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    Re: 1942 Field Grade chamber length Archived Message

    Posted by Drew Hause on February 23, 2015, 4:00 pm, in reply to "Re: 1942 Field Grade chamber length"

    Cerrosafe chamber and forcing cone casting courtesy of Marcus Merritt



    p. 391 in Houchins' L.C. Smith "The Legend Lives" shows the Hunter Arms Co. Engineering Dept. drawing dated 1907 with 2 3/4" chambers.

    Of course the chamber borer could have had a bad day


    Chamber length information courtesy of David Noreen

    Fox Chambers
    The only two A.H. Fox Gun Co. catalogues, that I have seen, that state chamber lengths are the 1913 and 1914. They both state 12-gauge guns are regularly chambered for 2 3/4 - inch shells, 16-gauge 2 9/16 – inch shells and 20-gauge 2 1/2 - inch shells. That being said, virtually every 12-gauge Ansley H. Fox gun made in Philadelphia (other than the HE-Grade Super-Fox) that I've run a chamber gauge in shows about 2 5/8 - inch. The chambers of unmolested 16-gauge guns seem to run about 2 7/16 inch and 20-gauge guns a hair over 2 3/8 inch. A very few graded guns were ordered with longer chambers. Savage began stating chambered for 2 ¾ inch shells in their 1938 Fox catalogues.

    All this being said there is a good body of evidence that back in those days chambers were held about 1/8 inch shorter than the shells for which they were intended. In the book The Parker Story, the Remington vintage specification sheets on pages 164 to 169 call for a chamber 1/8-inch shorter than the shell for which it is intended. Also in the 1930's there were a couple of articles in The American Rifleman (July 1936 and March 1938) on the virtue of short chambers. Askins mentions (Modern Shotguns and Loads, 1929) that for the last 3 years or so the US makers started to hold their chambers shorter since the constriction made when shooting 2-3/4" loads in 2-5/8" chambers was found to improve patterning?

    Ithaca Chambers
    The last Flues period catalogue (1925) states "Unless otherwise ordered Ithaca 28 Gauge and 20 Gauge guns are chambered for the standard 2 1/2 inch shell, 16 Gauge and 12 Gauge for the standard 2 3/4 inch shell and 10 Gauge for the standard 2 7/8 inch shell. Longer chambers are furnished if ordered on new guns without extra charge, but it should be remembered that shells of standard length do not give quite as good results in chambers which are longer than the shells and it should be remembered that extra-long shells are more expensive and it is much harder to find a dealer who carries extra-long shells in stock."
    I find that 2 3/4 inch pretty strange in the 16-gauge, because 2 9/16 was the standard 16-gauge shell until WW-II!?! None of my earlier Flues period catalogues mention chamber lengths.

    Beginning with the first NID catalogue in 1926 they state -- "Unless otherwise ordered Ithaca .410 Cal. and 20 Gauge guns are chambered for the standard 2 1/2 inch shell, 16 Gauge for 2 9/16 inch, 12 Gauge for 2 3/4 inch and 10 Gauge for the standard 2 7/8 inch shell." The 28 gauge doesn't appear in NID period catalogues until 1932 though they did make some. Beginning with the 1927 catalogue the sentence is changed to -- "Unless otherwise ordered Ithaca .410 Cal. guns are chambered for the standard 2 1/2 inch shell, 16 Gauge for 2 9/16 inch, 20 and 12 Gauge for 2 3/4 inch and 10 Gauge for the standard 2 7/8 inch shell."
    Ithaca catalogues for 1926, 1927, 1927-1928, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931-1932, 1932, No. 50F, and No. 51S, all list 16-gauge as 2 9/16-inch chambers. Beginning with the 1932 catalogue the 28-gauge with 2 7/8 inch chamber is added to the list and it also introduces the 3 1/2 inch Magnum Ten Gauge. By Ithaca catalogue No. 51F the 16-gauge is finally listed with 2 3/4-inch chambers and the 410-bore with 3-inch chambers. I believe the catalogues No. 51 equate to 1934.

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