Fox Collectors

Yesterday I took apart the early B grade s/n 28xx I wrote about on another thread and discovered an early variation of the Fox safety block/slide. Third different one I've seen now. This one is milled from solid steel. It doesn't use a separate little spring where it's pinned to the safety button, and the very end is curved so it holds in the tang detent cuts. Probably high carbon steel and obviously "drawn" to make it spring steel. Pretty neat. Since this B grade was built in ~1906 this may be a left over Philadelphia Arms part.... Definitely overdesigned for the job it has to do. Most current manufacturers would bend it out of a piece of sheet metal and go with that. Silvers

It certainly bears a remarkable similarity. This safety spring is from Philadelphia Arms gun serial number 1530.

Frank, your photo got my curiosity up so I looked at the safety spring on my early B Grade #14xx. It looks like the one on your B Grade, however, it is highly polished to the point where it looks like it's chrome plated. It's interesting how much work was put into these early guns.

Yep it sure looks like the Phila arms part that Dave posted. Mike, I agree, the finish of the safety slide is absolutely first rate. I was doing some measuring on the sears today and noted they are also finely finished. As are the hammers. Frank

Good data.

I now know of 3 safety spring variations:

* the one shown in this thread
* the one piece bent spring in my 1908 A grade.
* the spring metal with riveted stepped block on my
1909 C grade.

Can anyone provide me with data concerning the original safety spring
used on a 1909 C grade Fox (SN 14,xxx). I thought the riveted block type of safety spring was only used on later guns--possibly only on the Sterlingworth??

FOXsan

FOXsan, I've seen the riveted block-type safety slide only on Utica made guns. Here's a (poor) pic of an original slide on a 1909 CE gun. Sorry for the blue shading but I loaned out the camera and it came back goofed up. Took me a while to figure out how to make it right again. Pic was taken in between. Frank

Silvers,

Thanks for the 1909 CE safety spring photo--it is exactly what I needed.

FOXsan

FOXsan - I met Silvers at the Vintagers and we rummaged thru the small bag of parts I have, and I may have a safety spring smilar to the one Silvers shows in the picture of the 1909 C grade picture. If you are in need, email me at, rsdecker@hotmail.com Scott