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My guess has always been, and I may have read it once upon a time, that their primary market was the western movement.Rifles got around to places that weren't within the makers' primary market. I know of at least 3 Hawkens (including one rather nice one) with provenance of having been taken "back east" as souvenirs of someone's time in the west. There are two in a collection in Scotland: one purchased by the father for a trip west, the other by his son when he went to California in the late 1850s.
Several Hawkens were collected in Illinois, one in Alabama, one in the northern coastal states (sorry, can't recall where). Unfortunately, there is little provenance on these rifles.
I am not familiar with the 1970s article that you mentioned, but this is a display at the JM Davis museum in Claremore, OK.Hawken rifles were supposed to be used on western big game , and carried on horse back until needed. There were so many places in the East making half stock rifles post 1800 , like Pgh. , Pa. , and a host of other gun making centers down along the Ohio River , there was no reason to buy a Hawken rifle in the East. In the 1960's , and early 1970's , many antique dealers still were buying and selling original antique half stock m/l rifles. When these Eastern made rifles were first made , they would have been in competition with Hawken , and were better suited for Eastern game and shooting matches of the day. Many of the Eastern rifles were left over due to the advent of cartridge rifles. I restored a few of these guns kept as family heirlooms. Never saw a Hawken rifle except in pictures. Did read an obscure article in the early 1970's stating that T/Center rifles were actually heavily influenced from a school of rifle builders in New York State. My hunting /shooting buddy got an early T/C rifle in 1971 to use in the Pa. late Flintlock deer season , and was told the same thing , that the rifle from T/C was actually a copy of a rifle made in NY State , just before ctg. rifles came on post American Civil War. Hope this helps , rather than confuses. In the M/L story , there always seems to be more to the story. Gotta just keep digging through the old info.
The Davis museum has a very nice research library, I will see if I can find the article that you are referring to.In 1970 , I was fresh out of Engineering tech school with zero $'s to my name , and little prospect of having any extra $$'s for quite a while due to moving from Pgh. to Central Pa. , for a new work assignment. New RN Grad wife and I , did a "sweat equity " house build which further set my m/l gun desires back. One thing I had sticking in my craw was , I wanted a m/l rifle , and couldn't afford the ones in the Penney's Dept. Store sporting goods section , and the original ones in the antique store were $200 each. Out of my reach. Dug through the Dixie Gun Works catalog , found a blue print of a Hawken style rifle. Started ordering a part at a time from Dixie Gun Works. This is when , in doing research for the Dixie Hawken rifle , I read an article in an early , half inch thick , Gun Digest publication , about the T/C " New York Rifle" connection. As an addendum to this story , I did finish the new Dixie "Hawken" rifle , as per specs. in the Dixie blueprint. It was a classic Hawken style .58 cal. plains rifle , and w/o a horse , even though I was young and strong , just couldn't use a 12 lb. + m/l rifle so sold it for what I had in it.
Thanks! That makes sense.So I was thinking about this thread today while playing with my CVA .36 squirrel rifle. I am by no means an expert on muzzleloader history. Or anything else really. But I do know that the original half stock rifles heading west were purpose built for the new territory and game Frontiersmen would be facing. They were larger calibers than what folks back east would have been using and, from what I understand, they were quite heavy. I would imagine that was because they wanted them to be rugged enough for what they would be used for. I might be wrong about that. That's just what I assumed.
Back east folks tended to use smaller caliber and lighter rifles so, had the Hawken brothers, and other half stock makers, had been targeting the eastern mountain range and wilderness, I believe rifles in our part of the world, Tennessee, would have been made a bit lighter and of the small calibers. So, had the Hawken brothers settled in Fort Nashboro, those famous original Hawken rifles might have been more along the lines of .32, .36, and maybe .45. I've never weighed my little .36 Hawken-ish rifle but it weighs next to nothing and is super easy to carry all day. Don't know what all kinds of big game they had around here 200 years ago but, based on what we have here now, a .36 would kill anything you'd want to hunt. And, while I do not and have no plans to do it, my little .36 is deer legal here. So I think the smaller calibers would have been more prevalent had Hawken went east.
Maybe, maybe not.Phil said all that needs to be said on this subject.
That’s been my experience also.I gotta say this was a thought provoking thread. Now that you mention it, I think the only half stock muzzleloader I ever saw was on grizzly Adams. Of the not too many people I knew that actually had a muzzleloader, they were all long rifles. Then, as a young adult in the late eighties, I started seeing Hawken-ish rifles at Walmart. Never thought about eastern half stocks until you brought it up.
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