An old friend came by
Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:18 am
I was surprised to see my old friend the Kautzky Fox show up at the store. I had spent a day with Rudy and his sister(The shootinist woman) Kautzky on an afternoon in 1973.
They let me record a conversation about their father Joseph, and showed me the first gun he made while a new immigrant in the United States.
The gun was a beautiful 16 gauge hammer gun with a lot of appeal.
Later in the afternoon they told me about the time their father had broken off the rear attachment of the barrel and sent the gun back to Fox to have it repaired.
Fox informed Joseph the barrel would have to be replaced, and so it was.
When Joseph opened the package of his world class A grade trap gun he was surprised to see it had been engraved in a deep Germanic pattern with a Fox on the bottom of the frame, and the engraving was carried down the barrels about 1 1/2 inches. They had also engraved and gold inlaid a very large K on the trigger guard.
They had recently sold the gun to a Fort Dodge Iowa resident, and I called him to ask if I could examine the gun .
Some things stick in your mind, and this gun was one of them. The pattern was absolutely the X pattern, and may well have been the first attempt at this pattern ever. The wood was beautiful, and I was told that it was the finest Russian walnut that Joseph could find.
To make this long story short, a young man called the store, and had won the gun in one of the Julia auctions. I wish I would have known.
We discussed the gun, and he said he would sen it to me for inspection.
When I opened the box I became very exited, this was THE gun I had held, and examined those many years ago. Not a copy, but the A- X grade gun that had won the championship in Madison Square Garden.
After a short honeymoon, I sent her back to her new owner.
We all missed one of the most historic Fox guns ever built.
They let me record a conversation about their father Joseph, and showed me the first gun he made while a new immigrant in the United States.
The gun was a beautiful 16 gauge hammer gun with a lot of appeal.
Later in the afternoon they told me about the time their father had broken off the rear attachment of the barrel and sent the gun back to Fox to have it repaired.
Fox informed Joseph the barrel would have to be replaced, and so it was.
When Joseph opened the package of his world class A grade trap gun he was surprised to see it had been engraved in a deep Germanic pattern with a Fox on the bottom of the frame, and the engraving was carried down the barrels about 1 1/2 inches. They had also engraved and gold inlaid a very large K on the trigger guard.
They had recently sold the gun to a Fort Dodge Iowa resident, and I called him to ask if I could examine the gun .
Some things stick in your mind, and this gun was one of them. The pattern was absolutely the X pattern, and may well have been the first attempt at this pattern ever. The wood was beautiful, and I was told that it was the finest Russian walnut that Joseph could find.
To make this long story short, a young man called the store, and had won the gun in one of the Julia auctions. I wish I would have known.
We discussed the gun, and he said he would sen it to me for inspection.
When I opened the box I became very exited, this was THE gun I had held, and examined those many years ago. Not a copy, but the A- X grade gun that had won the championship in Madison Square Garden.
After a short honeymoon, I sent her back to her new owner.
We all missed one of the most historic Fox guns ever built.
