Hawken first build

[Shoots Last]

I'm looking at building a Hawken gun from the ground up. This is my first attempt at anything like this so I'm pretty nervous. Here is what I'm thinking and what I'm hung up on:
I'm getting a precarved half stock in a low grade curly maple, the classic double set triggers, a 34 inch octagonal barrel, and a flint lock.
I do not know what lock is appropriate, whether the barrel should be tapered or straight, and I'm having difficulty deciding between a .32 rifled barrel or a .62 cal smooth bore barrel. Any tips and suggestions would be great as well as your thoughts.

 

[Shoots Last]

This is fixing to be an expensive project so I need all of the "2 cents" I can get :grin:

 

[F.G. Ford]

Hello Shoots Last,
I think you should do some homework as to the purpose you want your Hawken to be.
There were very few smooth bore Hawkens ( if any??)
The shape of the stock does not lend well to a smooth bore.
A typical Hawken is generally somewhere between .50 and 58 cal. Some are larger.
Do you want to hunt griz. or squerrls, they both can be a challenge to skin and cook.
A well shaped Hawken can be a delight to shoot.
A poorly shaped stock and a big caliber, can be ugly.
Some people say that a Hawken type rifle is difficult to shape.
I don't find so, any more than any other gun stock.
But remember that a badly made gun costs the same as a well made gun. Your choice!
Perhaps a Lyman GPR is a good way to start for the first one. And it is cheaper than buying all the parts separately.
Good luck on your venture.
Fred

 

[Shoots Last]

Thx for you input I realize that this is a slightly scatter brained idea, but I'm going to mainly be hunting small game but there is a part of me that wants to hunt deer with it as well ( talking .62) and my plan isn't to do a perfectly PC hawken but more of a good all season gun that looks like a hawken and looks good in my eyes. And that is probably why I am having trouble. I realy should be building two guns :hmm:

 

[LaBonte]

In June 1839, one of the Americn Fur company's employees bought from "Jacob and Sam. Hawkins" a "smooth bord (sic bored) rifle $22".
So yes the Bros Hawken did build some smooth bore rifle types and may well have built some standard smooth bores as well including double barrels.

for a lock I would recommend Chambers late Ketland or the Hawken shop Ketland style

Barrel I would suggest a 36" tapered barrel

stock style = full stock and would suggest straight grain maple especially for your first stock.

 

[Birddog6]

Oh it is very simple to figure out. Build a different rifle for your first rifle, Not a Hawken rifle. Build some Lancasters or Tennessee's til you learn to build well. :thumbsup:

After you have built 4-5 rifles & halfway know what you are doing, then call Don Stith & talk to him about his Hawken
parts sets, order from him, then build the Hawken. Don most likely knows more about Hawken rifles than anyone you will encounter.

Keith Lisle

 

[Bill Knapp]

Shoots last, where are you in Northern Michigan. I'm in Gaylord, and may be able to give you some help, and direction, as well as let you try some long rifles. PM me if you are interested. Keith's advice is spot on, the Hawken is one hard build.

Bill

 

[Vaino]

If your "Hawken" build is intended to be a "generic, sorta Hawken", just build it w/ whatever ideas you come up w/.......Fred

 

[rich pierce]

Keith nailed it. For sure you don't want double set triggers with a smoothbore, and you'll want a wider buttplate with less curvature if shooting a 20 gauge. If you are building a halfstock percussion or flint rifle or smoothbore that is great to handle and shoot, look to an English sporting gun.

 

[galamb]

Sometime between 1849 and 1861, Sam Hawken built a small caliber (43 cal) full-stock for a fella named Kessel.

Unlike the half-stock "squirrel rifles" (modern name to describe the small caliber half-stocked, single barrel keyed sub 50 cal rifles built by the Hawken's), this "looks" like a mountain/plains style full-stock.

The barrel is 39" long and the trigger guard is "atypical" of a Hawken, but it's genuine none the less.

I would suggest you could build something similar with a 36" 13/16" straight, 7/8" straight or maybe a 7/8" tapered to 3/4" in 40 or 45 cal (depending what's legal for Bambi) and get a dual purpose rifle that is "close" to an original.

Using either a flint or cap Hawken patent breech would add 1" to the barrel, so 37'ish inches overall - not bad.

Personally I wouldn't build a mountain/plains style Hawken in flint because there is no surviving example to emulate (whether or not they ever existed is still up for debate).

If you do build in flint I think most would agree that an English lock would be "proper" (again, that's a pure guess since no originals exist or have been found).

I say toss a coin. Their father, a Maryland builder used both English and Germanic locks (he wasn't fussy or "brand loyal" when it came to locks).

They learned to build from him, so IF they did produce a "mountain flintlock" it could have just as easily had a Germanic style lock on it (but that's a whole other debate).

A Hawken is usually not suggested for a first build. The greatest difficulty I find with Hawken's is getting all the geometry correct with the lock/tang/snail breech.

If you are throwing that out the window in favour of a drum or flint liner/touch hole, that solves that issue making that operation no more difficult than any other rifle.

A pre-carve would get you close in shape and with much study and suggestions you can turn it into a decent looking rifle.

Anyhow, here's a pic or two of the Kessel Hawken.

 

[Zonie]

Just to throw another possibility into the ring, have you thought about a Leman?

Henry Leman out of Lancaster, Pa built smoothbores and rifles. Percussion and Flintlock. Half stock and full stock.
His guns were made with plain stocks with and without cap/patch boxes and usually used plain maple to keep the cost down.

His main claim to fame was making Indian Trade guns for the Government but he and his company also made a lot of guns for sale to the public.

Not only do his guns fit your plan and have enough different options but they are easier to build than a Hawken.
I've read in several places they are considered to be one of the best "first build" guns for new builders.

Here's a few links to Pecatonica Rivers website so you can see what's available.
http://www.longrifles-pr.com/lemanhalf.shtml
http://www.longrifles-pr.com/lemanfull.shtml

The wood offered by Pecatonica River is shown on this link. It's price is in addition to the prices shown on the previous two pages.

If you choose to build a Leman flintlock you'll have to tell Pecatonica river you don't want the standard Leman percussion lock that comes with the kit.
Their L&R "Late English" would work, but because the lockplate is slightly different they will need to supply the stock without the lock mortice.
If you ask them they might be able to cut the lock mortice for the flintlock. The worst they can say is they can't do it.
http://www.longrifles-pr.com/landrlocks.shtml

 

[vulture]

Before I built my first custom rifle I put several kits together, and that was one of the best things I ever did. Building those kits allowed me to see just how things went together and how they should relate to each other in the building process. My first build was a Leman designed rifle in flintlock which turned out great for me, my next was a Leman caplock in .54 and my third was a .54 caplock using a stock a friend gave me, don't know what school it was from so the rifle is more a "generic" "Dennis" rifle than anything else. After all that I am now back to building another kit, this one a Lyman GPR in flint, why the kit? I just didn't want to do all the brain work and I wanted a kick around fun gun I didn't have much time and money into, and I got it on sale for a real good price, less than $400. I did replace the lock with an L&R lock, and I might wind up replacing the stock with a drop in stock from TOW. I know guys, in the end I could have built another custom rifle for as much money, but this one will have some options I wouldn't get otherwise. Think hard about getting a kit, like the Lyman GPR for you first build, it will teach you a great deal, and still be fun, and give you a decent firearm in the end.

 

[galamb]

I'm kinda with Zonie on this one.

If you are wanting a sub-50 cal half-stock a Leman or an Ohio (not necessarily a Vincent - Pecatonica also has an Ohio stock) would look fine.

A Hawken is a serious piece of lumber if you try and build to spec - slimming it too much for a smaller barrel could wreck the look enough to make it kinda weird looking or whimpy.

I built a half-stock Ohio with a 13/16" ATF 40 cal barrel a good number of years back and it looked far more "proportional" than my Hawken would have had I tried to use that barrel instead.

My Hawken was originally built with a 1 1/8" tapered to 1" 54 cal - trying to make a 13/16" 40 fit that stock would just look "wrong".

Of course, there were a number of Hawken Squirrel rifles produced by the boys in St. Louis. No, not the "mountain/plains" rifle that comes to mind, but certainly better suited to the smaller caliber.

Here's a 36 cal Hawken Squirrel (modern name for local rifle).

 

[Doug Lykins]

Just curious, what makes a Hawken more difficult to build than other rifles?

 

[galamb]

You rarely get a straight answer.

I feel it's getting the geometry of the tang/snail/lock all correct at exactly the same time.

With a flint (touch hole or liner) or a drum style cap lock you inlet the barrel, then inlet the tang, then inlet the lock and then drill the touch hole OR the hole for the drum when everything is in place and lined up.

With the snail you can inlet the barrel first but then you inlet the tang and breech together (fixed to the barrel)and then have to get the lock lined up so there is no gaps between the cutout and the snail plus get it oriented so that the hammer strikes "close enough" that it can be easily adjusted.

On more than one occasion a hammer had to be "cut" and welded to get the geometry correct.

So while personally I don't think it's totally beyond the capabilities of a "first build" since you lack the experience of things learned on another build (where you do have some latitude to make a small "ooops" and recover nicely, but learn from it), any snail breech or Ohio patent breech is "not forgiving" and an error is either, not easy or impossible to totally recover from.

Additionally, if you are doing a half-stock, or any half-stock for that matter you are either soldering the rib on (takes some practice) or attaching with screws, which requires drilling and tapping blind holes in the bottom of the barrel - both of which can be accomplished with an adequate supply of Tums washed down with some Mylanta.

So generally a drill press is required because while maybe you can drill a blind hole for a #4 screw with a hand drill, I don't know if I would be drilling towards a rifle bore with one.

I have built one (1) Hawken half-stock and am in no rush to build another. I didn't even particularly like carrying the heavy thing and sold it after using it less than half of a hunting season - just not my kind of "user friendly" rifle.

But like many - just "had to have one", until I did.

If I ever do another it will be a full-stock, probably patterned after the 43 cal full-stock I noted above or more probably an earlier "eastern style" Hawken that one or both of the brothers built "before" they developed their plains/mountain style fully.

I hunt dense hardwoods in the east. The "Hawken" was designed for the "great open" or mountain areas, usually traveled on horse back - with the horse carrying the rifle most of the time.

 

[don hepler]

On a correct Hawken, I would want a tapered barrel and the inletting, is difficult. Getting the lock on cap lock is difficult to line up with a snailed breech. Then the underlug and thimbles can be difficult. And imagine the ram rod on a tapered barrel fitting into the stock. Then there are two wedge pins that need to be fitted. Much less work on a Long Rifle. I know a builder that has built over 100 rifles and he told me that a Hawken was the most difficult. I think he has built two Hawkens. And this guy won honors at the builders fair in Kempton Pa.