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In the early 1940s, Al was scheduled to participate in the Olympic Games as a rifle competitor for the United States, but the onset of World War II caused the Olympics to be cancelled and Al did not compete.
Al’s talents with metal and wood have become renowned, but some of his early efforts are unknown to many. He performed freelance gun-design work for many of the major gunmakers, and one of his designs was a gas system for a semiautomatic rifle. This system allowed the gas to be bled off at the proper rate to efficiently work the rifle but not allow the high gas pressures to gradually destroy the gun. The system was given a patent by the U.S. Patent Office in 1939 and was later adopted by Winchester in the rifle that became known as the Model 100. It was produced in .243 Winchester, .284 Winchester and .308 Winchester. The Model 100 was a clip-fed semiauto with sleek lines and sleek functioning to match.
Al was, for a short time in the 1930s, a professional heavyweight boxer. He fought to make enough money to purchase more and better machines for his shop. The Ljutic Gun Company was then operating in Oakland, California, and this tough young man with Croatian heritage fought good fights. He won some and lost some, but one night he came home and, although he had won, realized he could not remember the fight or how he got home. On the spot, he made the decision to stop fighting.
Another interesting sidelight of Al’s early career was the fact he made racecar parts – in particular, pistons. The pistons were used in the racecars owned and driven by West Coast midget-car and Indy 500 racing champion Bill Vukovich in the 1950s. Vukovich was known for his hard-charging driving style and cool demeanor. He raced in three consecutive Indy 500s, won the first two and died in the third.
Gun stocks were another product Al and his dad made on a custom basis for their customers. The “Star” stocks were works of beauty. The standout features on these stocks were the ivory stars inlaid into the wood. These are rare items now, and finding one in good condition would be worth the purchase. Al’s start in trapshooting is an unusual story, but once you read it, you’ll quickly agree “That’s Al.” It seems Western Region Remington field representative A.A. “Al” Riehl gave Al a call one day and asked him to go along to the range for some trapshooting. Al had been a riflemaker and shooter and did not have a shotgun for the occasion, so, true to his mechanical nature, he made one! That’s right, even before Riehl arrived at Al’s shop, Al had machined a simple gun with a single barrel, grip, trigger mechanism and buttplate. The rather bizarre-looking gun later evolved and became known as the “Space Gun.”
Al became famous for his trap accomplishments. One of the funniest stories was of the first tournament Al ever entered. The place was the Sacramento Gun Club (which, sadly, has recently been closed). Al was new to the game but had natural talent. He arrived at the shoot and promptly entered the Singles event. Equally as promptly, he broke the winning score of 99. No one knew who this ringer was, so, to teach him a lesson, some of the shooters grabbed Al and cut the pant legs off his Levis. They figured he’d be more easily recognized that way, I guess.
In the summer of 1952, not long after their nuptials, the Ljutics left the Fresno/Clovis area to look for a gun-friendly town where they could set up shop. They happened to stop in Reno, Nevada, and visited Harold’s Gun Club to shoot some targets. They met with the manager of the club, a gentleman by the name of Phil Miller, another ATA hall-of-famer, by the way, who was the first shooter to break 100 straight from the then-maximum 25-yard line in 1924. Phil was also the originator of the Miller System of handicap options used in trap tournaments. Al and Nadine told Phil what they had in mind. Phil was a fine shooter, and he was also a shrewd businessman and could see a good thing when it was right in front of him. He told Al and Nadine he stored his trap machines in a military-style quonset but and, if they agreed, they could use the but as their machine shop. As part of the deal, Al would take on the responsibilities of Assistant Manager at Harold’s Gun Club. The deal was sealed with a handshake, and it seemed Reno was as far as the Ljutics had to travel to find a gun-friendly town to set up shop.
Phil Miller became a good friend of the Ljutics and later influenced Al to design and build a better single-barrel trap gun than was popular at the time. Serious trapshooters of the era were winning with guns such as Parker, Ithaca and Purdey. The great new Ljutic “Mono Gun” was the result of Phil’s influence.
Somewhere around 1956/57, Al designed and built a progressive shotshell reloading machine. Before the late 1950s, no one really thought much about reloading. Al’s design would reload one or two shells at a time, with each stroke of the machine having the shells undergo a different stage of the process: depriming, priming, resizing, powder drop, wad insertion, shot drop, crimp start, final crimp and then the finished shell. ATA hall-of-famer Arnold Riegger performed demonstrations of Al’s new machine and sold them, as well. Riegger made many trips to the winner’s podium with reloaded shells he had produced on Al’s machine. The wad used in the reloader was originally stamped out of acoustic fiberboard purchased in 4'x8' sheets. These sheets came packaged on pallets. On the night of October 27, 1964, the Ljutics suffered a fire at their home and plant when, apparently, the moisture or chemical content of one or more of the pallets of fiberboard was too high and somehow caused it to spontaneously combust. The fire became a conflagration that destroyed the home and shop they had built on property across the highway from Harold’s Gun Club.
As the years went by, the Ljutics came to know many of the best trapshooters in the country. Ljutic was rapidly becoming almost a household name in trap circles.
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