Will Jake & Sam ever forgive me? First solo build.

[Roger B]

This is my first solo, scratch, build & I apologize for my photos.  If you don't look too closely, it appears to be passable I think.  The lock is a Roller which I radiused at the front because I think they look more graceful that way.  It is engraved "Roller Warranted"and had to be built up with weld at the front of the bolster in order to get the back to front flare of the originals.  It also has Roller triggers.  The barrel is a new/old stock Large which came with a hooked breech, tapered, in .54 caliber with the wood coming from Wayne Dunlap.  I asked him for a piece of curly, hard, maple and that is what I got; a chunk of cast iron with stripes!  The rear sight is an old, machined, Schillinger.  The barrel rib is attached with peened screws and started out solid, but was opened up on the end to look like a hollow rib and filled with solder as were the originals.  Case colors are by Wyoming Armory (none better or better to deal with) and engraving is by Smitty from patterns taken from originals in Jim Gordon's book.  I spent many hours there and in Mr. Gordon's museum in Glorietta, NM. My friend Mike Beathe of Beathe knives did the barrel channel & I hand drilled the RR channel.  The rifle is chock full of mistakes starting with a too bulky stock which I pared down as much as I could given the parts that I had.  The tang & trigger bar had to be welded when I fouled up my through bolt holes and the stock holes had to be patched.  I still got the front one too far forward which required me to noch the back of the breech for lock bolt passage.  Mike (Beathe) had some beautiful war clubs done with Fiebing's British tan which I tried on this stock.  It is much redder than his clubs, but it does make everything else pop.  The rust bluing was done by me.  The rifle is signed "R. Blevins Tullasi, IT.
Tullasi is the Creek settlement that Tulsa grew from & IT is for Indian Territory.  So give it to me straight, I can take it.  Still some detail tweeking to do.
Roger B.

[Roger B]

I'm fighting to get them in.  Hang on.  I'll try to get better ones tomorrow.
Roger B.

[Majorjoel]

Roger, from what I can see from your pictures, your Hawken looks like a beautiful rifle. I can tell you from experience that to build a correct style Hawken is a tough project! If your rifle shoots as good as it looks, Ole Sam 'll be proud of you.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Roger, you picked a tricky rifle to be your first solo build, but it appears that you pulled it off!!  It is certainly recognizable as a "Hawken" rifle, and studying Jim Gordon's book demonstrates that there are many variances in their attention to the little things.  Regarding the colour - not my choice.  You will find that use and exposure will damped the brightness of the British Tan, as it is sensitive to UV rays.  That's a good thing, I think, in your case.  You should be proud of this accomplishment.
I'd love to see some better pictures.

[A.Merrill]

    I'm with Taylor on the color, but other than that you did a fine job.    AL

[alyce-james]

Roger; For a difficult first build I believe you did a right fine job. I would probably redo the wood color. Nice job. Thanks for posting. AJ

[Roger B]

Thanks guys.  When I get better pictures you will begin to see that my inletting leaves a lot to be desired.  I agree on the color, but it certainly looked good on the war clubs!  I will probably redo it sometime in the future, but I'm pretty tired of it now.  I went through 2 nosecaps before I got this one to fit simply because the flats of the barrel are not stictly octagonal and I kept ruining things trying to file them to fit.  The barrel is just slightly over 1 1/8th at the breech and just under 1 1/6th at the muzzle, which is why it had to be bedded.  It has had two entry thimbles due to poor pinhole drilling and one of the holes in the stock had to be filled, but it is hard to see since it is in the middle of a stripe. I won't use this entry thimble again because it makes the stock too thick in that area. I learned a lot on this build and not just technical stuff.  You have to have determination in order to get things "right" and patience to go back and do it again and again.  You also have to recognize that nothing is perfect and accept a point of diminishing returns when you get there.  I will never be a craftsman on the order of most of the folks here, but I do feel somewhat validated having finally done something on my own.  The next one will be better, I hope.  There is much variation among Hawkens.  The Rocky Mountain rifle was sort of a formula that individual craftsman mixed differently  to their tastes in that shop.  I took my barrel key placement from John Johnston's rifle simply because I liked it.  There were a lot of different locks and hooked breech set ups, probably based on what was available at the time.  The cheek pieces varied too.  I just tried to take the most common features of the ones I had seen and mix it with the architecture I liked best.
Roger B.

[Roger B]

OK guys; I have to refinish the wood sooner than later.  The gun just ran across the room screaming "Im red!  I'm too red!  Dear Lord am I ever red!"  and then asked me to kill it.
Roger B.

[Daryl]

Roger- I think your rifle looks just great - not my choice of colours, but overall, a very good job.

[frenchman]

she is red, personnel taste
Not that major, if ever you want to change the colour little sanding and scraping.
The worse of the build is done.
Will you used it for hunting, man that first hunt will be memorable and how does she shoots

[blunderbuss]

Looks better than my first one my first one had a pine stock and a water pipe barrel

[Habu]

You picked a heckuva rifle for a first build.  You did a decent job of hiding most of the mistakes: those will always bother you more than anyone else.  Aside from the color--which it sounds like you are going to change right soon--it doesn't look too bad.   In general it looks better than my 5th or 6th build, so I'm a tad jealous. 

The question is, what are you going to build next?

Jim

[Roger B]

I just can't get any better pictures on my little Canon.  Next project is a flint full stock Vincent kit that I bought on this site.  After that is a really fancy Hawken fullstock with a lot of silver inlays and maybe some mother of pearl ala the Atchisson rifle in Cody.  Probably a flint chunk gun after that with a Homer Sales Siler flint and a Douglas 1 1/8th XX .50.  I have a splinter I need to repair around the tang on this one when I re-stain and it needs some filling around the radius of the lock.  Stuff to tweak.  I appreciate the comments & encouragement.  Mostly I appreciate the information.
Roger B.