The Cody Firearms Museum Hawken Collection

[Mulebrain]

I was doing some digging, and came across the largest collection of original Hawken rifles ever!

Many were donated from the Ruger companies private collection!

You will need Adobe flash player to view the photos.

Great stuff folks, especially if you lovem as much as me!

Just click on the individual pics, and you can really see the detail!

I had no idea that there was this many examples still around!

In the search block, type in "Hawken" and get ready for some eye candy!
http://www.bbhc.org/collections/BBHC/filter_CFM_byFreeSearch.cfm?museum=CFM&filter=byFreeSearch

 

[cookie077]

Thank You for the link. Just was looking lots of good stuff and the pictures blow up really nice.

Cookie

 

[jtmattison]

That's awesome! I can see where they got the design for the Lyman GPR. The GPR looks just like the first one on the page.

HD

 

[LaBonte]

A great resource but........
the site crashed in December and since then there have been some problems
1) Some of the pics when zoomed show only part of the gun
2) On some of the guns they have mixed up pics pf diffetn guns ........

bottomline beware...

FWIW - for those who are new to original Hawkens those marked J & S Hawken were built between mid-1825 when the two Borther Jacob and Samuel became patners, and late summer 1849, when Jake died of cholera. Those marked Sam were made after that Jake's death......
William Hawken was Sam's son and took over the business in the mid-1850's and J.P.Gemmer, a worker of the Hawken's bought out the business and "branding" in the early 1860's, and continued to use the Hawken stamp for many years after..

 

[Capt. Fred]

Yup, that's a great resource. I e-mailed the curator for the specs on one of them a while ago and haven't heard back yet. I don't know if that is something they are willing to do or not.

If I hear back I'll post up the process. There is a full stocked one on there from the Ruger collection that looks to be a small caliber and with a longer barrel. It's listed under the J &S Hawken name, item number 1997.4.14. I'd love to build a copy of it if I could get all the particulars.

 

[Sully]

Thank you very much for the link. I love the "Hawken" style rifles.

 

[Joe Wolf]

My favorite shooter is a copy of that rifle in .58 caliber. I have been shooting it about 10 years. It was made about 25 to 30 years ago by Lou Camilli of Albuquerque. I can't identify the barrel maker, but the lock and triggers were made by Dempsey Melton, who died several years ago. The trigger guards show hammer marks from being hand forged. Send me your email and I will send you jpegs of my rifle.

 

[LaBonte]

Send me your email and I will send you jpegs of my rifle.

I'd like to see it as well and I'm sure others would to - if you email them to me I'll be glad to host/post them in this thread for all to see
[email protected]....

 

[FPDoc]

It is a great museum. Costs $18 to get in but its good for 2 days, come and go as you like. The curator gives a talk on Muzzleloaders but "for safety" they don't put flints in the flintlocks (might have some terrorists sneak in with powder and ball I guess). :rotf: The day I was there several other "old farts" were in attendance and we had some good questions which didn't get answered too well but he's young and probably trying. If you have the chance to visit it's a great museum, there are several "pods" in the design including a wildlife section, fine art section, native American history and artifact section and one of the finest firearms collections in the world. I found several modern firearms mislabeled and let them know but they didn't seem to get too excited, Oh well. Don't miss the basement collection of firearms that aren't in the "upstairs" displays.

 

[Capt. Fred]

E-mail sent. Thanks for the offer.

 

[50cal.cliff]

Wow, there is some fine reference material on that site!
That is one dandy site! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Barney]

Yeah, it's hard driving by there everyday. Luckily my wife works there so I can stop in whenever I want :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[Dphar]

I was doing some digging, and came across the largest collection of original Hawken rifles ever!

Many were donated from the Ruger companies private collection!

You will need Adobe flash player to view the photos.

Great stuff folks, especially if you lovem as much as me!

Just click on the individual pics, and you can really see the detail!

I had no idea that there was this many examples still around!

In the search block, type in "Hawken" and get ready for some eye candy!
http://www.bbhc.org/collections/BBHC/filter_CFM_byFreeSearch.cfm?museum=CFM&filter=byFreeSearch

This isn't everything they have in Hawken rifles.

Dan

 

[roger sells]

I agree that this site is great. I went by the museum and made photographs of the rifles on display. It was great, but it left me missing what the top and back side of the rifles look like because of the way they were displayed. The data on their web site has fixed that. They add rifles now and again that were not on display when I was there. An example is the 1/2 stock owned by John (liver eating Johnston) Johnston. It is a good place to stop and look at them. It is the largest collection of Hawken rifles I have ever seen. The Museum of the Fur Trade have two really good J&S Hawken rifles on display as well.
Roger Sells

 

[noworries]

Very cool...thanks for the link!!! I've been to the museum several times and the website a couple of times but never saw that search link. After downloading the pics and looking at them on a decent pic viewer I am struck by the stark differences in these rifles. Realizing these rifles span a couple of decades of manufacture it is amazing the non consistent "must have" features of a "historically accurate" Hawken. With the exception of a few basic features...each one is significantly different than the other. I think I was most surprised by the muzzles. None appear to be crowned or chamfered at all. Now I am back to wondering how they started those balls without a starter????? Guess I will just leave the muzzle of mine flat as that does seem to be one common trait.

 

[dodgecummins01]

I was doing some digging, and came across the largest collection of original Hawken rifles ever!

Many were donated from the Ruger companies private collection!

You will need Adobe flash player to view the photos.

Great stuff folks, especially if you lovem as much as me!

Just click on the individual pics, and you can really see the detail!

I had no idea that there was this many examples still around!

In the search block, type in "Hawken" and get ready for some eye candy!
http://www.bbhc.org/collections/BBHC/filter_CFM_byFreeSearch.cfm?museum=CFM&filter=byFreeSearch

Nice examples! I see some are mounted in brass!

 

[cgg]

That's a great link--thanks for posting that. A friend just built me a Hawken-style rifle that I frankly did not think was that historically correct. It was not supposed to be a copy of any specific rifle. We just planned it and built it the way I would have wanted it if I could have ordered it from Sam himself. My rifle has various features that I thought were sort of a mix of early Hawken and late Hawken rifles.

But then in the museum pics I see #1997.4.6 and it is very much like the rifle I just got. Full stock, three keys, percussion, slant breech, and straight front trigger. Very cool :thumbsup:

I have enjoyed lurking around for a while and really appreciate all the info about traditional flint and percussion rifles I find here--thanks very much. CG

 

[RickD]

I have a S. Hawken coming from Steve Zihn that he copied from one in the Cody Museum..I should have it in the next couple of weeks..

 

[noworries]

I have a S. Hawken coming from Steve Zihn that he copied from one in the Cody Museum..I should have it in the next couple of weeks..

Is it copied from one that was pictured and are you gonna post pics of it yourself??

Does anyone know if there are accurate records of the Hawken bros. similar to what Colt has....i.e. what was made when, to whom it was sold etc?

 

[LaBonte]

Does anyone know if there are accurate records of the Hawken bros. similar to what Colt has....i.e. what was made when, to whom it was sold etc?

Somewhat but not near as complete as the Colt Records. Charles Hanson's book written in 1983, "the Hawken Rifle It's place in History" has a partial list of those who bought rifles from the Hawken Brothers, but it is far from complete and unfortunately does not include descriptions of the item purchased.
This makes it tough for the student of such guns because it leaves much to speculation most of which is based on the small number of still existing guns amd the sparse written records.