Critterkiller,
I was going to link you to a build-a-long showing a professional gun maker assembling one of The Hawken Shop's kits. Unfortunately, the pictures aren't visible because of the BS that Photobucket pulled a few years ago, so there's not much to see anymore.
So instead, I will post some photos of what can be made from The Hawken Shop kit. I believe you can click on these images and open up enlarged versions.
The top rifle was assembled by a professional gun maker and is essentially a custom rifle. I don't know who assembled the lower rifle, but it is more representative of what a talented amateur might do. These two rifles were assembled back in the day when Art Ressel owned the business.
The present owners of The Hawken Shop are using the same molds and parts that Art Ressel developed when he owned the business. The castings were made from a couple of original Hawken rifles in Art's collection. As a result, this makes one of the more authentic copies of a S. Hawken rifle.
This is a scan from The Hawken Shop Catalog #2 from back in the 1980's. The smaller pictures on either side of the large picture show the original part next to the new cast part. The original part in each photo is the one with the dark patina.
The level of difficulty of The Hawken Shop kits are about the same as TOTW kits, meaning they both can be a challenge to a first time builder. The price of The Hawken Shop kit is a few hundred dollars more than TOTW kits.
The only other negative I'm aware of is a one-off case of a lock that wasn't assembled correctly by The Hawken Shop. I don't know how that was resolved, but the company could have easily sent a new lock to fix the problem.
A couple comments about the TOTW kits.
I don't recommend Track's Kit Carson Hawken kit. It is no way a copy of the Carson Hawken. It's kind of representative of a late S. Hawken rifle, but I don't like the shape of the comb on the stock. It does make a lighter rifle because it uses a 1" barrel and it is does contain quality parts. The stock is pre-carved by Pecatonica and is essentially the same kit you can get from them.
I do recommend Track's Jim Bridger Hawken kit. It's not an exact copy of the Bridger original, but pretty close. It is a copy of the late S. Hawken that GRRW was making in the late 1970's. There are some issues with metal parts and the pre-cut inlets in the stock which one may have to deal with. The biggest one has to do with the tang of the breech plug.
The original molds for the breech & tang were developed by Ron Long back in the 70's. For some reason, the current parts are a little different than the old parts. It's possible the original molds wore out or were damaged and a new mold had to be made. The photo below shows a comparison of the current tang from Track (on the left) and an old tang from when Ron Long was casting them (on the right). I believe you can see there is a difference in the shape.
The current tang doesn't fit the profile of the stock. It actually comes off the standing breech at the wrong angle and then has too much bend the other way in the tang itself. The proper fix for this is to heat the tang where it joins the standing breech (where the red arrow is pointing) to bright red and bend it down or to the right in the picture. Then the tang itself needs to be straightened a little to match the curve of the wrist of the stock.
Herb Troester has made posts on this issue. His caution is that this is a weak area and the metal should be heated red hot to bend it. He says he has broken the tang off of the standing breech twice because he didn't get it hot enough.
