 to 5 inches.

Then I showed measurements of the left barrel of both guns. The L.C. Smith is .031" smaller than the Savage.

[QuackHunter]

Prices?


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[RifleBowPistol]

Prices?


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I don't plan on selling them anytime soon. I thought about selling the Savage, once I had the L.C. Smith functioning, but realized the Savage is a much better normal range bird gun, than the L.C. Smith. I decided to keep both, for different purposes.

[RifleBowPistol]

One of the reasons, I have wanted an old, early 1900s double barrel shotgun, is we used to have one many years ago. I used it a few times, it was just another type of shotgun, to me at the time. It was a beautiful old gun, I think it was a old Stevens double barrel. I just remember it was a big, old, heavy, shotgun. That one day, a friend of the family gave us an education on the use of that gun.

Back in the 80s, we had a good family friend, his name was Felix. He had been the high school principal, high school football coach, and was also our insurance agent. He was a great gut, everybody really liked. He passed away sometime in the mid to later 90s of cancer.

We took Felix dove hunting on our deer lease, one September, the place was 2,000 acers, outside of Falfurrias. The place was mostly live oaks, and sand, but in one back corner of the ranch, there was about 600 acers of mostly open pasture, it had some clumps of prickly pear, then scattered around the sides of the pasture, there were scattered live oaks.

I think it was David, who was a big bird hunter, my mother's ex husband, Felix, were the three adults, then one of my friends and myself. Most of us scattered around the outer edges of the pasture in the live oaks. David and my mother's ex, on one side of the pasture, my buddy and I in another area, in some scattered live oaks. Then Felix, took off walking right across the middle of the pasture. The last time I saw him, before the shooting started, he was looking around at the large clumps of prickly pear, for a place to hide. Did not pay attention to where he wound up, because we were trying to find good places for ourselves, to set up.

Before the hunt, my mother's ex, started pulling out shotguns. Felix like the rest of us, showed up with a Remington 870 or 1100. But when my mother's ex, pulled out that old Steven's double barrel, Felix fell in love with the gun right off, and asked if he could use it. So my mother's ex, said here you go. So Felix grabbed multiple boxes of shells and took off out towards the middle of the pasture. The rest of us took off in different directions, heading towards the oaks around the sides of the pasture.


Not long after we all found our spots, the dove started flying in large flocks, bunches of large flocks. Hell Yeah, this is going to be fun!!!
Well right off, we noticed a problem, 90% of the doves were flying way high, straight up, they were out of shotgun range. Looking out across the pasture, they were typically 300 to 600 yards away. This is not good, there will be some later than fly lower, this situation, has to be just these first birds we are seeing. Well nope, about 90% of the birds we saw that day, which we saw many, many, many birds, were all mostly out of shotgun range. Most of them had to be flying at 400 ft. and higher. So my buddy and I were just spectating, we both had 20 ga. guns, if I remember correctly.

So here we are watching what looks like an old video of WW II bombers filling the sky, at very high altitude, and we did not bring our flack guns, we brought 870s and 1100s.

Well that was the situation for most of us, but someone was blasting away, at those high altitude birds. We kept hearing shots from what sounded like the middle of the pasture, but we could not see anyone out there. We were trying to figure out who was shooting and what the hell they were shooting at. Then we started seeing these dang high altitude birds start falling out of the sky. What the heck???!!!! Who is shooting at those birds and what the heck are they shooting at them with???!!!! Who brought the flack gun??!!! Those birds were high high and way out there, but birds kept falling.

After the shooting out in the middle of the pasture had been going on for a while, we had birds falling 100 yards and closer to us. But there was nobody in sight of us. We finally saw someone pop up out of a clump of prickly pear, probably 450 yards, maybe 500 yards from us. We both thought, there is no way!! But we watched, every time that guy popped up, out of that clump of prickly pear and started firing in the air, birds would fall. Many of those birds fell inside of 100 yards of where we were at. So we were playing retriever for the guy, who we quickly figure out was Felix.

David and my mother's ex, shot at some birds, but they were not killing anything, the birds were just too dang high and far away. We tried shooting at the birds, as they got directly over our heads, the point they would be the closest. We could not knock any of them down, or even phase them. But Felix was out there in the middle of the pasture, cleaning up, he had it raining dove over a large area, it was one of the craziest things I have ever seen.

We got a pretty good understanding how hunters back in the early 1900s wiped out the passenger pigeons. Those shotguns back then were a different breed of gun.

Felix limited out on dove easily, everybody walked a large area around where Felix had been set up, picking up doves, once the shooting stopped that day.

David, my mother's ex, my buddy and I each got between 3 and 5 dove each. The only way we were able to get any dove, is we all figured out that there were flocks of doves in those scattered live oaks. Once we figured that out, we started zig zagging through about 60 to 75 acers of scattered live oaks, trying to flush dove out of those oak trees. That was the only way the rest of us, with our modern guns were able to kill any doves that day. Felix was king that day.

After that day, I had a much better understanding of that old Stevens double barrel. That is one of the big reasons, I have a thing for early 1900s double barrel shotguns. Not to mention, some of them are very beautiful guns.

[Texas Grown]

I use my Fox for dove also. And sometimes teal season.

[LeanMachine]

I also have a fox that i bought from someone on here years ago. Fun gun. Makes me want one a little nicer. Ejectors would be nice. It is hell on pigs with 00. I have shot a few ducks and quail with it as well. A barrel selector switch would also be nice. Mine is modified first and then full.