flintlock hawkens

[ajrd]

friends, I need some informations about antique flint lock hawkens.
I've got a very good reproduction of percussion hawken by pedersoli in 0.54 caliber.
I  customized  her  to american historical standard and she look likes a jewel.
in order to buy another one with flint lock , Iwant to know  about how much flint lock hawken  were made and when ? caliber and all you know about that...
and if this guns had all full long stock or half stock like the most of modern reproduction.
                 not a lot a source about this topic are available , so your replies are a help for me

arnaud (ajrd)
 
up with american long rifler!

[Bill of the 45th]

Go to www.donstith. com, and you will get his site.  He offers the most accurate parts, and kits available.  While not my area of interest, is that they (Flintlock Hawkens) are few, and far between.  I believe Don's site has some history, and pic's, and he is willing to answer questions for you,

Bill

[Sean]

Arnaud,

There are a couple of extant flint S. Hawken produced well after percussion locks became common, but there are no surviving flintlock J&S Hawken or guns that are thought to have been converted from flint.  That is not meant to say that no flint J&S rifles ever existed, but instead that they were likely decidedly in the minority.  My overall feeling is that the brothers started making guns in a time and place when inexpensive flintlock trade rifles were commonly available.  To compete with the larger Lancaster and Philadelphia builders who were shipping large numbers of rifles to St. Louis, they needed to offer something different.  As a result, they appear to have adopted the percussion system early on because it was well suited to the windy plains.  They also took styling elements form both English and continental imports and blended them with American elements and heavy barrels to produce something that was both designed for the open plains and a few steps above the average.

Sean

[ajrd]

ok,      sean, your feelings about why percussion hawken were made , to compete with the arrival of eastern flintlock , are certainly true. and I am agree with you. so, flint hawkens are few , and its a not a good choise for heavy duties in the hard windy great plains....
i think my new choice for ordering , is now a caliber 0.48 or O . 50 percussion great plains percussion rifle instead .... thanks

bill, I "ll go to see at  donstith .com, sure this link are a good one . merci

ajrd ( french longriflers are like flint hawken , rare)

[alyce-james]

Good morning Arnaud; Listed below are (2) two references for you to read as requested to gain knowledge of the Hawken rifles. I will first deal with your question of Hawken flintlock. 1) THE HAWKEN RIFLE: "ITS PLACE IN HISTORY". By Charles E. Hanson Jr. copyright 1979 the Fur Press Chadron Nebr. 69337. I refer you to page (9) nine, figure 2A and figure 2B. Also chapter (9) nine page 54. The MUSEUM OF THE FUR TRADE--6321 HWY. 20--CHADRON NE. 69337. PH. (308) 432-3843. Second; HAWKEN RIFLES: "THE MOUNTAIN MAN'S CHOICE. By John D. Baird copyright 1968 THE BUCKSKIN PRESS and reprint editions, The Gun Room Press. You may have to contact Terry Baird in Montana. I hope you find the information helpful to complete a build as you are looking for on your Hawken rifle. Have a great day. Turkeyfooter 

[Sean]

Arnaud,

Sent you some stuff via email.

Sean

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Arnaud, Look here. Taylor has built many Hawkens

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=8848.0

[Dphariss]

Good morning Arnaud; Listed below are (2) two references for you to read as requested to gain knowledge of the Hawken rifles. I will first deal with your question of Hawken flintlock. 1) THE HAWKEN RIFLE: "ITS PLACE IN HISTORY". By Charles E. Hanson Jr. copyright 1979 the Fur Press Chadron Nebr. 69337. I refer you to page (9) nine, figure 2A and figure 2B. Also chapter (9) nine page 54. The MUSEUM OF THE FUR TRADE--6321 HWY. 20--CHADRON NE. 69337. PH. (308) 432-3843. Second; HAWKEN RIFLES: "THE MOUNTAIN MAN'S CHOICE. By John D. Baird copyright 1968 THE BUCKSKIN PRESS and reprint editions, The Gun Room Press. You may have to contact Terry Baird in Montana. I hope you find the information helpful to complete a build as you are looking for on your Hawken rifle. Have a great day. Turkeyfooter 

John sold the rights to the books years ago. Contacting Terry will be a waste of time.

Dan

[Ky-Flinter]

Arnaud,

For the two books that A-J mentioned, THE HAWKEN RIFLE: "ITS PLACE IN HISTORY", by Charles E. Hanson Jr. and HAWKEN RIFLES: "THE MOUNTAIN MAN'S CHOICE, by John D. Baird, try eBay, Amazon.com or other booksellers.  They are fairly easy to find and reasonably priced.  Here anyway.

-Ron

[ajrd]

thanks you friends

[Dphariss]

In reading Hanson's "Place in History" I seem to pick up some animosity. Not saying he is wrong but he seems to have a lot of axe to grind.
I often wonder why. I wonder if John beat him to press with "Hawken Rifles".
It is common for people to point out that the Hawken Brothers could not have made that many rifles. Compared to Leman or Henry with a factory  cranking out rifles from decent to near junk quality this is true. But they obviously made hundreds of "plains" rifles and lots of local guns too. Given the area they were in this is not surprising. St Louis was a choke point for everything going up the Missouri or across the plains. Jake & Sam Hawken was there, making guns, when the real boom started.
Both brothers were trained and experienced. Jake was apparently plenty busy or Sam would not have moved from Ohio. Surviving rifles are not an indication of actual production. We have documentation of Hawken rifle barrels being used as crowbars in the Gold Fields of CA. How true this is I would question but its written down by someone who traded his Hawken for a percussion Sharps. I know a guy who has seen a 74 Sharps barrel driven into the ground as a pin to control a sliding barn door in the County I live in. Ranches out here usually had a forge and its hard to tell what some old rifle barrel might have been used for in construction or repair.
The WW-I scrap drives decimated old rifles and who knows what else. A man I knew who went Canada to enlist before US involvement told be that when he returned he only had one junker and the stock off one of his "good guns" left.
I am sure some went in into c-rat cans in WW-II as well.
The flint guns were either converted or traded to the natives. If the conversion included a new lock the conversion might be hard to detect. Only 2 lock bolts would be a clue assuming the flintlock used 2 in the first place.
So while rare the rifles did not gain the reputation they obviously had by not making rifles. Very, very seldom does a rifles maker's name appear in old writings and such but the Hawken name still appears from time to time.
Parkman only describes his rifle as a long heavy St Louis rifle. Since he almost certainly bought it from the maker its very unlikely he did not know who made it.
So while they were certainly not as common as Henry and Leman factory guns they WERE more reliable and better suited to hard service and they were in use. Nor were the western trappers too poor to afford one if they were good at what they did and did not drink it all up and some did not.
The question of whether the Hawken shop made flintlock "mountain" or "plains" rifles is too silly to take seriously. Given the problems I see in using percussion guns today vs the problems of the flintlock. I would not be to quick the throw over a good flintlock for a percussion gun if I were going to the Yellowstone country in 1830.
Dan

[Dan'l 1946]

Amen, Dan! Hanson has always struck me as being a bit snarky in his wording. In my experience, the Hawken name comes up more often than any other maker in period and later 19th century writings about fur trade firearms and that would seem to indicate that they were well known by the end users. Many trappers would have been unwilling to use untried (percussion)technology in such remote areas. Maybe the flint Hawkens were mostly early guns and got used up in the mountains or were traded in for percussion rifles later on and these trade-ins were then broken up for parts or rebuilt as cap guns? Don't know, but I still think that flint Hawkens were there.
                                                      Dan

[Buck]

Gentlemen,
I recall seeing pictures of J&S flintlocks somewhere, maybe it was a picture of an original catalog or item list from the Hawken shop. My Father was a Hawken fan, and it might have been from when the Hawken shop went back into production of the rifle. I would think they wouldn't produce a rifle that wasn't parallel with the original production lines. I have 1 that was produced by Cherry Corners, or something to that effect from the late 60's ? I believe the Hawken boys started making rifles in St. Louis around 1822, that is together. Samuel took over his fathers shop for some time, then moved on to Ohio for a stint until the  death of his wife, at which time he took his kids back to Hagerstown and left them with his mother, then from there he went on to St. Louis to partner with his Brother around 1822 which is still Flint era. You would think there were a few made. I think Dan gives a good point, when you are in a hostile setting you go with what you know works. I still have a rotary phone!

[Swampwalker]

My sense of it is that the Hawken brothers did make flintlock rifles during their early period, but that these rifles were made before the classic Hawken style had fully gelled.  I believe these earlier rifles would have typical Lancaster style brass butplates and triggerguards, coupled with heavier, larger calibre barrels, and relatively plain stocks with few inlays.  A flintlock 'Hawken' with an iron scroll guard and other iron hardware should be classified as a fantasy rifle, imo.

[Dan'l 1946]

My sense of it is that the Hawken brothers did make flintlock rifles during their early period, but that these rifles were made before the classic Hawken style had fully gelled.  I believe these earlier rifles would have typical Lancaster style brass butplates and triggerguards, coupled with heavier, larger calibre barrels, and relatively plain stocks with few inlays.  A flintlock 'Hawken' with an iron scroll guard and other iron hardware should be classified as a fantasy rifle, imo.

 
   It would seem likely that there was a transitional stage between the earlier Hawken longrifle type and the fully developed plains or mountain rifle. Say a heavier barreled and somewhat shorter overall rifle and so on. The scroll guard strikes me as being a British type and could have become a Hawken styling cue later on. I sure wish Don Stith would weigh in on this subject!

[Roger B]

Hanson does seem a little bitter in some of his wording, but I think that was just backlash at the prevailing mindset of the time.  I remember in the 1970s when a Hawken rifles were thought to have been common in the early fur trade & nearly every modern mountain man  wanted one including me.  GRRW made them available to most guys and Sharon jumped in as well along with some other semi custom outfits.  Art Ressel had "the real" Hawken shop. Then TC came out with their "Hawken" which wasn't a Hawken at all and everything went nuts.  Baird made the Hawken as popular in the 20th century as Ruxton did in the 19th and they both got a lot wrong. And a lot of real mountain men like Carson, Tobin, Modena, Johnson, & Bridger owned Hawken rifles, though mostly towards the end of their lives. Criminey, I even know a family that named their son Hawken!   I once saw a half stock in Salt Lake City that was for sale at $40K or trade for acreage of same value.  It really was out of control & Hanson did put things back in perspective.  That being said, I still love the Hawken design & enjoy shooting them.
Roger B.

[Dphariss]

My sense of it is that the Hawken brothers did make flintlock rifles during their early period, but that these rifles were made before the classic Hawken style had fully gelled.  I believe these earlier rifles would have typical Lancaster style brass butplates and triggerguards, coupled with heavier, larger calibre barrels, and relatively plain stocks with few inlays.  A flintlock 'Hawken' with an iron scroll guard and other iron hardware should be classified as a fantasy rifle, imo.

But one does exist, an S. Hawken.
Its a FS but is a full fledged Hawken. Flint patent hook breech with a drum screwed in the vent, scroll guard, Hawken DST, Pineapple box, oval key escutcheons. The flintlock fence from the waterproof lock is still on the converted plate.
Single lock bolt with the "hook" at the front so no front bolt is needed. So apparently flintlock parts were available circa 1850 if people are right attributing this rifle to late 1840s to 1850s.
With this in mind we must wonder if some of the other surviving FS Hawkens might have been flint. Removing the lock to look for the wood screw that secured the hook would be the only way and if a new lock was fitted and was slightly larger the mainspring might have remove the screw. If done in the 1840s and the rifle used for another 20 years it would be hard to detect.
John Baird had and published photos of this rifle with the lock removed it was originally fl int and there is simply no squirming around it though the "no flint Hawken" types, including Vaughn Goodwin, have tried.

The James Clyman rifle is reportedly a flint Hawken. I have read that Bivins' did a MB article on it back about 1980 but I have not seen the magazine. So I have no idea what it looks like but given the time frame it would be early and probably lacks some features of the later rifles. But this is supposition.

Dan

[Sean]

Dan,

All comments about flint J&S Hawkes are supposition.  But that does not make them bad.

Sean

[Dphariss]

Dan,

All comments about flint J&S Hawkes are supposition.  But that does not make them bad.

Sean

Yes but its well grounded supposition.
To believe that J&S were making solely percussion arms in the late 1820s is simply too extreme to seriously consider. The percussion system was not universally accepted in the west until much later.
This discussion ALWAYS leads to disagreements.

The percussion system was in its infancy in 1822-25. The Fur Companies were still ordering flint rifles exclusively through the 1830s.
From "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865"
In 1830 Ramsey Crooks wrote J.J. Henry.
" hasten to inform you that Percussion Locks will not answer at all for the Rifles, and I beg you will be most particular in selecting the Flint Locks required,"

John Bidwell describes the rifle he carried to California in 1841: "my gun was an old flint-lock rifle but a good one. Old hunters told me to have nothing to do with cap or percussion locks, that they were unreliable,..."

This borne out with a great many percussion guns I see used at matches. Many of these are more finicky and misfire prone that my FL rifles are.

Then on the same page the authors surmise (and thats what it is of course and the wording bears it out):
"Because of the flintlocks longevity in the West, there is a strong probability that the Hawken shop continued turning out flintlocks well into the 1830s. Available evidence indicates that the Hawken brothers may have made a few percussion arms even in the 1820s, but these were almost certainly in the minority until the mid-1830s."

The Garavaglia and Worman have no axe to grind that I know of. In looking at the preferences shown in the West its just not possible that J&S Hawken only made percussion guns. They made what people wanted.

It is popular in some quarters to think that the percussion system swept the flintlock away almost immediately. But this is certainly not the case and even in England the flintlock hung on in rifles when in shotguns the percussion system swept the flintlock away in a very short period according to Nigel George.

I think that variations in the caps HURT rifle ACCURACY in the early days. Today using "magnum" caps intended for "replica" powder can hurt accuracy when BP is the propellant. Variations across a box of caps in 1830 could have had serious consequences in this regard. Then we have to ask about the long term reliability, did the early caps deteriorate at all? I don't know. Th perchlorate compound proved very stable in later years but was it that good in 1830?
The accuracy angle could explain the heavy J&S marked flintlock match rifle that was flint and later converted to percussion by adding a patent breech and converting the lock.

Yes there is a LOT of supposition in this discussion. But we have to remember that we simply do not have enough information to state with any confidence the J&S never made a flintlock. Its not logical given the attitudes of the time reflected in surviving documents.
Many years ago John Baird told me that the Hawken shop was still buying flintlocks at a time when everyone "knew" they were only making percussion guns. Why would they buy flintlocks? Was it possible they could buy good flintlocks so cheap they could scrap the plates and frizzens and used the internals the make percussion locks? Its possible to suppose all sorts of things.

I discussed this with John numerous times and he never had any doubt that the Hawken brothers made flintlocks for the western trade. That none survive is not proof they did not make them. I have no idea what the Clyman rifle looks like but its probable its a early rifle and may be a J or a S  pre-partnership and not a J&S or it could be a J&S.  I would love to see the article. But don't even know where to look for it.
Most of the surviving Hawken rifles are later guns. Where ARE the early guns. Are we to think that the guns they reportedly made for Ashely were fictional? What of Ashley's big bore rifle? We have documentation, I guess, but no rifle survives. Which do we believe?
Did Ashley really have one? It sure would have been handy shooting from a Keelboat at people on shore being hostile, something Ashley had some experience with. Since the bigger bore will shoot much better at 250-300 than a 54 will.
Since  we have almost no really early J&S rifles we have to rely on other indicators. The indicators show that the percussion system was not all that popular in the west for a number of years. The world's militaries were not very trusting either for quite some time.
Dan

[Habu]

I've always admired Hanson's restraint in the way he worded things in The Hawken Rifle: Its Place in History.  It was sort of his response to ten years of people asking questions and demanding answers about Hawkens, then arguing with him when they didn't get the answers they wanted. 

He was a historian, and not inclined towards speculation like some of what Baird engaged in.  I can recall a couple of times when it seemed to frustrate him when people got obnoxious about his refusal to agree with their speculations, like what an early J.&S. Hawken flintlock might have looked like.  Somewhere--in The Plains Rifle, I think--Hanson did state that in his personal opinion that there may have been more flintlock Hawken rifles made than is generally supposed, and that we don't see them due to poor survival rates. 

I'll go see if I can find that article on the Smithsonian Hawken.

Jim
 

[Habu]

Well, I didn't expect to find it that quickly!  

The article is entitled "Smithsonian Hawken--flintlock or percussion, originally?"  It is in the December 1977 issue of The Buckskin Report, pp. 8-13.  This is the S. Hawken that Dan mentioned earlier; the article includes Mr. Vaughn's view on the rifle (looks like Baird set him up, but he put his foot in the trap).  

Off to do some reading . . . .

Edited to add: I found writeups/photos of two more Hawken rifles relating to this conversation while paging through the stacks. 

In the October 1979 issue of the Buckskin Report, on pp26-27, is the writeup/photos of what appears to be an early J&S Hawken rifle, converted to percussion. 

In the October 1976 issue, there is a writeup/photos of  St. Louis-marked J. Hawken flintlock rifle.  This one is almost pure Maryland, horse-head patchbox and all. 

Jim

[B Shipman]

I talked to Don Stith about this subect a few years ago. I brought up the rifle pictured in the Oct, 1979 Buckskin Report and had the article in hand, which I gave him. He had examined this rifle and regardes it as a skillfull fake. Unseen details are all wrong.
The only extant flint Hawken known is an S. Hawken from the mid 50's for an eccentric collector, well beyond the flint period especially for a Hawken. This according to Don Stith.
The Baird books by this time are badly outdated but still fun to read as long as you take what they say with a grain of salt. They were the state of research at the time but not now.

[Sean]

Dan,

I've been trying to schedule a trip to see a guy who is likely the single most knowledgeable Hawken collector alive right now.  He has a script signed S. Hawken that is a brass mounted fullstock. It's never been published.  The gun came from a family in MO and he believes that it has always been in that state. According to him the gun has a bit straighter stock architecture than the MA-influenced script signed gun pictured in Hanson's book. He believes it dates to the period between 1822-1825 when Sam was in STL but before he started working with Jake.  The gun is percussion and has no cut in the lock panel for a flint cock.  He sees no evidence that the gun was ever flint.  I agree with you that there were certainly some flintlocks made by the brothers, but I've never seen evidence of them.  The gun that Provost ordered from them in 1829 was a caplock.

Bill,

The gun you are talking about is the Kollar rifle.  I think a lot of people wanted that gun to be legit.  There are still a lot of questions about it.  It unfortunately burned up in a house fire. The internal details relate to the how the barrel loops were constructed and attached.  That info originally came from the guy who owns the gun I mentioned above.  Don respects him and believes him...  I wish Don was still a member of this board.  That guy has a ton of experience and knowledge about a lot more than just Hawkens.

Sean

[Dphariss]

This is a very difficult subject. There really is no proof, at least that everyone wants to accept, so there is a lot of "straw grasping" on both sides of the argument.
The half stocked Hawken is obviously a Americanized English sporting rifle.
But in the first 2 decades of the 19th Century there was a lot of confusion over just what a percussion system was going to be. Scent bottle, tube, pellet, etc etc.
We must also remember that the percussion cap while invented in 1814 or 1816 WAS IMPRACTICAL until it went through several "improvements" and was not patented until 1822. The copper cap we know of today being finally settled on somewhere in the 1816-1822 (?) time line. The first caps were reloadable iron according the Nigel George. Based on this then a percussion Hawken made by J&S in 1825 would be pretty darned early.
Then we have to ask how much did the patent interfere with the free use of the cap?
I was looking through George's "English Guns and Rifles" to see if I could find an early patent breech gun but the earliest I found using a percussion cap is the 1836 Brunswick.
It would have been wonderful if Jake & Sam had DATED a few guns. Like the "Petersen" Hawken.
But the scoundrels steadfastly (it seems) refused to date anything.
Frustrating.
So far as the late flint Hawken being made for a collector. Do we have any PERIOD reference to this? If it were for a collector and it was made in 1850  how is it that it has a broken wrist repaired with brass tacks and is converted to percussion?  Not being all that well read I have not found anything from anyone in the 19th century stating that this rifle is one of a pair, as I have heard, or was ordered by a collector as seems to be popular today. Why would a collector want an example of a rifle a great many people insist was never made by J&S or S Hawken in the first place? And where would Sam get the PARTS in 1850 if they never made flintlocks?

So far as a script signed S Hawken Kentucky with no cut for the cock in the lock mortise this does not mean much. No way to prove where it was made or signed. The lack of the cock relief in the lock mortise is good indicator.
However... I would also point out that English flintlocks by around 1800-1810 did not ALL require a cut in the lock mortise since the cock stopped on the fence and the internal bridal,  the cock did not touch the lock plate at all.
There is a John Manton double shotgun in its case with the lock removed pictured in George pg 215, Plate XIV. The stock has no cut what-so-ever for the flint cock.
This is not a determining factor in late flint era guns. Kinda like the bridal (or not) on a 1710 flintlock.  And there were lots of English  gun parts in the US by the time Sam moved to St Louis.
Locks for rifles going west were often stipulated to be "best" quality. Good English locks of the time were the best, period.
And while John Manton may have made locks in house its just and likely in fact MORE than likely John Manton BOUGHT locks from LOCK FILERS. These same lock filers also EXPORTED locks. True a lot of the low end stuff came to America it would seem. But that is not proof that the final evolution of the flintlock did not appear here in some numbers as well. Look at the S. North pistols in "Steel Canvas".
So we look at what was acceptable at the TIME. Flintlocks were the NORM in the west in 1830. This is not disputable. This fact in itself is PROOF that J&S had to make SOME flintlocks.
Full stocked rifles vs half stocked. The English were making 1/2 stocked rifles by 1800 that look REMARKABLY like a LATE Hawken from the rear of the lock forward.
Why apparently to the end of his career did Sam still make fullstocked rifles? BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE WANTED THEM.
Read "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865" until the end of the ML era there were both 1/2 and full stocked rifles being ordered for the western trade.
Some people liked FS guns.
To be so delusional as to think that in 1830 if someone came to Jake and Sam cash in hand stating he wanted one of their 1/2 stocked rifles with a flintlock and they would have turned him away is just ridiculous.
They were in the business of making and SELLING rifles and guns. Turning away customers is REALLY dumb.
I don't think Jake or Sam were such poor business men as to do this.
Remember "the customer is always right".

People did not often mention who made their rifle, at least not in the early years it would seem and seldom mentioned the ignition system but the mentions we have tell us that there were still flintlocks in use in the 1840s east and west.
The flintlock was still the norm into the 1830s so J&S had to make some simply to supply customers.
I am not the only one to come to this conclusion.
Dan

[Jay Close]

The Clyman rifle, a fullstock Hawken, was illustrated in a Muzzle Blasts article in the May 1989 issue.
That article was written by Col. Vaughn Goodwin.

There is a close up photo of the lock area, and I think it highly unlikely the arm was ever a flintlock. I say this because the percussion lock is one of those Belgian or French forms that stay full width right out to the front; either that or its an English bar lock form with tightly fit spacer bar.

Anyway, the front of the lock panel is carved as one, sweeping semicircular curve from the barrel to the bottom of the stock. Unless new wood was patched in, it just would not accommodate any flintlock I've seen.

The lock is stamped "? & S Hawken".