Halfstock, Flintlock Hawkens??

[Howard Pippin]

The thing that perplexes me most in this oft-revisited and debated topic is the enthusiasm for a speculative gun. I can’t pretend to understand the appeal of a speculative gun when there are dozens of terrific alternatives. Maybe it’s based on wanting something special or unique. Maybe enthusiasts want a Hawken rifle, prefer flintlocks or like the early 1820s era, and find fullstock Hawken rifles don’t ring their bell. Maybe some enthusiasts like having something that proves nobody can tell them what is historically appropriate. No idea. Can someone share why a flintlock, halfstock Hawken rifle appeals to them?

I'm sure that there's more people on here like myself who do not feel that period correct has anything to do with our personal enjoyment. We enjoy shooting muzzleloaders the same as we might have enjoyed archery hunting and didn't feel we were limited to native American equipment. Is my flintlock period correct? I have no idea, and I'm not interested in that any more than the idea that my compound bow wasn't built by a Native American. I don't have to dress in moccasins or buckskin britches to be able to hunt, thank you anyway but some of my synthetic stuff works fairly good. My half stock flintlock rifle has nothing to do with Hawken, or for that, really nothing to do with England. I appreciate the American ingenuity that comes up with these ideas and I can incorporate them anyway I want to. My left-handed flintlock with its synthetic ramrod puts about all the restrictions that I need in order to restrict how easy it is for me to hunt. So hang in there you unperiod people, there is a place for us in this world to enjoy the things we like. I could even mention my synthetic stocked percussion but maybe that should be at another time.
Squint

 

[French Colonial]

Someday......

I will have a rifle built to copy this original Tatham and Egg...

Someone converted it to percussion years ago and mine will be a flintlock, it is a .62 caliber and I have shot it with light loads.

It is perfectly balanced and fits me perfectly as well, the rear sight has two folding leaves which I think is very cool.

It does not say Hawken on it but that's OK, at the risk of blasphemy, it fits me better than any reproduction Hawken I have ever shouldered and is not muzzle heavy.

Hawken rifles were not the only rifles in the west, but some think they are the end all and be all, I beg to differ.

If you want a half stock, flintlock you should know that there were such things so go for it!

 

[Robby]

According to the new Hawken book..........

Thats okay, the authors had no more information than the rest of us. I still believe they made a half stock flintlock gun or two.
Robby

 

[pamtnman]

The thing that perplexes me most in this oft-revisited and debated topic is the enthusiasm for a speculative gun. I can’t pretend to understand the appeal of a speculative gun when there are dozens of terrific alternatives. Maybe it’s based on wanting something special or unique. Maybe enthusiasts want a Hawken rifle, prefer flintlocks or like the early 1820s era, and find fullstock Hawken rifles don’t ring their bell. Maybe some enthusiasts like having something that proves nobody can tell them what is historically appropriate. No idea. Can someone share why a flintlock, halfstock Hawken rifle appeals to them?

Last year a .62 caliber fullstock percussion Plains-style rifle was completed for me by Mark Wheland, and it is the hammer of Thor. It is also beautiful to look at, easy to carry and hunt with, very accurate, and slightly heavy of barrel. It is perfect for the PA early muzzleloader season, and also for all other muzzleloader seasons around America. But it is not compliant with our flintlock-only season.
So here are a couple practical reasons to have a flintlock half-stock version made. First, here in Pennsylvania (PA), we have a flintlock-only season from December 26th until mid-to-late January, depending upon the county. While I have enjoyed hunting that late season with a flintlock .45 for a very long time, and then a 38" barrel flintlock .54 since 2013, I now want a flintlock that combines two characteristics that I have come to really like: The .62 caliber in a rifled barrel, and a short, light, handy rifle. Lacking a flintlock that matches these qualities, I set about to either buy one or have one built by a competent maker. I placed a "Wanted" ad here on the website, and was quickly rewarded by several people offering beautiful rifles that almost matched my goal. Jaegers come close, but are fullstock. Several half stocks were either too long (my goal is a 28"-30" barrel), or too refined for me to hunt with (beautiful carving and inlays that will not survive my hunting habits).
So I looked at the British Sporting Rifle design, which is time tested, beautiful, light weight, and powerful, and mostly found in percussion, and I decided to have one made in flintlock. Examples of flintlock British Sporting Rifles are frequent, and can be seen by doing an internet search. They look remarkably like a Hawken, almost exactly like a Hawken, but they pre-date Hawken. With their short, swamped large-caliber rifle barrels, half stocks, straight hand butt stock, they are the image of streamlined perfection. They were popular across the British empire for a long time for a good reason. I have looked at examples by Lancaster, Purdey, Mortimer, and other makers, and they are perfection. The .62 caliber is their average, with many in the .69 and even .72 rifle caliber. People who hunt big game with British Sporting Rifles are wedded to them and would hunt with nothing else. So that design should meet my desire and the PA flintlock-only restriction. If PA did not have the flintlock-only restriction, I would have the gun made in percussion. But I live and hunt in PA. A flintlock is a requirement.
Make sense?

 

[pamtnman]

Photos posted elsewhere by Steve Bertram, a traditional gunsmith in Colorado. Steve, forgive me if you are a lurker here, but these fabulous pictures need to be seen more widely in the name of science.

 

[pamtnman]

I’m sorry for multiple picture posts here. For whatever reason, me and my iPhone struggle with the picture posting function here.

 

[Robby]

Only a .58, but its under seven pounds.

Swamped barrel. Not a Mortimer but I did borrow a lot from them.
Robby

 

[pamtnman]

Only a .58, but its under seven pounds.
View attachment 122853
Swamped barrel. Not a Mortimer but I did borrow a lot from them.
Robby

Usually the straight hand stock is matched with a heavily curled/ curved trigger guard extension, but like so many people here have said - assemble the parts that work for you/ me/ us, and create a firearm that is fun and fits our bodies and needs. Really neat looking gun, Robby.

 

[George Andrix]

What about a half stock Hawkenish flintlock with a fast twist barrel? I would have to guess that some of the British flintlock sporting rifles used for hunting elephants and the like would have tried a longer bullet rather than a round ball. They were certainly used in the cap-lock era.
I have a .45 caliber flintlock with a 1 in 21" twist. It shoots up to 500 grain paper patched bullets very nicely.

 

[Africa58double]

Well… Thompson Center made a flintlock Hawken… So there ya go

 

[Grenadier1758]

In my opinion, Thompson Center made a traditional (sort of) flintlock and even though only in the most obscure of similarly for marketing purposes named it a Hawken. Same for the percussion version.

 

[pamtnman]

What about a half stock Hawkenish flintlock with a fast twist barrel? I would have to guess that some of the British flintlock sporting rifles used for hunting elephants and the like would have tried a longer bullet rather than a round ball. They were certainly used in the cap-lock era.
I have a .45 caliber flintlock with a 1 in 21" twist. It shoots up to 500 grain paper patched bullets very nicely.

They used exclusively round balls in very shallow, slow twist rifling, purposefully selected for their “decisive smashing power.” Powder charges started around 100 grains and easily went to 160 or more. Big butt plates kept felt recoil manageable. Read Sir Samuel Baker’s various books. You will enjoy them immensely. He discusses all of his choices in each book. His “small” rifle was .62, and his usual rifle was .69 caliber, with double rifles in 12 and 10-bore his regular go-tos. He also had rifles shooting a two ounce ball, which is 4 bore, I think. They weren’t messing around

 

[Artificer]

I bought John Baird's two books on Hawken rifles almost 50 years ago, so pardon me for forgetting...

I know in one of the books it shows a Hawken with a traditional British Buttplate and I think trigger guard? Can't remember if the wrist was checkered? To me, that always was my favorite.

Does anyone else remember that rifle and when it was made?

Gus

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

They used exclusively round balls in very shallow, slow twist rifling, purposefully selected for their “decisive smashing power.” Powder charges started around 100 grains and easily went to 160 or more. Big butt plates kept felt recoil manageable. Read Sir Samuel Baker’s various books. You will enjoy them immensely. He discusses all of his choices in each book. His “small” rifle was .62, and his usual rifle was .69 caliber, with double rifles in 12 and 10-bore his regular go-tos. He also had rifles shooting a two ounce ball, which is 4 bore, I think. They weren’t messing around

Same guy also considered a 24 bore rifle with bullets to be the equal of anything in creation. I think you're mixing James Forsyth (big balls and powder charges+slow twist) and Sir Samuel Baker ("elongated projectiles are nice, but a big ball can be made to work too") together, as Sir Baker was quite enamored with bullet-rifles from fairly early on (being involved in the adoption of the P53, he felt that Wellington's insistence in .70 for the P51 was wasted potential) and spends pages talking up Purdy's "Express Rifles".

 

[pamtnman]

Same guy also considered a 24 bore rifle with bullets to be the equal of anything in creation. I think you're mixing James Forsyth (big balls and powder charges+slow twist) and Sir Samuel Baker ("elongated projectiles are nice, but a big ball can be made to work too") together, as Sir Baker was quite enamored with bullet-rifles from fairly early on (being involved in the adoption of the P53, he felt that Wellington's insistence in .70 for the P51 was wasted potential) and spends pages talking up Purdy's "Express Rifles".

All I can recommend is read Baker. He criticizes hollowpoints, is ok with Minie balls, but uses round balls exclusively. Over and over he lauds their “great smashing power” for everything from fallow deer on Ceylon to elephant in Ethiopia.

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

All I can recommend is read Baker. He criticizes hollowpoints, is ok with Minie balls, but uses round balls exclusively. Over and over he lauds their “great smashing power” for everything from fallow deer on Ceylon to elephant in Ethiopia.

I have, and he doesn't use a ball exclusively. A "belted ball" is a bullet, and he loved that in his 10 bore when going after Elephants. He quickly gave up on Forsyth's exploding ball idea as being impractical and not always effective; and quickly found that a 10 bore with a belted ball was really the limit of what he was willing to consider using (he fired that 2 bore only a handful of times). By the late 1850's he was hunting almost everything with a .577, leaving his smaller bore rifles for the likes of Roe Deer, Rooks, Rabbits and such. He also complained about the 10 bore not having a satisfactory effect on big cats, despite it being able to almost fully penetrate a Cape Buffalo from head to tail. He also spends dozens of pages complaining about the lack of quality gunbearers and poorly trained mahouts and beaters.

 

[Herb]

If you want a halfstock flintlock rifle, just build it. Call it a Plains Rifle. Here is a .58 that I built of proper Hawken parts, except the hand-sawed stock.
Here I am hunting mule deer with it.
Then emptying my rifle at the hillside. Hit it, too.

Then Carl and me with my buck.

 

[Patched]

This discussion has been burning (with the occasional flare-up) for the entire 48 years I’ve been shooting Blackpowder guns.
I personally like the halfstock sporting rifle look, be it English, Harper Ferry or Hawken for my muzzleloaders….

In all these years I have yet to understand the passion and emotion attached to the Hawken label…a fine handmade product in it’s time but so we’re the Henrys, Tryons, Demmicks and the English imports etc…the homage and reverence is a little overblown for some reason.

 

[Herb]

Here is a closer look at that flint rifle, then my copy of Jim Bridger's Hawken (been shot a couple thousand times), my brass mounted Hawken copy (original in Cody museum) and a St. Louis .40 squirrel rifle.
Then me hunting elk with my Bridger .54.

 

[deerstalkert]

Herb, that hat would get you shot and mounted as a trophy by some of the yahoos that hunt here sometimes!