Fox Collectors

Interesting clipping dated August 7, 1909 - almost 100 years ago. The writer is Joseph Kautzky, reportedly one of the organizers of the Fort Dodge Iowa Gun Club in 1908, and apparently also a member of the "Fox Gun Club". Of course Kautzky is known to Fox enthusiasts as the inventor of what became the Fox-Kautzky single trigger system. Reading the text it seems the Fox gun contest was limited to A H Fox guns, similar to our Bo-Whoop Trophy shoot and Ansley H. Fox Championship. I wonder if there was a segment there that specialized in only shooting THE FINEST GUN? If not, why title the piece "Fox Gun Club"?

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Of course, the Kautzkys operated a sporting goods store in Ft. Dodge so maybe selling guns had something to do with this enthusiasm. I would call the it the Kautzky-Fox trigger more properly as Joe had a number of trigger designs and sold one of them to Fox. There is an early DGJ article on the Kautzkys and the late Dick Baldwin has a nice piece on daughter, Marie...an early "trap babe" in his "Road to Yesterday" book.

There is also a good article by John Kautzky on the family in the Winter 1963 issue of The Iowan.

Dave, I think our chances of finding a 1963 Iowan are pretty slim. Can you send us a synopsis or copy of that article? Thanks. Yup, Marie was a real babe. It's too bad she fell off the earth early in her shooting career, according to Dick.

I got my copy off ebay. An enterprising seller included "Fox Shotgun" in his/her title so it came up in one of my ebay searches.