Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Fox-Savage Model 31 Play Rifle

I just acquired another of the Savage/Fox Model 31 play rifles, this one is from Bailey Brower's collection. This one appears to be from the transition from Savage to Fox. The receiver has only Savage markings and the stock only Fox. It's only the second Fox marking I've seen on a stock and the other was so long ago I don't know if it was the same - many years ago there was a dual marked example with the original box at Tulsa, about the only thing I remember about it was the stock having both Savage and Fox labels, I also think at least one of them appeared to be a thicker stick on label instead of being very thin and applied directly to the stock. Usually these appear to be like decals.

The bottom gun is one only marked Fox.






The top two here are Savage, the next is only marked Fox, and the bottom is the newly acquired one with just the stock marked Fox.

The target has never been assembled and is the only surviving one I have ever heard of. It still has the bell which mounted behind the bullseye. They are dual chambered so that bullseye hits are kept separate for scoring.

The stock's on the Fox guns are different than those with all Savage markings and appears to be the same stock as used on the Fox toy double barrels, the angle is different so the stock has almost no drop making the peep sight unusable. From ad's it appears all later guns were Fox. The later one with only Fox marking on the receiver has nothing on the stock, and the stock shows no signs of ever having a decal or sticker on it.


Here are the two Fox's compared with Savages, bottom is a comparison of the two Fox's showing that they are even a little different -


What I assume are early guns had the stock mounting holes in line which limited the screw length to half the stock width, later guns move the right side holes back a little and the left ahead to give 4 separated mounting points and allow the use of screws almost twice as long, it makes a noticeable difference securing the stock. The Fox's are certainly later than the Savage's and have the staggered mounting holes.


I do not have an example of the Fox Double Barrel to compare stock with, just a picture, but it looks like the same contours. The receiver of the Fox Double angles down at the rear giving the stock plenty of drop, you can see how putting the same stock in a Model 31. which does not angle down, changes the drop a lot, the top of the stocks on the Fox's both angle up slightly to the rear with a little more on the dual marked one. The stocks on the double barrel are attached with screws at the top & bottom so it would be easy to tell what model a stock was originally on.


The Fox double barrel in some ad's is called the Model 25. The earliest ad's I could find are from 1927. Some of the ad's mention a target with a bell, I can't find any information on these so I don't know if they were similar to the Savage ones.

For those who are not familiar with how the Fox double gun works, the shells have springs in them that have to be 'cocked' and then the balls are put in the shells. The spring are released by strikers hitting what looks like a primer. The trigger guard looks odd because the rear is away from the stock and straight, that's what the shells are pushed on to cock them.

(For those interested, the following information was originally posted in 2018 but has some editing for use here with a few details added)

Here’s the Fox, a Model 31.

The safety is explained on the left side fo the receiver on all the versions. The forearm must be pushed forward against slight spring pressure and held there to release the safety so the trigger can be pulled.

Here’s the magazine follower with the remnants of the hardened rubber in it and another from one of the Savage’s. Of the four guns, three still had the follower and the broken rubber in the magazine and it was the first thing to come out of the barrel when trying to shoot them, the second thing was a small piece of the rubber, then they finally started shooting the balls. I purchased some 3/8” nylon balls to shoot in them. The guns shoot but will not feed the last two balls because of the missing parts in the magazine, except for a project gun, I fixed the magazine follower on it.



Here’s a comparison of the drop of the stocks, you can see there is quite a difference. The stock on the Fox also is contoured a little different and comparing it to pictures of the Fox toy shotgun it appears they may have used the same stocks, possibly why the stock is thinner.

(notice the slight upward angle of the stock, possible special order for someone born without a neck?)

It's not real apparent in the picture but the stock on the Fox is thinner.
This also shows the slight bends in the sides of the receiver caused by the thinner stock.

You can also see some paint buildup at the rear of the receiver in the "black duco finish".


Here is are some ads for toy guns, one lists them as Fox-Savage, some later ads list them as Fox and the 7 shot gun is NOT (correction) mentioned in some later ads.

I've never found any information other than ad's for the The Models 32 & 33. Note that the center ad pictures a Savage marked Model 31 and lists it as a Fox-Savage.



(continued in the next couple posts due to limitations on the number of images per post)

These are not 'air rifles', they 'fire' with a spring loaded small diameter rod that hits the ball, probably 'shoot' would be a more technically correct term. The small rod has a slightly rounded end to help it hit the small hole behind the 'chamber'. This seems to allow the rod to slip to the side of the ball sometimes causing a lot of friction because some shots barely make it out the barrel. The one I tested is quit worn though, but it doesn't look like they had very tight tolerances even when new.

Here are some pictures of my 'project' gun that I am trying to put into shooting condition, it came with some broken & missing parts. I have been documenting the process as it slowly progresses.... the end is in sight though (maybe not, this was originally posted in 2018 and it's not done yet! The sear is worn and when the forearm is pushed forward to release the safety the rifle shoots, it may require removing more rivets to allow fixing this issue, which I don't want to do.).


The above pictures shows the original broken rubber follower. The next one show a replacement made from surgical tubing with a piece of 1/8" solid round rubber inside. I first bought some solid 1/4" diameter rubber but found it was way to stiff to work, the surgical tubing by itself was to flexible. In these pictures you can see how tight the turn is at the rear of the magazine.


The main spring was broken so I removed it for repair, the nest picture shows the plunger without the main spring installed. I had to make a special tool so I could 'screw' it over a rivet to remove & reinstall it.

I could not find an equivalent replacement spring so I ground small mating flats on the ends at the break and silver solder them together, the spring is always in compression so the joint should hold up.

Since they are riveted together the rivets have to be cut to take anything apart so I am trying to do as little disassembly as possible.

I think it possible that Savage did make them, they used a lot of sheetmetal stampings for magazines and for some of their gun sights, the magazine for the Savage 1911 is of stamped & formed sheetmetal.

I got one of the Savage's several years ago and had not seen another for sale until I acquired two more recently out of one collection, one of those was a parts gun, now the project gun. The Fox version I just got and I have never seen another. (originally posted in 2018)

I am trying to keep as much of the project gun as original as possible - a conservation, not a restoration. I think it looks good in the used condition.

The Model 31's shoot 3/8" diameter red BAKELITE® balls, originals of which are quite hard to find and expensive, and they can shatter if they hit something hard. I bought some 3/8" white Nylon balls for shooting. The ad's for the other two models, the 32 & 33, say they shot wooden pellets and the Fox double barrel wooden balls.


One of the Savage rifles was missing the decal (the Fox shows no signs of ever having any and I don't think it did). I scanned the image in off one of the stocks and did a lot of extensive touch up & then found that 'color in' does not equal 'color out' when using scanners & printers, it took a lot of test printing and editing of the color to get a shade that I was happy with -







The gun missing the decal is later than the other two with some differences, on the other guns the decals appear applied directly to the wood and have some small chips & checking, the one that is missing appears to have been stuck on over the stock finish and left a mark where it was attached, I do not think the other two could get the decal to come off that clean. I went with a sticker type decal thinking that was possibly what was used originally on this one later rifle.

Superb job of reporting, Gene, as usual. Thank you!

You have to hand it to Savage for cooking up these little jewels. I wonder how many tykes automatically turned to Savage/Stevens products later in life with fond memories of these play rifles in their heads?

Now that's something you don't see every day. Thanks!

Another posting for the Misc Good Things thread.

Thanks Gene!

Gene,
Great info & excellent pics. Thanks for sharing.

Yep, always good stuff!

Gene, glad that toy rifle found a good home. Bailey would be pleased.

Sorry to have missed you at MVACA.

I also got his other one, all Savage marked, from an auction that had some of his collection a few months ago and a couple of his 22 rifles that I tried to get from him some years ago from another auction

I would have been nice to get together... but I always feel I have a better chance at a deal with just Jim... so that's OK! maybe at Tulsa. Off the subject, I tried a competitive display for the first time and had to stay around my table for most of the show. I had equipment failures, including my printer, and ran out of time making the display so I had to simplify my original plan a lot, so I didn't do very well in the judging, but I now know what they look for. No play rifles in the display, also no Savage's, the Marlin Collectors were there and I went 'undercover' as Marlin Collector. so I may have had to ignore you anyway to keep from blowing my cover. Next time I will have Savage's, for my first try, in case it was an embarrassing disaster, I didn't want to have that associated with Savage, so the obvious choice was Marlin's. I can't put the expense into a display that many do, so winning is not the priority anyway. The things I have will get rated very low in the 'collectors interest' category (you need Winchester or Colts for that)

It was a very nice display, Gene. I had no idea that Marlin made that many different pump .22's.

Gene, I'd have kept your Savage Secret

I like the looks of that display. For me it is the information. My first few were much simpler than that. We have always done it for fun, but it still irks when judging criteria does not fit our materials - chuckle