First thing I thought of when I saw this was those NOS barrels from Savage that hit the market maybe 15 years ago. There were plenty of 20 ga barrels as I recall.
As for why someone would want a set of 20ga barrels fitted to a 16ga that ends up slightly heavier, my experience with a 16/20 Merkel in this weight range suggests to me that I'd shoot the 20ga barrels more often at clays, for a few reasons. One, full power 16ga loads beat you up if you shoot 100 rounds out of a gun like this. I don't know anyone that would take this gun chukar hunting in the lava rock, or probably not many that would take it grouse hunting in the woods either, certainly not the average working stiff. Additionally, if we concede that a $36k vintage Fox is a range queen on a perfect sunny day, the availability and variety of factory 20 ga ammunition and lighter factory loads, make it attractive for a guy that has been spending his time making enough to pay for the gun, but wants to flash it at the local range or sxs event. Of the few people I knew that shoot guns in this price range, exactly none of them reload.
I'm not a Fox collector, but this one seems to have been priced like it was a high condition original finish gun, when it's really had a lot of work done and some of that is not up to the asking price expectations. For $36k, I'm sure we can all think of better places to spend it than this.
Last edited by Chuck H; 07/23/19 07:36 AM.
