Chas Daly & Savage Fox FA 1 semi

Chas Daly & Savage Fox FA 1 semi-auto Japanese shotguns

FIREARMS INFORMATION

The Fox FA-1 semi-auto shotgun sold by Savage in 1970 ? – 1973 ?? It was made by KTG in Japan. At this same time this firm was one of the 2 contractors to Weatherby to make their Centurion and Patrician shotguns. FA-1 stood for Fox Automatic #1, while the FP-1 stood for Fox Pump #1. Savage only sold the FA-1 and FP-1 for a couple of years. Both of the Fox and Chas Daly guns used a rounded rear receiver top similar to the Remington 1100. All of these guns fired 2 ¾” ammo. After this series, Weatherby went to a semi-humpback version in the 82 and 92 shotguns that utilized 3” ammo.

Charles Daly, Fox FA-1 & Weatherby Centurion II semi-auto shotguns

It is a suspicion that when Savage quit importation, for what ever reason, that KTG had enough spare parts to assemble some guns. They also probably had some extra Weatherby parts left over from Weatherby’s transition gun, the Centurion II, which could have been ordered as either a 2 ¾” or a 3”gun depending on the barrel supplied. I think KTG assembled and offered a few thousand of these semi-auto shotguns to Outdoor Sports Headquarters (who sold the Chas Daly line) as a special one shot deal to clean up leftover parts, probably around 1974 or 1975. We know of one Chas Daly at a serial number just slightly over S2,500K. The engraved height of these serial numbers are about .080.

These two brands (Savage and Charles Daly) from what we have observed, appear to be exactly the same, EXCEPT the Chas Daly has screw in chokes while the Fox has fixed chokes. The CD barrel is 27” long with a swaged section at the front to accept the threads for the screw in choke. This tells us that the barrel could very well could have been about any length originally and then modified later to the screw in versions. The barrels have a vent rib. Both the Savage FA 1 and the Charles Daly semi-auto 12 ga. have no markings on the receiver itself. The forearm cap has 3 vent holes in the front. This may have been to help bleed off some of the pressure and extend the life of the carrier extension links over what has been the case with the Weatherbys. Somewhere it has been mentioned that the Charles Daly was called the Multi-12, in that it could handle both Hi and Low base ammo.

The Chas Daly has no model on the firearm at all. On the barrel of it is stamped the following--

CHARLES DALY—FIELD—MADE IN JAPAN 12GAUGE—2 ¾” KTG. P. on the RH side of the barrel. EXC.DISTRIBUTOR—OUTDOORSPORTSHQ—DAYTON OHIO . on the LH side of the barrel.

IMPORTED BY HIRAOKA NEW YORK INC NEW YORK- NY on the bottom of the barrel.

At one time we found a parts listing for the Chas Daly, but it was simply a Fox FA-1 paper with a new header on top, and it used the same Fox part numbers.

The one Chas Daly we have examined has typical Weatherby grafted walnut wood in the buttstock. This one is a very contrasting light cream of English with the darker black walnut behind the graft. This grafted wood was typical of Weatherby, as they used much wood from the California walnut orchards where the rootstock was the black walnut, which is a more disease resistant rootstock that had the English top grafted for nut bearing qualities. These buttstocks could have been Weatherby rejects. The word from one well known gunsmith who has had more intimate relations with this model is that some of the internal parts were not hardened as they should have been.

The Savage FA 1 HAS A 30” FC barrel & has stamped on the LH side of the barrel --

                                      MODEL FA-1
                FOX 2 ¾ INCH SHELLS   12 GA                      FULL CHOKE
    SAVAGE ARMS WESTFIELD MASS U.S.A.
                                                       MADE IN JAPAN              (K. P.)

This KP in a rectangular circle appears to be engraved or etched on the barrel after it was blued. The suspicion is that maybe the guns could not be imported without the country of origin and this was placed on them at customs, and that K.P. actually stands for KTG. P. The buttplate is black plastic with the name FOX on it.

Both guns use a riveted in ejector similar to the Remington 1100. This was a simpler system than the Weatherby used, which was a spring activated unit held into the receiver itself.. The disconnector system is different than the Weatherby. The forearm nut has 3 relief holes drilled around the center hole in the front. This could have been a correction to the Weatherby gun to help alleviate excess gas pressure rearward, which caused problems in breaking many of the Weatherby slide assembly arms.

The cartridge lifter is slightly different on these as compared to the Weatherby.

Don't try to contact the current Chas Daly firm, as the company has been sold numerous times since these guns were sold. The current company may care for your concerns, but in reality they have no connection at all to the old importer and probably does not even know what you are talking about, as most of their current guns are coming from Europe.

Someone has said that the High Standard Shadow auto may have been the same gun also. Blue Book of Gun Values list it being imported in 1974 and 75. The timing is right for it to a another 1/2 brother. We have not had one in the shop to compare to yet.

The author does not have any source of parts for any of the firearms listed above

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Originated 03-22-2004 Last updated 04-13-2023
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