Pecatonica Hawken Kit

[Hylander]

Has anyone put one of these together.
Skill level required? I have low wood working skills and less wood working tools.

Hawken Kit

 

[Desert Rat]

I have built the fullstock flintlock Hawken from them, I suggest you get a Kibler if you have very little skills or tools, as the Pecatonica will produce a fine rifle, but you need good skills and tools.

 

[Hylander]

I have built the fullstock flintlock Hawken from them, I suggest you get a Kibler if you have very little skills or tools, as the Pecatonica will produce a fine rifle, but you need good skills and tools.

They don't sell a Hawken Kit

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Invest in a book, either of these is a good book, Recreating the American Longrifle or Gunsmith of Grenville County. Purchasing a book will allow you to familiarize yourself with the required steps and tooling to assemble a Pecatonica, or anybody else's kit, they are a steep learning curve though. With minimal skills it is very easy to turn $800.00 to $1000.00+ set of parts into a $250.00 masterpiece.

It would be wise to get a book and see if there is a builder close by that'll let you hang around and watch some of the processes before investing in parts, other option is to look into youtube and follow along with some building videos comparing the processes in your book.

Or find a qualified builder, Hawken's are complicated.

Good Luck.

 

[Grenadier1758]

For a rifle that seems so simple in the pictures, a Hawken has very complicated and subtle architecture that is just not apparent in assembly drawings and pictures. The Pecatonica kit or Track of the Wolf Kit is mainly a collection of parts. Not for the person with limited wood and metal working skills and no tools.

If you, @Hylander, don't have the skills or tool, then look for an assembled Hawken rifle in our classified ads.

The Hawken Shop has a 95% inlet kit. You won't need quite as many wood working tools and you can ask to have the bulk of the metal work done by them.

Hawken Rifles & Kits - The Hawken Shop

Or, try to get a kit in-the-white from either Pecatonica or Don Stith. In-the-white kits are fully assembled and only final trimming of the wood and smoothing the metal furnishings and final finish of the barrel.

 

[user 34300]

First, if the precarve looks like the picture move on, it is a mess. The shape in the tang and wrist is wrong.

Second, all of the suppliers send a box of parts that can be made into a rifle by a skilled builder. The part set suppliers bundle parts from smaller suppliers. For the most part you get the same stuff from all of them. Kibler, Chambers, and the Hawken Shop are exceptions. The stocks in particular can be unusable. The supplier does not carefully measure the stock to see if it is usable. I had two bad stocks sent by Hawken kit bundler. I was stuck with the second one and threw it away. I made the stock from a plank. My stock was near perfect. Beware that a Hawken copy is the most difficult type of gun to build. The tang in particular is tedious and not intuitive.

So for a beginner I strongly suggest you stick to real kits. Those include Kibler, Chambers, and the Hawken shop. I have only worked with Kibler and can not give first hand feed back on the other two. Many parts set tax my patience and skills. Working form a plank is easier for me. Although I built a close copy of a representative Hawken plains rife I do not shoot it. It is very heavy and clunky. Consider handling one before you go down this rabbet hole.

I built a half stock Leman since the Hawken. It is a handy rifle I really like. The barrel length and caliber are the same as the Hawken. The Leman uses a more conventional tang. Inletting is much easier.

 

[Crow-Feather]

Has anyone put one of these together.
Skill level required? I have low wood working skills and less wood working tools.

Hawken Kit

You might have to drill and tap the barrel and the drum. And clear wood for the wedge (s). I have built a Pecatonica kit and it came out well. But I was really lucky and not all parts are those that came with the kit. I would say that you do need an "in the white" kit. (No one will know unless you tell them). It took me a week to get the set trigger to fit and work with the lock.

 

[Vaino]

I built a Pecatonica half stock Hawken kit and found it went together fairly easy and still have it. It's killed a few elk by myself and my son. The Bplate doesn't have the exaggerated curve partly due to me reshaping it and it wasn't that deeply curved to begin w/. The bbl is straight and is .54 and it's not a light rifle.

Also built a LHed Stith S. Hawken and although some of the parts req'd a lot of work and some had to be replaced by me, the end result was a well balanced rifle....mainly due to the tapered .54 bbl which was 1" at the breech and 7/8" at the muzzle. This LHed version wasn't really a kit.....it was a sort of collection of parts meant for other Hawkens. Wouldn't do another. The RHed version probably has the "right" parts and should go together more easily. .....The top pic is the Pecatonica and the bottom is the Stith.....Fred

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

I built a Pecatonica half stock Hawken kit and found it went together fairly easy and still have it.

This from a very accomplished builder with many years experience in the trenches building exceptionally fine muzzle loaders, been following your work since I got involved in 2006.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

The one on the right was my first build. The parts came from TOW and it has a Goodoin barrel. Still a great shooter and has taken many deer. In terms of difficulty I would rate it a little more challenging than a flintlock and with more machining operations. Use of a drill press is highly recommended. Triple check all alignments and fixture security before performing any drilling. I remember having the drill wander on my tang bolt hole and had to have it welded and re-drilled to get on center.

 

[Ames]

Did one full stocked in cherry. Go slow and you will come out okay.
54 cal. at 8lbs 14 oz. I don't mind the weight because of my hunting style. Carry it in and sit till sunset. Not the gun for all day mountain climbing without a horse.

 

[The Hawken Shop®]

Thank for mentioning our kit from The Hawken Shop®. I would not recommend it for the "new" builder. Our kit needs "built" and not just assembled and requires some knowledge and skill with rifle building

 

[Patch]

Thank for mentioning our kit from The Hawken Shop®. I would not recommend it for the "new" builder. Our kit needs "built" and not just assembled and requires some knowledge and skill with rifle building

Good on you for your honesty, that shows a lot of integrity. I can't tell if some of these businesses are in it to sell parts or to sell inletting services on some precarved disaster.