I'm in a story tellin' mood. I want to tell everyone about how I got, then lost and then got back the best .50 Hawken I've ever had.
In the late 70's I was a poor college kid who ate rabbit and squirrel on a pretty regular basis out of necessity. .22 shells were cheap and the rabbits plentiful around Stillwater, OK. As luck would have it, I eventually found part-time employment at the local gunshop and became acquainted with most of the shooters in the area.
On Sundays we would get together at the local gun range or meet at some farm for some serious informal competition followed by lots of cold beer. A few of the regular shooters owned black powder arms of several types. One day one of the regulars let me try is TC Renegade and I was immediately hooked.
The owner of the gunshop let me buy a Renegade just a few bucks over cost (and let me pay it out over about two months or so) and it wasn't long before I was going to rendezvous with the guys. Now that old Renegade was a great gun and I sometimes could produce cloverleaf groups at 100 yards with maxi balls. Round balls shot almost as well and I was really under little handicap at the matches with this rifle...but it didn't really have the soul of the custom rifles I was seeing at rendezvous.
Enter a local custom builder by the name of Ralph Sheilds. He was a hobbiest who built some darn nice shooting rifles that were also extremely classy. I used to love going over to his house in the evenings and watch him coax a fine rifle stock out of a blank of curly maple. It was magic.
One evening it became more than I could take. I blurted out, "Ralph, I want you to build me a Hawken, make it a .50 caliber as true to the original Hawkens as you can." He showed me his diagrams of original Hawkens. He had copied them from a museum in St. Louis earlier. Together we went over the different components such as wood, barrel, lock, etc.
On the way home that night I realized what I had done...I had ordered a rifle that I could ill afford to pay for. Going in to panic mode, I immediately began lobbying for extra hours at the gun shop, cut back on expenses (largely by not eating, quitting tobbaco and limiting the beer purchases), and sold several guns that I seldom shot.
The day the gun was finished I was still about $50 short. I showed up at Ralph's house with what cash I had and a Dremel tool that I had. Would he take it for the $50? By the look in his eyes I could see he really didn't need it.
He took it anyway and I went home with the most beautiful rifle (in my eyes) I had ever held in my hands. I met Ralph at the range the next day and we shot it together. And boy, did it shoot. I was getting clover leaf groups with round balls at 100 yards with 70 gr. FFg and .495 balls. 100 gr. hunting loads opened the groups to only about an inch or inch-and-a-half!
For the next several years my Shield's Hawken and I didn't do too shabby at the matches and rendezvous. Several deer fell to our synergy together and one day, in the company of a close friend, I barked a squirrel with it. (A feat I have never been able to repeat.)
That same friend and I eventually became enamored with IPSC and it wasn't long before custom 1911's were all we talked about. I had started a family by this time and money was again really scarce. I had become acquainted with a custom pistol builder who specialized in accurate .45 IPSC guns and the next thing I knew, I was slobbering for one.
Crazy for cash, one night my buddy caught me in a weak mood and offered to buy my cherished Hawken for enough to let me have a competition pistol built. I think we must have been drinking because he left my house that night with the Hawken.
Later, realizing what I had done, I was completely sick. My new pistol was a real winner and shot really well but every deer season I was reminded about how much that .50 had meant to me. I had "replaced it" (there's no replacing a custom gun to your specifications) with a .54 GPR that shot okay. It just wasn't the same.
Then, to add to my worries, my buddy left Oklahoma for Florida. I knew then that I would probably never see it again. We lost touch and I didn't hear from him or even know how to reach him.
Then came the Oklahoma City bombing. All he knew was that I worked for an agency with ties to the Murrah Building. The day of the bombing he called to see if I was okay. We talked a little and exchanged email addresses. That day, the topic of the rifle didn't come up.
A few weeks later, though, as we corresponded through email, I asked how much hunting he was getting to do. He replied that he seldom, if ever, got to hunt and only got to practice with his handguns once in a while. In fact, he wrote, the Hawken hadn't been fired since he left Oklahoma. Would I be interested in buying it back?
Have you ever had news so good that you couldn't believe it was real? That's how I was that day. It was like all the good luck for everyone in the world got funneled to me. (Barry, if you read this, I love you, man.)
A few days later my Hawken was back home. It still shoots great and still raises a few eyebrows when we go out in public together.
A year or so ago I was writing a deer hunting story for the local newspaper and decided to call Ralph Shields and tell him about it. He was in as good of spirits as ever but I'm sorry to report that he has contracted Parkinson's Disease and his rifle building days are over.
My friends Ralph and Barry are with me every time I take to the woods with this rifle even though I haven't seen either in years. It's got a few honest dings and my eye sight isn't what it was but we still fit together in a way that is almost magic.
That was a long story but I warned you I was in a story telling mood.
Rocky Point Jack
In the late 70's I was a poor college kid who ate rabbit and squirrel on a pretty regular basis out of necessity. .22 shells were cheap and the rabbits plentiful around Stillwater, OK. As luck would have it, I eventually found part-time employment at the local gunshop and became acquainted with most of the shooters in the area.
On Sundays we would get together at the local gun range or meet at some farm for some serious informal competition followed by lots of cold beer. A few of the regular shooters owned black powder arms of several types. One day one of the regulars let me try is TC Renegade and I was immediately hooked.
The owner of the gunshop let me buy a Renegade just a few bucks over cost (and let me pay it out over about two months or so) and it wasn't long before I was going to rendezvous with the guys. Now that old Renegade was a great gun and I sometimes could produce cloverleaf groups at 100 yards with maxi balls. Round balls shot almost as well and I was really under little handicap at the matches with this rifle...but it didn't really have the soul of the custom rifles I was seeing at rendezvous.
Enter a local custom builder by the name of Ralph Sheilds. He was a hobbiest who built some darn nice shooting rifles that were also extremely classy. I used to love going over to his house in the evenings and watch him coax a fine rifle stock out of a blank of curly maple. It was magic.
One evening it became more than I could take. I blurted out, "Ralph, I want you to build me a Hawken, make it a .50 caliber as true to the original Hawkens as you can." He showed me his diagrams of original Hawkens. He had copied them from a museum in St. Louis earlier. Together we went over the different components such as wood, barrel, lock, etc.
On the way home that night I realized what I had done...I had ordered a rifle that I could ill afford to pay for. Going in to panic mode, I immediately began lobbying for extra hours at the gun shop, cut back on expenses (largely by not eating, quitting tobbaco and limiting the beer purchases), and sold several guns that I seldom shot.
The day the gun was finished I was still about $50 short. I showed up at Ralph's house with what cash I had and a Dremel tool that I had. Would he take it for the $50? By the look in his eyes I could see he really didn't need it.
He took it anyway and I went home with the most beautiful rifle (in my eyes) I had ever held in my hands. I met Ralph at the range the next day and we shot it together. And boy, did it shoot. I was getting clover leaf groups with round balls at 100 yards with 70 gr. FFg and .495 balls. 100 gr. hunting loads opened the groups to only about an inch or inch-and-a-half!
For the next several years my Shield's Hawken and I didn't do too shabby at the matches and rendezvous. Several deer fell to our synergy together and one day, in the company of a close friend, I barked a squirrel with it. (A feat I have never been able to repeat.)
That same friend and I eventually became enamored with IPSC and it wasn't long before custom 1911's were all we talked about. I had started a family by this time and money was again really scarce. I had become acquainted with a custom pistol builder who specialized in accurate .45 IPSC guns and the next thing I knew, I was slobbering for one.
Crazy for cash, one night my buddy caught me in a weak mood and offered to buy my cherished Hawken for enough to let me have a competition pistol built. I think we must have been drinking because he left my house that night with the Hawken.
Later, realizing what I had done, I was completely sick. My new pistol was a real winner and shot really well but every deer season I was reminded about how much that .50 had meant to me. I had "replaced it" (there's no replacing a custom gun to your specifications) with a .54 GPR that shot okay. It just wasn't the same.
Then, to add to my worries, my buddy left Oklahoma for Florida. I knew then that I would probably never see it again. We lost touch and I didn't hear from him or even know how to reach him.
Then came the Oklahoma City bombing. All he knew was that I worked for an agency with ties to the Murrah Building. The day of the bombing he called to see if I was okay. We talked a little and exchanged email addresses. That day, the topic of the rifle didn't come up.
A few weeks later, though, as we corresponded through email, I asked how much hunting he was getting to do. He replied that he seldom, if ever, got to hunt and only got to practice with his handguns once in a while. In fact, he wrote, the Hawken hadn't been fired since he left Oklahoma. Would I be interested in buying it back?
Have you ever had news so good that you couldn't believe it was real? That's how I was that day. It was like all the good luck for everyone in the world got funneled to me. (Barry, if you read this, I love you, man.)
A few days later my Hawken was back home. It still shoots great and still raises a few eyebrows when we go out in public together.
A year or so ago I was writing a deer hunting story for the local newspaper and decided to call Ralph Shields and tell him about it. He was in as good of spirits as ever but I'm sorry to report that he has contracted Parkinson's Disease and his rifle building days are over.
My friends Ralph and Barry are with me every time I take to the woods with this rifle even though I haven't seen either in years. It's got a few honest dings and my eye sight isn't what it was but we still fit together in a way that is almost magic.
That was a long story but I warned you I was in a story telling mood.
Rocky Point Jack
