Full stock Hawken build questions

[sethpetro]

Hey all, I'm planning on building a fullstock Hawken through Track of the Wolf here in Minnesota. Has anyone built this rifle? Here's a link to the kit parts build up: Fullstock Plains Hawken Kit Or has anyone built a rifle similar to this? What I'm looking for is advice. I've never built a rifle before, but consider myself pretty skilled with my hands. I repair cars for a living. Would this be a good quality rifle to build? My choice would be .54 caliber, 42" barrel, extra fancy curly maple stock, and all iron trim. All iron pieces, lock, and barrel would be browned.

Advice, tips, warnings?

Thanks all!

Seth Petro

 

[Slash]

Seth,
I would recommend either a gun building video or book such as "The Art of Building the Pennsylvania Long Rifle" before you begin. You can do it with lots of patience. All the guys here are great to help. The is also a "building tutorial" here. I think Mike Brooks did this to help other builders. He will also give you any help he can as will all of us.
Good luck, Slash

 

[Harddog]

Seth,

I am not trying to discourage you, but many gun builders feel that the Hawken rifle is one of the hardest rifles to build.

You also might want to check Don Stith's website. St Louis Plains Rifle Company at
[url] www.donstith.com[/url]

Don has the most authentic Hawken and plains rifle kits available.

Randy Hedden

 

[Stubert]

Get it in 62. It will be a little lighter and a bit more powerfull. I have a fullstock 62 flint that looks exactly like TOWs kit but I bought it used. I think it is a TOW kit looking at the pictures but am not sure. Mine has a 33"barrel. It balances nice, has a long enough sight radius, and packs a BIG wallop with 90 - 110 grains powder. The R/B weighs 341 grains. Enjoy

 

[grey8833]

VoyageurPetro:
Hawken is a hard place to start, but thats where I started (half stock Hawken). Go slow, practive everything you can on raw metal stock or wood from the hardware store (not that piece of tiger stripe). Get the plans, get videos, get book or books. Then read everything in this forum till you think you have read everything twice. Get stuck - ask questions BEFORE you even think you made a mistake. Iron furniture is hard to work, on the other hand it does force you to go slow. Please epoxy the tang to the barrel before you inlet the stock. And be extra careful mounting the hook breech to the tang. If the stock is pre-cut, make plaster casts of the critical inlets to get your tang or trigger plate curves more or less close before you cut wood. Read Mike Brooks tutorial - oh! did I say read everything on this forum? :shocked2: Oh yea,,, I did.

Mike

 

A true fullstock Hawken will not have a hooked breech, and the barrel is pinned. This will help some in making it easier to build. If you google American Pioneer Video they hav a build video on the Hawken by Hershel House. It will be a well spent $25. Don Stith's site is also helpful, and he'll answer you email questions. He is considered the expert in things Hawken.

Bill

I started with nothing, and still have most of it left!

 

[Herb]

I am building a fullstock flintlock Hawken .58 right now, but from a shaped blank, barrel inlet only. 36" barrel, your 42 is going to be heavy. Track's is fully inlet and therefore nothing like the work to build one from the stick, and I've done three of them (halfstock Hawkens) from the stick, and three more from Track's inlet stocks.

I am using the flint breech and tang FHG-16-3 (page 224 of the catalog) which has a plug that screws into the end of the barrel, not the extended "false breech" addition. It is hooked and can be removed, but probably shouldn't be. With the flint breech, the flash hole liner goes into the side of the bore ahead of the breech plug.

With the plug-LRF-16-3 shown in their parts, the flash hole liner goes into the false breech and you have that small powder cavity putting the main charge farther away and complicating cleaning. The plain flint plug is flat faced, not slant like the stock is inlet for. Presume it could be reinlet for that, but if if interests you, ask Track about it. Also, that adds about an inch to your barrel, which is now 43" long.

And if you do get it, check the length of pull before you fasten the butt plate on. I don't know how long it is, but it may be too long. I just got their Kit Carson stock, and I think it was about 14 1/4", too long for me. I cut it to 13 5/8". It is some work to reinlet that butt plate, but better now than having a finished rifle that is not comfortable to shoot, and then you cut it off.

The fullstock is simpler than the halfstock in that you don't have the rib to install, or solder the thimbles, or fit that nosecap. And if you use pins instead of keys, you don't have to fit escutcheons, though they probably aren't necessary and aren't shown in the parts.

 

[ladysmithtrading]

Seth, Im currently building a 54 full stock plains rifle, styled after an Illinois builder, looks very similiar to the Hawken but just enough diff to not look like everyone elses, 36" Bill Large barrell all iron hardware and furniture, all browned, a working mans gun, you may want to also look at " The Gunsmith of Greenville County" by Alexander, best and the easiest book to read and follow IMHO for bulding your first, good luck and let us know how it goes along.

 

A true fullstock Hawken will not have a hooked breech, and the barrel is pinned.

With respect - fullstock "percussion" Hawkens (and possibly some flinters - the Smithsonian Hawken, built in the early 1850's - has a hooked breech which was very probably a flinter to begin with) did use patent breeches, at times hooked breeches, and as far as I know they all used wedges not pins. If you can show me an original/existing, J & S Hawken or S Hawken mountain rifle using pins, rather than wedges I would be most interested.........

The TOTW Hawken is IMO only "close" to a Hawken - it's a pretty good representative of a late 1830's plains/mountain rifle, but the stock lines are not really that good.......if you want the closest copy possible of a real full-stock Hawken then Don Stith's kit is the way to go, albeit a bit more costly......as other have noted a Hawken, because of it's plainness is one of the hardest rifles to build "right".
Regarding the barrel - 36-38" is the length which most of the existing originals fit into and most were tapered. 54 caliber is well documented while 62 is large for the time and place. Gen'l Ashley reportedly had a 62 built by the Hawken Brothers in the 1820's - but it's the only Hawken so documented - most were 50-56 caliber with some going as large 58.

FWIW - I do not claim to be a Hawken "expert", but I have studied them for close to 40 years and during that time have had the good luck to handle a half dozen originals and view in person another couple of dozen as well as have discussions with those who have studied them even more closely......

as always others mileage will vary...

 

[MikeChapin]

I built one last year. I had the lock and barrel hanging around for about 15 years. Track had a pre-inletted second stock for a good price so I got the stock and the rest of the parts and started building. It has been the only rifle I have built that I used a pre-inlet stock. I usually buy preshaped or blanks with a barrel channel and ramrod hole drilled. This particular rifle took about a month and a half from start to finish working a couple of hours a day.

The previous advice about Hawkens being more difficult is good. I had already done a lot of kits and several scratch builds so I wasn't too worried about it.

The hooked breach needs to be lined up then made solid. I used el cheapo five minute epoxy to hold the hooked breach and tang together. Once it was inletted, a little heat separated them.

The only real concern I have is the 42" .54 barrel. Mine is a 1" 36" barrel in .58 and it still comes in at 10 1/2 pounds. That is going to be a very heavy rifle.

 

[dlocke]

Any comments on the accuracy of the TOTW Hawken plans? I have those as well as a nice old stock blank set for a future project based on the full-sized Hawken plans. My plan is to use a 36", 1" .50 cal barrel and pin it in place, as well as use a traditional breechplug/tang. Maybe it won't be historically correct, but it will be mine. Not looking forward to cutting the barrel channel and drilling the ramrod hole, so I might send the blank out for that.
DJL

 

[faw3]

Well with Cooner working up a fit for school ect I think you are going to be our Hawken "expert" for awhile Gray Wolf. :bow: Fred :hatsoff:

 

[Brimm]

Seth,
I am building this same kit right now that I got for christmas, and there is nothing you can't do with a .54!!! The one thing that I read was go slow, and that can not be said enough. I started at the tang and inleted it and then the barrel. The butt plate you can do whenever, but now that I have done it... I would say start with the butt plate so you have a little practice removing wood before trying to do the more critical areas that you will be able to see ie. lock,tang....
And someone said that it is heavy, and yes it is, but if you want a fullstock it is the best to start with this kit due to it being easyier to build. The DVD from Jim Chambers Muzzleloaders called "Building the long gun" with James Turpin, gives you a great resource to actually see what is to be done not just read about it!!
Brimm

 

Chuck, I stand corrected, I probably misquoted, or missinterpreted a comment Don had made on another Forum, but then he also said that there are no two alike. There appear to be no hard and fast rules about them. I think I was thinking of the smaller Hawken squirrel rifles of the 1820's, and 30"s.

Bill

 

[sethpetro]

Thanks all for the thoughts and advice. I fully understand the need to go slow and ask questions when ever even possibly unsure of something. The rifle will probably be built over 1-2 years due to time and financial restraints. With a group like what's here on the MF, I'm sure all will go well. Plus the fact that I have a few friends that will be able to help me along the way also. I'll probably go with one of the two full stock Hawken kits that TOTW has available. Both seem to be vertually identical, except that one kit is $200 less. As I begin building the rifle, I'm sure ya'll will know it. I'll keep everyone posted and post pictures as I go.

Thanks again all.

Seth

 

[54ball]

Just a thought, but you might want to consider the Leman rifle in fullstock trimmed in iron. The Leman shares the same era and was far more common then. The opposite is true today. Track claims the Leman as one of their easiest assemblies.

 

[Herb]

Seth, that trigger TR-LR-1300 costs $48 and I bought one for a Kit Carson Hawken I'm building, because it is cheaper. Well, the rear trigger kicks into the front trigger when you fire it, and it hurts my finger. I had this same trigger 10-12 years ago when I built another Hawken and I remember it did the same. I don't know if you feel it when you actually fire a charge, but I sent it back and got the Ron Long lock for $55, TR-PA-20. Anyone else use this TR-LR-1300 and have the same complaint?

 

[sethpetro]

Thanks for the tip Herb, I'll try to remember that as I start acquiring parts. I'm looking forward to the build, just hope I can get started on it soon.

VP

 

The Leman shares the same era and was far more common then.

This is only true for the period after 1836 - Leman's first guns were produced in 1834 (9 years after the Hawken brothers partnership began), but western sales didn't start until circa 1836 and then mostly for the Indian Department.
Prior to 1834/36 the Lancaster aka American Pattern long rifle as made by Henry, Deringer, and several others was the most widely used in the west, with the English Pattern trade rifles coming in second in so far as prodcution figures.
But when comparing the Hawken shop production to the larger makers we're comparing apples to oranges - kind of like comparing a Lyman plains rifle to a Don Stith Hawken - both can be good guns, but one is a production item and the other a custom made firearm.
If you really want an early (1810-1840) iron mounted rifle than a southern mountain rifle (unfortunately most of the kits being offered are of the smaller caliber later style) is one of the best documented rifles of the period....

as always others mileage will vary......

 

[sethpetro]

What would you guys recomment for a rifle to build? I'm looking to build something that might have been seen while traveling the north woods of Minnesota Territory and up into Canada. Or what you might expect to see accompaning and exploring headed out into the Rocky Mountains? Circa 1830-1840's. The Hawken seems to be one rifle that seems to stand out in my memory from that era and those parts of the country.

Thanks!

VP