Kibler Hawken?

[Antelope Pete]

Here’s the famous pineapple Smithsonian flintlock conversion rifleView attachment 376510View attachment 376511
I’ve collected every picture and article I could over the years…it’s convenient to grab something from a computer file…
I’ve seen the makings of fistfights over these “authentic” Hawken discussions …a great disservice was created in the early 1970s by a very small group of “buckskin” fanatics who over inflated Hawken rifle relevance,..their zealous passion to put J&S Hawken rifles pivotally important to the Rocky Mountain fur trade misled the true story.

The short little book by Raymond Thorpe about John Johnston became a movie at the time …Jerimiah Johnson …and the zealot band of buckskin Hawkenphiles was vindicated in their fur trade narrative…

so here we are today…speculating whether to still mount a fur trade flintlock on a gold rush rifle.

Thanks Patched. That's definitely a conversion lock and drum arrangement. I have that photo in a book but not the close up of the lock. Definitely shows a flint was possible if not probable and interestingly on an 1849 or later S. Hawken too.

 

[Gum Slough Muzzleloader]

I totally agree with your assessment…Osborne Russel or Francis Parkman gave detailed descriptions…. I live in Nevada and have packed several of my 36” barreled Hawkeny Plains rifles in my youth 30s and never gave it a thought…these guns didn’t get heavy until I crossed the 50s barrier…who turned up the gravity intensity dial?

A man’s gun , I assume, was the difference between life and death in those mountains and plains…a sturdy reinforced wrist and heavier barrel was weighty insurance against a bad horse wreck or a double charge in some excited moment of danger….people were tough and strong cuz they had to be.

Well said.

 

[oreclan]

I have a contemporary gun that is percussion, the lock was clearly a flint lock cut down and modified to percussion. It is a near clone of a gun in the Museum of the Fur Trade. That’s what Kibler should do…sell us that lock plate and a hammer.

You can buy another flintlock to convert from Kibler now!
Then you can get a drum, nipple, and percussion hammer from your preferred muzzleloader supplier and you've got it.

 

[oreclan]

Good question but probably only answered speculatively. If shop was set up in 1820 it would seem likely.

According to Wikipedia the first Hawkens plains rifle was sold in St. Louis in 1831.

 

[Rudyard]

Since there are all these Hawken aficionados I have copies of Biard's 'The Hawken rifle ' &'Fifth teen years in the Hawken load' all ready packed ready to post to the US. .But I suppose it should go in the for sale .section .
Rudyard who has made them but prefer my 5 pounds weight 50 cal flint more suited to my local mountains

 

[longcruise]

According to Wikipedia the first Hawkens plains rifle was sold in St. Louis in 1831.

If that's correct then I wonder what he was doing the firs 11 years?

Of course wikipedia is not a particularly reliable source at least as far as my opinion goes

 

[Rudyard]

Well said.

My conclusion became" if your going to carry weight make it edible "my 26" swamped round barrel flint rifle ran 5 pounds, My old 2 grouve is close to 6 pounds its enough since the global warming made the hills steeper of late .
Rudyard's view

 

[FishDFly]

They used horses to transport their rifles along with their traps.

Rifle weight was not an issue, unless you were the horse.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

They used horses to transport their rifles along with their traps.

Rifle weight was not an issue, unless you were the horse.

Yes, but what kind of horses did they use? What's a PC/HC horse like? Weight might have been an issue with the horse indeed.

 

[Patched]

According to Wikipedia the first Hawkens plains rifle was sold in St. Louis in 1831.

Well…I suggest Wikipedia come join this conversation and educate its cyberself on matters historical, factual and actual.
Documented by C.Hanson and several others, with tax records, deeds, titles, marriage licenses etc place Jacob Hawken in the gun repair/ smithing, blacksmithing and metal fab business with Lakeman in St Louis in 1817 after Jacob spent several years on the payroll of the Harper’s Ferry Arsenal as a gun stocker and gunsmith…a trade he learned with his brother in his father’s gun shop in Maryland.

Jacob didn’t start his new young life at the edge of the new frontier as a horseshoer only with the skill set he acquired at home and in a gun factory…he worked on guns…apparently halfstocks with a barrel rib had some practical advantages…there is at least one gun with J. Hawken on it…the current Hawken Shop once sold plans for that very gun

I already posted this picture from an old Hawken Shop brochure

As I recall this gun is thought to be dated around 1822-25…about the time the “new fangled” percussion cap ignition made it’s way up the river from ships in NewOrleans..with those import locks, import patent breeches and some oval sheet metal patch boxes and stock furniture…
Of course I’m speculating but evidence suggests Jacob made St Louis guns way before 1831…

I have a set of those plans…but I don’t recall how I got em…someone gave them to me.

 

[yellowhammer]

Yes, but what kind of horses did they use?...

Big ones?

A big gun takes a big horse...

 

[yellowhammer]

..."my 26" swamped round barrel flint rifle ran 5 pounds, My old 2 grouve is close to 6 pounds...

Need pics of said lightweight rifles @Rudyard !

 

[Matt-J2]

Of course wikipedia is not a particularly reliable source at least as far as my opinion goes

As an aside, Wikipedia is as reliable as the people who contribute. If you doubt anything presented there, you can see what sources they cite.

In this particular instance of the 1831 claim, they cite "Charles E. Hanson, Jr. (1979). The Hawken Rifle: Its Place in History. The Fur Press. pp. 11–12".

I don't know anything about that particular work, or if it's worth citing, but that's what's being cited for that claim.

 

[Grenadier1758]

In my club, GMLGC, we have several members who have seen many original Hawken Rifles and shown them at the Hawken Classic. They have studied when they built their rifles. They pretty much agree with the conclusions made by Hanson.

Jake Hawken and James Lakenan were pretty well documented as being in the gun repair business. Jake and Sam became partners in 1825. Not many rifles are documented as being made other than the one for Ashley in about 1825. It wasn't until later that the clientele of the Hawken Shop could afford their rifles that cost three to five time the cost of a similar caliber eastern rifle, that the brothers could get past the gun repair business. Pushing innovation, their rifles were produced to use the new percussion cap that was demonstrating improved performance. Because of the cost of a Hawken rifle compared to the factory produced rifles by Leman, Tryon, Deringer and others, the most likely rifle seen rifles would have been from one of the East Coast builders. While there might have been a Hawken at the first Rendezvous, it would have been the only one of about 30 to 50 other rifles and many smooth bored guns. One of the reasons for my decision to build a Deringer rifle in flint for my Mountain Man days. Yes, previously, I did build a later J&S type Hawken. I was much younger and stronger fellow then and toting around that 12 pound rifle wasn't the chore that it is now.

 

[longcruise]

In my club, GMLGC, we have several members who have seen many original Hawken Rifles and shown them at the Hawken Classic. They have studied when they built their rifles. They pretty much agree with the conclusions made by Hanson.

Jake Hawken and James Lakenan were pretty well documented as being in the gun repair business. Jake and Sam became partners in 1825. Not many rifles are documented as being made other than the one for Ashley in about 1825. It wasn't until later that the clientele of the Hawken Shop could afford their rifles that cost three to five time the cost of a similar caliber eastern rifle, that the brothers could get past the gun repair business. Pushing innovation, their rifles were produced to use the new percussion cap that was demonstrating improved performance. Because of the cost of a Hawken rifle compared to the factory produced rifles by Leman, Tryon, Deringer and others, the most likely rifle seen rifles would have been from one of the East Coast builders. While there might have been a Hawken at the first Rendezvous, it would have been the only one of about 30 to 50 other rifles and many smooth bored guns. One of the reasons for my decision to build a Deringer rifle in flint for my Mountain Man days. Yes, previously, I did build a later J&S type Hawken. I was much younger and stronger fellow then and toting around that 12 pound rifle wasn't the chore that it is now.

I think Sam had been working at Harpers Ferry before he joined his brother. I always wondered how much the Harpers Ferry rifles influenced the Hawken rifles.

As an aside, Wikipedia is as reliable as the people who contribute. If you doubt anything presented there, you can see what sources they cite.

Yes, the issues arise in that many who contribute don't know nearly as much as they think they know and the Wikipedia reviewers certainly aren't experts at everything!

You or I or anybody else can go on wikipedia and make an entry or even edit an existing one. If the folks at wikipedia don't know any better I'm guessing they just go with it.