Your hc/pc Hawkens and photos, please.

[Vaino]

For sitting on a deer stand weight isn't a problem, but the owner wanted a "Hawken" that could be used on very active elk hunts. His camp is at 10,200 ft. elevation and he hunts higher so every bit of shed weight helps...especially during the beginning days of the hunt...Fred

 

[BrownBear]

Makes perfect sense to me! Glad you were able to meet his needs.

Never heard of a swamped barrel on a Hawken, while tapered barrels were pretty common I guess. Both sure affect balance, whether or not it cuts the weight. Long straight, heavy barrels turn rifles into clubs for my tastes.

We hunt some of the nastiest country you can imagine, a heinz mix of wet swampy bottomland choked with willows to steap mountainsides featuring overhead grass, dense alders and spruce thickets laced with head high devils club. All sprinkled with gigantic brown bear tracks and their sources. A big bore is good for the soul, but finding the right mix of weight, barrel length and balance is tough. I've solved it to my satisfaction with two 58 cal rifles- one long and one short- but whichever I pick for the day pretty well determines my choice of terrain for the day.

Sticking to original Hawken specs would be easier if we spent our days on horseback like the original Hawken shooters. But the rattle of the trailer hauling our last horse down the road a few years back was the happiest day of my life!!!!

 

[grey8833]

captvobek:

Thanks for the compliment. 200 hours tied up in those pictures (but then again, I am a slow builder).

To answer the other question - the under rib was not tapered for this rifle - as recommended by Track, even though the barrel goes from 1-1/8" to an 1".

Mike F

 

[bingo1952]

Turns out I have only one pic of my GRRW, and that's the butt stock only. Camera is off to Nikon for repair, so it will be a while for more. Here 'tis:

I've been in contact with the GRRW gunsmith who built my particular rifle. Here's what he had to say about them:

"I can tell you that the secret to the accurate barrel is the way they were bored and rifled.
They were first drilled as usual. But what is unusual is that they were never reamed as most if not all barrel makers do now - and did then. We first cut the lands and then cut the grooves depending on the bore size. It's been a long time but as I recall the big bores had the grooves cut first. This made for tool marks that ran the whole length of the barrel on both lands and grooves in the direction of the bullet travel. Also, as the cutter head advanced towards the muzzle oil pressure and some cuttings put a minute amount of pressure on the cutter and you ended up with a sort of choke near the muzzle. This was accidental and was discovered while "slugging" a barrel to check for rough spots. Once found on a test barrel we noted it on all of them and theorized the above means by which it occurred. The result was a barrel that needed just about zero break in and was wonderfully accurate as you have discovered. To the best of my knowledge no one is producing barrels in this manner. So you have a real prize there...."

This is probably way off topic bur the people who manufacture good barrels for high end airguns have been using "Choked Barrel" for many years. They are not nearly as pellet picky as a perfectly paralell bore.

 

[BrownBear]

Doesn't feel off topic to me! Especially since most folks reading this thread are contemplating a Hawken build if they haven't already done it.

All I can say is, when I'm picking out a barrel I'm looking for a choke bore. Period. I'd like taper too, but I'll put the choke ahead. You would too, if you saw the way this thing shoots. Wow.

In fact, thanks for pointing out that choke bores might be a little easier to find than I first guessed. That kinda moves my own build one notch closer.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The under-rib on my Hawken follows the taper of the barrel too.

 

[reddogge]

This was an old Ithaca kit I built in the 70s. It isn't up to par with the beautiful pieces shown above but it's what we had to work with back then. Not too many choices out there then.

 

[BrownBear]

I'd be proud of it! Those are nice clean lines and good workmanship. The wood may not be fancy, but it doesn't need to be to make an attractive rifle. And I bet it handles and shoots like a dream. That's the ultimate measure for me in a real rifle versus a musuem piece.

 

[Vaino]

I agree that fancy wood isn't necessary for a beautiful rifle and sometimes it can be a distraction from the "lines" of a rifle. I like the duller finishes on both those rifles and in fact my elk "Hawken" has a similar finish. The "Hawken" I posted has a medium gloss but very smooth finish because that's what the owner preferred. For a while he wouldn't take it out of the house for fear that it would get nicked but now, after the first nick, it's his favorite hunting rifle.....Fred

 

[Herb]

I think thats a nice looking Hawken. Nice brown, too.

 

[Herb]

These two are a little different,and I built them from parts. The big .54 I built of parts Ron had for 20 years. He killed a mule deer with it, his 24th, I think, but then had shoulder surgery and couldn't handle the weight and recoil. So I built him the little .40 and traded him.

His good friend Lee Robertson built rifles and engraved. So Ron wanted this one engraved, which I did after it was finished and browned. Before someone jumps up and down and swears this is not HC or PC or some other C, it may be no different from an Indian decorating his Leman with brass tacks, or a trapper scratching his initials in his rifle with a knife, or Mariano Modena having a patchbox and silver stars put on his Hawken.

I engraved the lock after an original J&S Hawken lock. The trigger guard "cross" I copied from Jacob Wigle's rifle found near here in an Indian "burial", and which rifle I restored for our museum.

 

[Mulebrain]

I do some gun re-work, but not really a builder, but this gun might help in the inspiration dept! I posted this gun back in April
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/219906/post/555267/hl//fromsearch/1/

 

[Mike Brooks]

Nice Hawken rifles guys! In fact, some of the nicest I've ever seen. These are not easy guns to build correctly, and they're alot of work. I've only taken on a couple in my entire career.
Two of my favorite Hawken builders are Don Stith and Don Secondine (Cooner 54) The "Two Dons" :haha:

 

[captvonbek]

Another beautiful Hawken rifle there, Herb. Thanks a bunch for posting all of those great photos here.:wink:


And, Mule Brain, thanks for posting the link of your Jim Bridger - that's another real pretty Hawken. :grin:

The more of these pretty Hawkens I see, the more I love em. :bow:

Regards,
capt

 

[Headhunter]

Here is mine. A 50 Cal Full Stock

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Its awesome and I love it.

Headhunter

 

[clayfeld]

Here's mine- It's a Gemmer Hawken, made from Don Stith's special parts set, in 50 cal. Turned out pretty good, considering it was my first project in black powder in about twenty years!

Clay

 

[rabbit03]

My Hawken is probably no more than a cheap knock-off of a Bridger Style Hawken, built it from a kit from TOTW.

Not sure if the lines and such are exactly what the Bridger was made like or even if other parts are just like the original. However I like it and it shoots like a house a fire!

It is a 58 cal, hence its name 'Big 58' and it has been cut down to a 35 1/4 " barrel. The Green Mountain barrel has flats are 1 1/8 across and it has fixed sights.

I ordered a little bit more figure in the wood when I ordered the parts in hopes of passing it down to my son one day, something he can be proud of owning.

It will shoot anything from a 50 grn charge to a full charge of 140 grns or more and just the other day I shot a charge of 115 grns of 2Fg with two patched round balls on top of it and it shot just like it should have. The balls at 100 yards were no more than 8 inches apart or so which would mean that anything within the 100 yd range would have been hit with close to 600 grns of lead upon impact.

I shoot it in competition and am very proud of the way it shoots, wheather or not it is pc or mc or dc or whatever c :blah:

I am letting it slow rust blue which should take some time but I think it will be worth the effort to achieve the look I am after.

rabbit03

 

[Herb]

Sean, that is a great web site. I think there was one J&S Hawken fullstock, one S. Hawken and 6 Samuel Hawken rifles. Right and left sides and closeup details of locks, etc. You call one up and can then magnify the image to near (or larger than) life size. The same images are in "Great Gunmakers for the Early West, Volume III, Western U.S." by Jim Gordon. I think he took the photos for the Buffalo Bill museum. At any rate, you can call up a rifle and enlarge the image and then measure it on the screen, for relative spacing of features. A lot easier than measuring the original small photos from books that I do a lot.

 

[captvonbek]

Those are some truly great Hawken rifles, folks. Thanks a bunch for all of the great photos. :wink:

Rabbit, I don't know enough about TOTW's Bridger style Hawken to make a judgment about whether or not it is hc/pc or not. What I do know is that in my original post I did ask for photos of hc/pc Hawkens because that's what I have an interest in. I was glad that folks in this forum with different ideas didn't jump in and turn this into some kind of shooting match between hc/pc Hawkens and Hawken "style" or "Plains" rifles. From what I understand after having read through the threads here, that sort of thing become rather antiquated. Hence my optimism for a clean hc/pc Hawken photo and discussion thread. :grin:

capt

 

[MikeChapin]

I have two. The first one is a Umberti Santa Fe.

The second is a .58, fullstock, flinter I built a couple of years ago. Not historically correct but still a nice rifle.

It's the bottom rifle on the rack.