Hawken Question

[navaho]

Was looking at TOW catalog and noticed that when they talk about Hawken Kits they recommend not as a first kit. My question is why? Is the hawken that much more difficult. Any help in understanding this would be helpful.

 

[LSU TIGER]

I think they're refering to drilling blind holes for attatching the rib, soldering the forward pipes to the rib, and inletting the long tang. Also, you're fitting the snail to the lock. I'd be more worried about drilling the blind holes than anything else.

 

What LSUu Tiger said, plus the trigger assy, some of the lines on the stock, cutting the wedge slots, can be a little tricky. The full stock kit might be a little easier. You might try contacting Don Stith at his site. Hawkins are his specialty. Link He'll be more than happy to answer your questions. He has a number of different Hawken kits available, plus others. Bill

 

[faw3]

They make it sound easy, but drill and tap holes also from tang to trigger bar and lock plate. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[mikelange]

All the points above contribute to the difficulty of building Hawkens. I also found the fitting of the tang to the hooked breechplug (particularly on the slanted plug/tang combos) to be a colossal pain in the tail. I'd built somewhere, roughly, in the vicinity of a couple dozen longrifles by the time I took on a Hawken kit, so I had some vague idea of what I was doing. Or so I thought. :haha: :haha: :haha:

 

[clayfeld]

I am doing a Don Stith Gemmer Hawken now, as my first parts set. The parts are terrific, and my work has been perfect...except for the fitting of the hook to the tang, the tang to the breech, the tang to the stock, the bolts to the tang and trigger plate, the inletting of the lock and the locating of the buttplate screws. And I haven't even gotten to the rib blinded screw holes! On the other hand, it has been a *great* learning experience!

 

[LSU TIGER]

One thing that would help is the fact that the TOW kit is inlet pretty close. I think that most of the screw holes are spotted and just a bit of wood would need to be removed to get a part to fit.

 

[bioprof]

I just finished a TOW Kit Carson Hawken this fall after finishing a Vincent rifle. The tang looked like it was 100% inletted, but you have to move the tang and breech back quite a ways back or the hammer won't line up with the nipple. This creates a problem if you don't move it back far enough, because the hammer is so stout that you can't bend it without an acetylene torch. Like another member said earlier, fitting the tang to the patented breech plug is a bear. I stayed up until 2 a.m. one morning working on it and the more I worked on it the worse it got. I recently finished up a Bedford longrifle, and it was much easier.

 

[faw3]

Thats :rotf: :rotf: :rotf: great. Your well on your way. I asked someome whos made a few for help first and he said sure, now which one to try? I was at the point of buying a T/C and tricking it out,new barrel ,lock, stock ect just need the triggers and ? Anyway I started looking at the Lemen after adding all that up. Fred :hatsoff: