Why are Hawken rifles regarded as difficult to build?

[Rolf]

I have never built a Hawken and my knowledge about them is limited. A lefthanded brigadier hawken from TOTW is on my future build wishlist. I have seen alot of warnings that is a complicated rifle to build.

Please, could someone explain the pitfalls? I studied the Hershel House video on building a Hawken. It did not seem  harder than a standard kentucky rifle. The only big difference was the hook breech. If you glued/solder the plug to the lose breech tang, the inletting looked do-able for newbies.

Best regards
Rolf

[smylee grouch]

Yes they are doable but the fitting of the breech snail, longer compound curve shaped tang, and deep cresent butt plate are a few of the more involved aspects of a Hawken build. There are probably more but those come to mind for me right now.

[rich pierce]

The long tang which has a complex shape and long thick trigger bar with double set triggers determine the top line of the stock and the underside also.  They must match well with each other and with your plan for the rifle's architecture.  As mentioned the deep crescent and rigid buttplate is more tedious to inlet than a flatter brass one.  Installing keys that work well instead of pins is another skill to master.   There is also nothing fancy like carving etc to distract the critic and so architecture is everything.  For someone of your abilities, Rolf, the Hawken build will not be so challenging.

[smart dog]

Hi Rolf,
Others already mentioned several of the challenges.  Mounting a rib for a half-stock version can be a bit of a challenge at first.  Nonetheless, you can build a heavy barreled "plains" rifle with all the components the Hawken brothers and their associates used without too much fuss.  However, the trick is to turn it into a "Hawken", which involves paying a lot of attention to styling details.  There are several members on this board that are superb "Hawken" makers and I'd bet they would be happy to share some of those details.

Good luck,

dave

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Dave has hit the nail on the head.  The devil is in the details.  Studying original Hawken rifles in person is a treat only available to a few, but there are lots and lots of images in books and here on the web.  It is a continuing quest.  Be sure to make a detailed drawing of the rifle and follow it as closely as you can.  Keep track of measurement details too as you go along. 
Joining the tang to the plug prior to inletting is crucial.  Mate the two surfaces as best you can, then solder or otherwise join them.  Turn the unit belly up and sight down the barrel from the muzzle...the tang must be in line, but likely, as cast, is not.  It will been to be straightened to make it in line with the bore prior to inletting.  The three pin method in your vise is the way to straighten the tang.
Most commercial tangs do not start their downward curve quickly enough...they continue rearward too far before they start to curve down.  A O/A torch will fix that.  I made a template out of 3/4" thick steel so I can forge the tang to the correct curvature.

There's more, but I have to get to work...

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

It has already been stated that the architecture of the rifle is all important.  If you deviate through mistake or 'interpretation", there will always be something un'Hawken about your build.  That being said, there are many many variations within the years the brothers built there famous rifles, but there are some themes.
Getting the correct parts is one of the first and most imp0ortant steps.  Don Stith has already done all the research and has assembled the components that build several of these variations.  Otherwise, you must choose carefully, and with having done the research.
There's more, but I have to get to work....

[smylee grouch]

Inleting the long trigger bar can cause some people grief as you inlet the front reativley straight in but the rear of the bar creeps forward as you go in so you have to take that into consideration too.

[mikeyfirelock]

Note:  ALL of the above mentioned items have to be correctly done for the gun to look right.   If one item is not right, the rest of the gun will not look right.  You can cover some discrepancies in a long rifle, and still have it look good, but not a Hawken. 
Just my opinion: took me 3 of them to get one that looks pretty decent.
Mikeyfirelock

[stuart cee dub]

Even supposing you get all the details correct Hawkens are more work because there are simply more parts all of which take more time .Half stock ribs keys escutcheons little screws ,hooked breech and tang .All of which makes a really nice easy to clean gun .

After having built several late period percussion half stocks I am making a full stock ,simple trigger, flinter with a pinned at the moment and am pleasantly surprised at how much easier it is to build . 

[Roger B]

The original Hawkens that I have seen have the architecture of the lock area much like the English rifles of the time.  Instead of tapering from back to front like a longrifle with a swamped barrel, the lock area on a Hawken flares at the front which is fun when you are using a tapered barrel.  I had to add material to the lock bolster and then file to fit. You have two tang through bolts to deal with, and the front of the trigger guard has a lug that screws into the trigger plate.  That means that you have to drill and tap the trigger plate three times.  Also the under ribs on the half stocks tend to be riveted to the barrel which means you have to drill and tap the barrel for screws and peen them into the under rib holes.  You will also notice that most of the half stocks used a hollow rib with the muzzle end filled with some solder. I filed my solid rib out at the front and then added some solder fill. Fitting a stock steel nose cap to a tapered barrel was hard for me too, but easier than making one like Herschel did in the video.  Cutting the lock for the snail breach was also a little difficult though some of the lock makers have pre cut locks for their breeches.  My Hawken isn't bad, but I still got it a little too fat in the fore end and that irritates me every time I pick it up.
I sometimes refer to my rifle as Billy Bob due to the Roller lock and triggers and the Large barrel and breach.
Roger B.

[oldarcher]

Building any rifle is difficult, when you consider carving and simple engraving that makes a longrifle special, I don't think that a Hawken is any more difficult to do than any other quality build. The key is in the details, the form of the Hawken is extremely important. Unless you wish to make a bench copy of a specific rifle you have some latitude in your build. I believe that small seemingly insignificant errors in the lines or shapes of the area of the tang and the gracefulness of the shape of the forestock are hard to explain but very easy to see on a completed rifle, if it's right it feels light and graceful, if not, it is a fence post. You won't know unless you actually build one, but if you purchase a "kit" I would recommend a stock that does NOT have the lock inletted as the placement of the snail/lock is critical to a good start on the rifle and precarves are not always cut correctly and sometimes require a great deal of work to correct. I enjoy Hawkens and have built three this last year, one with a Bill Large barrel, one Colerain, and I just finished a GR Douglas. My next project will be an original GRRW Hawken kit with a .58 tapered slow twist barrel that was in a closet in the original owners house for 34 years, untouched since it left the factory.
My advise is jump in, do the best you can, take your time and learn from experience, I am sure that if you do, you will enjoy the journey.   

[shortbarrel]

when we decided to build a hawken  rifle  about 25 years, you didn't have the vendor parts we have know. so we made all the metal parts. as i look in the vendor catalogs, they still don't have the correct parts to build a hawken rifle.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

That's a little negative shorty.  There is a lot you can do with what vendors now sell, to make them work well for a Hawken build.  We who try, do the best we can with what's available, and if I might add, come close.  The parts available now are miles ahead of what existed 25 years ago.

[oldarcher]

I must have been unaware of the issues of inability to find suitable parts to build a Hawken rifle 45 years ago...they must have disappeared??? No, not really, you just could not find them or you simply did not know what to look for or did not recognize what you were seeing. In 1976 I was able to purchase wonderful parts like GRRW barrels and kits, Large barrels, Roller locks and triggers, Cherry Corners locks, Griffith locks, Getz barrels, and Sharon barrels just to name a few of the wonderful old parts producers. I search for old parts to build Hawkens, products made in the 70's or before are great. Some of the most desirable parts were certainly available to the enterprising builder if he would just look. There are fine manufacturers building excellent parts today and as in any business evolution the manufacturers make better quality parts by learning from their experiences and correcting their offerings to meet the needs of their customers. But...if you could not find excellent parts and had to make your own 25 years ago I am sure you enjoyed the experience and you did so because wanted to, not because you had to, they really were there.
The interesting thing about Hawken rifles is that there was not an assembly line so that there were a wide variety of "correct" Hawken rifles made by S and J Hawken and their minions. If you are making a bench copy of a specific rifle you may have parts issues, otherwise there have been quality parts available for 30 to 40 years that would make a "correct" Hawken  rifle. If you doubt that this is true then check out the superb GRRW Hawken rifles that that you may see pictures of on this forum or others.   

[Bob Roller]

While the Hawken rifles were mostly instantly identifiable,there was little
uniformity in parts and until the Merrrimac Foundry cast some butt plates
and trigger bars almost nothing was the same. I well recall Tom Dawson
saying that as far as locks are concerned almost any were "grist for the mill"
as long as they could be adapted to the breech/bolster either by fitting a
new hammer or "stretching"the one that came with the lock.Some of the long
trigger bars were equipped with triggers taken from an ordinary trigger for
a common hunting rifle and I remember looking at a set from a fullstock
Hawken in Tom's basement shop over 40 years ago.
Taylor is right about what can be done with what we have available now but
I will say that the locks of 25-45 years ago were closer to the actual level of
quality available in St.Louis in the days of Jake and Sam.

Bob Roller

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Of all the parts that one needs to create a good representation of a Hawken rifle, I think the most difficult to acquire is the hammer.  Davis' percussion hammer can be filed to approximate Hawken's stuff, but they're still not perfect.  One thing that has really improved over the last few years, is the quality of the plug/tang.  It used to be a chore to fit these two castings properly, but recently, that has really improved.

[acorn20]

I have both of John Baird's books on the Hawken Rifle and as you study the architecture on the guns, you'll notice the similarity between guns but no two guns were mirror images of each other.  I wouldn't trade my Hawken rifle that was made back in 1973.  That Douglas barreled, Roller locked gun won so much meat through the seventies and eighties that we never had to buy any.