I had a .50 GRRW barrel and a walnut plank and some odds and ends of Hawken parts so I put them together. The barrel was picked up off the shop floor at GRRW by a friend in about 1978. The flats had been milled uneven on four sides, so it was a reject and Doc White gave it to him. He gave it to me last year. I filed the flats on the thickest sides of the barrel down some to mostly equalize the diameters across the flats. Then I rebuilt some Cherry Corner triggers and worked over a Hawken lock of unknown ancestory, probably a Davis. I got the brass trigger guard and buttplate from Track a few years back and they are still available. I riveted the underrib on with copper rivets soldered into the barrel and then peened over. Made brass escutcheons, but used steel keys and entry pipe and brass nose cap. Today I went out to do the sighting in and load development.
Thirty-two inch barrel, about one inch across the flats, 13.5 inch length of pull.
I heat blued the lock plate and trigger plate but blued the barrel with Brownell's Oxpho blue.
Stained the stock with Laurel Mountain Forge Nut Brown and finished with Chambers Traditional Oil Stock Finish. This was 8 years old and so I thinned it and wiped it right off with paper towels, about six coats.
I shot my proof targets at 50 yards from rest, 92 degrees but calm. Made weight-corrected measures from brass cartridge cases. The patching is JoAnn's linen, .012 but crushes to .007. This loaded easily. I don't know what caused those two wild shots, but the patches may have holed. I could not find all of them. This rifle may be used for deer hunting this fall by its new owner.
I have now built about 16 Hawkens, if I remember them all. Eight were parts sets such as Track's Bridger and Carson Hawkens and one fullstock and a Don Stith fullstock. But eight I sawed out with handsaws. Four or five of these were walnut and one was left-handed. I wish I did not have to do this again, it is a lot of work and difficult to get right. JoeS wrote in "My Hawken Build So Far" on 6/21/2015 "I think next time I would start off with a blank." I highly advise against this. It is just too hard to get the lines right. I made mistakes on my last three, including the Bridger Hawken and this one. I could have built three Hawkens from correct parts and an inletted stock in the time it took me to do this one.
