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My A-Grade 16-gauge that letters 1933 has the 2 7/16-inch chambers intended for the old "standard" 2 9/16-inch 16-gauge shells. My A-Grade that letters 1936 has 2 3/4-inch chambers. The serial number chronology, originally done by Lightner Library back in 1976, varies from useless to totally wrong for the Savage years. A letter is the only way to know about a Savage era A.H. Fox gun.
As far as quality goes, there is really a general decline from the first guns built in 1905/6 to those built right at the start of WW-II. It appears to me that Savage had a batch of new top-levers made with the taller profile and dumped them in the parts bin with the older Philadelphia top-levers and from about 1935 to the end it was a crapshoot as to which style top-lever a worker pulled out of the bin for the gun he was working on. Same for safety slides. Likewise as the years progressed Juglans Regia was seen less and less and Juglans nigra more and more in the stocks and forearms.
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