Mystery Choke Devices

[Bill Murphy]

Daryl, the book you refer to by Greg Wareheim is probably the auction catalog I referred to. The only picture I can imagine of me at Loch Raven is when I won a Browning Model 12, 28 gauge in a memorial shoot for a member and friend whose name escapes me at this time. I am a few months from 80 and the Loch Raven oldtimers still refer to me as "Billy". I also have some great Harry Wright items that I bought from Greg's mother.

[BRDHNTR]

Happy birthday Bill

[Bill Murphy]

Harry Wright was also a little known exhibition shooter. He was wealthy from the liquor business, so didn't do trick shooting for a living. However, he had all the trappings of a trick shooter. I have a bag of Winchester-Western gold colored target coins that were used by trick shooters to shoot with rifles when thrown up in the air. I bought those target coins from Harry's daughter. She also sold me some nice Winchester target grade shotgun stocks. I also bought the best condition fifties Browning A-5 I have ever seen from the family. In his later years, his granddaughters (I assume that's who they were) would drive him to visit the club during his namesake skeet shoot in a white Rolls Royce Corniche convertible with the top down.

[Double Lab]

Harry Wright was a character for sure. He tells the story of him coming to the western shore on a ferry boat with only a few dollars to his name. He was real treat to shoot with.

[Chris Riley]

Thanks to all for sharing. Have a 20ga Remington Sportsman with a Cutts Compensator that was a family gun. Between the design and appearance of this gun with the Cutts, the background and the old photos provided above, it’s living history for me and a window into the past and The Greatest Generation. Many thanks for the posts and pictures!

[Bill Murphy]

Daryl, I am quite a bit younger than Harry Wright, but I have been on that ferry, also with a few dollars, or less, in my pockets. The ferry was abandoned when I was 7 years old.

[Double Lab]

Over the weekend I saw a nice Rem. M11 with a cutts on it and it had a complete set of tubes in a wooden case so marked complete with the wrench.

[Bill Murphy]

"Daryl's next bird gun".

[Double Lab]

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy

"Daryl's next bird gun".

It's a 12ga so the only birds I will be shooting with it would be geese, ducks or clays. It had some engraving on it but I got distracted by the wooden case with the tubes in it.

[Alfred Houde]

In an earlier reply I mentioned that the National Museum of the Marine Corps holds in their collection a toolbox with approximately 200 Cutts prototypes, shop copies, tools and gauges owned by Cutts.

After the holidays I heard back from my former colleague, and he provided some images. I include them here. These are classic Cutts prototypes and leads me to believe that the mystery device in question is Cutts handy work. I can't be 100% certain, but the consistencies are certainly there.

Cutts had their hands in a lot of things, so who knows? The fourth image is called a Bird Hawk, which I thought was pretty cool.