doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Matska S/N list

Czech was a part of Russian Imperia at the time and a lot of Nowotny's guns are still here, but most of Russian experts claimed Matska was superior to Nowotny and also they said Everybody could obtain the best English gun from Matska, but for twice less money.

Geno:

Thanks for the info. Do you know if there was a Kilby contact in Weipert and if so who? Are the original catalogues, Matska, Fukert, Morgenstern, Nowotny, etc. there also? I'd like to purchase some.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Raimey, John Kilby was very popular among Russian gunmakers I guess. Long time ago I had double gun SLNE made by Aleshkin and this gun was with barrels made by J.Kilby also. Gun expert Buturlin wrote J.Kilby was one of the best English barrel makers. No idea about Kilby's contact in Weipert, but it seems by s/n's we can see on Matska's guns for instance, John Kilby made and sold a lot of barrels.
Never heard about Matska's catalogs.

What town did Aleshkin have a shop? Any idea if Kalezky was Austrian(looks to have had a shop in Wien - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna , Czech. or Russian.

Here's an interesting Russian site view by forced translation:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl...l%3Den%26sa%3DG
Don't select "Czech Republic" as it sends you into a nasty loop.

Select "Russia" on the left side and there's a little info about Matska, I think in the 6th paragraph along with J. Kilby, etc. tube makers. Select "Technicial Conditions" for proofmarks.
Here's the site: http://www.gunproofmarks.ru/ .
And here's the proofmarks choice: http://www.gunproofmarks.ru/russia-control.html .
The homepage has a translator.
Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Are you guys just being polite, or are the guns you are discussing actually made by a guy named Fukert? The wonderful little 16 gauge I once owned was marked with the maker's name and it was Fuckert. As a matter of fact, the name was a selling point, both on the buy and on the sell.

eightbore:

First, although Gustav Fukert had Balkan States clients, Swedish and Russian clients, I can't say Fukert made Matska's guns but in the DGJ articles mentioned in the first post, Bill Wise or Geno mentioned that Matska sourced his frames or forging from Gustav Bittner, who with Gustav Fukert(German's had a typo in the patent application which resulted in Fuckert), Wenzel Morgenstern & Sohn, Eduard Schmidl and Elias Schwab formed a group headed by Rudolf Harnisch in 1887 to make the Mannlicher. This appears to have heavily funded them allowing an expansion in the hunting/sporting catagory. Very similar to Suhl, many makers sourced components from Weipert/Vejprty as it was a well of cottage industry, individual craftsmen and Matska apparently drew from the Weipert well. Then Johann Nowotny(1839-1893) is known to also have sourced components from Weipert as well as offered John Kilby tubes, which apparently the Russians really did cotton to, on his upper scale gun. Johann Nowotny, not the Nowotny of Suhl or Matthias Nowotny who had J. Springer as a son-in-law, had a close working relationship with the British and may have been the point of contact for the Kilby tubes. In 1945 when all the Germans were expelled and the state took over all the gunmakers, after assembling all the parts possible, strange combinations like Suhl tubes on a Johann Kalecky(Kalezky?) system as well as Purdey tubes on a Jiracek action with the Weipert stamp NPw. Also was a J. Lang(London) set of tubes on a Belgian system.

Gustav Fukert is on Silver's 6.5X52R post as well as here. To boot, Silver's Fukert was proofed/proved in Germany, maybe Suhl. It looks to be a small complicated wide world of longarms. What was the serial of your Fukert?

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

A friend had a nice C grade Lefever with Kilby barrels and so marked on the top of the barrel like they would mark Krupp etc. These were fluid steel.

Also, Feodor(Franz) Osipovitch Matska(Macka) looks to have been Bohemian by birth and immigrated, or spent some formative years, thru Austria before moving on to Russia. This increases the probablity of a strong Matska-Bittner/Fukert-Weipert craftsmen relationship.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

My F-Gun had the fateful "C" in the spelling of the name. I will look up the gun in my files and hopefully find Mr. F's full name and the serial number.

Here're the Fukert markings. They usually have , on the barrels, the Fukert patent in about six countries.