Author Topic: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE  (Read 20666 times)

Offline sqrldog

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #25 on: July 18, 2016, 11:54:16 AM »
Not a lot of difference in price when you consider the value of a dollar today compared to the value of a dollar in 1970. Worth the money if you want to copy an existing Hawken. Tim

Offline Bob Roller

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #26 on: July 18, 2016, 01:33:22 PM »
I hope nobody copies the muzzle which is minus any crown or chamfer.
A friend coped this gun in the 70's and did a fine job. He copied it again
for his father but used a shotgun butt like an English gun and it looked fine
and pleasant to shoot.
Bob Roller

Offline bama

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2016, 05:12:17 PM »
Yes that is a great set of drawings, I purchased a set back in the Hawken heyday and still have them. I refer to them everytime I go to build a Hawken rifle. I have two Hawkens to build in my backlog now and you can bet I will have these plans out while I am building these rifles.
Jim Parker

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #28 on: September 22, 2016, 09:08:41 PM »
Are these plans available anywhere today?  I'd definitely be interested.

Offline Mtn Meek

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #29 on: September 23, 2016, 05:42:29 AM »
Are these plans available anywhere today?  I'd definitely be interested.

This ad ran a couple years ago in Muzzle Blasts.  Try calling the number at the bottom of the ad.

« Last Edit: October 06, 2019, 01:37:28 AM by Mtn Meek »
Phil Meek

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #30 on: September 25, 2016, 03:24:33 AM »
That's a good idea.  I'll give them a try on monday.

Offline redheart

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #31 on: September 25, 2016, 05:23:27 AM »
I hope nobody copies the muzzle which is minus any crown or chamfer.
A friend coped this gun in the 70's and did a fine job. He copied it again
for his father but used a shotgun butt like an English gun and it looked fine
and pleasant to shoot.
Bob Roller

Hey Bob,    ???

I thought most if not all original Hawken rifle muzzles were done like this one.
I believe they coned them enough to remove the rifling at the muzzle and then filed fake rifling back in for looks.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2016, 05:33:49 AM by redheart »

Offline Bob Roller

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #32 on: September 25, 2016, 03:24:20 PM »
I hope nobody copies the muzzle which is minus any crown or chamfer.
A friend coped this gun in the 70's and did a fine job. He copied it again
for his father but used a shotgun butt like an English gun and it looked fine
and pleasant to shoot.
Bob Roller

Hey Bob,    ???

I thought most if not all original Hawken rifle muzzles were done like this one.
I believe they coned them enough to remove the rifling at the muzzle and then filed fake rifling back in for looks.


From the lack of wear at the muzzle I would say that the gun in the photo has been used little if any.
Also the lack of pitting and wear on the breech says this is a little used rifle.The lack of a chamfer,bevel or a "cone"
would make this barrel harder to load with a proper size ball. MOST Hawken rifles do exhibit similar charcteristics but
few truly interchangeable parts.Today we have a lot of standardized parts due to production methods.
If ALL or most Hawken rifles had this kind of muzzle then it would have been brought to our attention long ago.
Filing in "fake" rifling was not part of the construction and this gun shows NO sign of it.

Bob Roller

Offline redheart

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #33 on: September 25, 2016, 05:46:01 PM »
I think if the picture were a little better we would indeed find that what we're looking at is indeed that fake rifling.
This isn't a hill I want to die on . I just don't want folks to think that Hawken used the camfered muzzle or crown that modern shooters like.
If you look the Hawkens in the Jim Gordon collection you'll see that they're all done this way.



















« Last Edit: September 25, 2016, 05:49:41 PM by redheart »

Offline louieparker

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2016, 05:47:36 PM »
I have looked at the muzzle of several original Hawken rifle barrels. I have only seen one with a crowned muzzle. That rifle had been re rifled and used by a modern shooter. I can't see taking great pains to copy the work of the old " Master" then counter boreing the muzzle.  LP

Offline Herb

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #35 on: October 05, 2019, 10:33:43 PM »
Don't know why Mtn Meek's photos are out of focus.  Here is Robidoux's advertisement in Muzzle Blasts of March 1978.



Herb

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #36 on: October 05, 2019, 11:26:51 PM »
Herb,

I recently joined the Forum and this was my first opportunity to view the photos of the Hawken Rifle.

Thank-you very much for taking the time and making the effort. It is much appreciated.

Offline mr. no gold

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #37 on: October 06, 2019, 12:09:38 AM »
Wondering how that rifle made it to Nebraska. The Roubidoux's were big up in San Bernardino County in Southern California. There is a Roubidoux Blvd. and other places named for him. Not sure that he died there, but he certainly left his mark. Joseph Craig moved down there from Shasta County in NO. CA and died in San Bernardino.

Offline Mtn Meek

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #38 on: October 06, 2019, 03:09:43 AM »
The rifle that Herb photographed has no connection to Wayne Robidoux, or any other Robidoux that I know of, other than Wayne drew up a detail set of blueprints to make a duplicate of the rifle.

That said, the family name of Robidoux, with its many spellings, can be found all across North America.  They initially came to Acadia and New France.  From there, they spread out through Canada, the Great Lakes region, St. Louis, Louisiana, and the West.  The name has long been associated with the fur trade.

Joseph Robidoux II, a fur trader from Canada, was one of the early inhabitants of St. Louis in the 1770s.  He raised six sons that were all involved in the fur trade.  The eldest, Joseph III, ran his father's business in St. Louis.  The other five sons went west.  One of them, Antoine, went to Taos in the spring of 1824.  Antoine trapped the southern Rockies with other trappers from Taos.  He eventually established the first trading posts in Western Colorado.  Fort Uncompahgre was constructed by Antoine Robidoux in 1828 at the confluence of the Gunnison River and the Uncompahgre River, near the present town of Delta, CO.  In 1832, Antoine Robidoux built a second trading post up near where Herb lives that was called Fort Unitah.  He built a third trading post around 1837 on the Green River in present day Utah called Fort Robidoux, but it was short lived.

From the Amazon description for the book Robidoux Chronicles: French-Indian Ethnoculture of the Trans-Mississippi West by Hugh M. Lewis
Quote
Robidoux Chronicles treats with comprehensive documentary detail the factual history of the Robidoux lineage in North America from the first progenitor who arrived in Quebec in about 1665, through the famous six brothers who distinguished themselves as Mountain Men, up until even recent times on reservations in the US. Many members of the Robidoux family were intimately connected to the entire history of the North American fur trade. The six brothers, born in St. Louis before the coming of Lewis & Clark, were important fur-traders during the classical Rendezvous era of the North American fur trade. They became key players in the organization & articulation of the Overland Trail, only to die soon afterward in relative obscurity upon the plains of Kansas & Nebraska. By the 1950's, the story of the Robidoux had been almost entirely forgotten. Subsequent historians had lost all but a scant & fragmentary knowledge of the true role & exploits of the Robidoux & their French-Indian compatriots upon the frontiers of the old west. Antoine Robidoux was the first to establish permanent trading settlements west of the Rockies in the Inter-Montane corridor, & his brother Michel was one of the first expeditions to traverse the length of the Grand Canyon. The eldest brother Joseph became one of the earliest established traders on the upper Missouri & founded St. Joseph, Missouri, which was later to be the primary starting point of the Overland Trail. His younger brother Louis became one of the earliest ranch owners in California, becoming Don of the Jurupa, that encompassed the areas known today as Riverside, San Bernardino, San Jacinto & San Timoteo. An entire inter-tribal French-Indian ethnocultural orientation had developed upon the plains, prairies & mountains of the Trans-Mississippi west a good fifty years before the coming of the Iron Horse & the Pony Express, & has been carried on today in proximity to the reservations of Kansas & Oklahoma, South Dakota & Wyoming.

I have no idea if Wayne Robidoux is a descendent from any of these fur trade Robidoux's that originated from St. Louis.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2019, 03:30:39 AM by Mtn Meek »
Phil Meek

Offline Herb

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #39 on: October 06, 2019, 07:10:18 AM »
When I looked up this thread this morning, Mtn Meek's photos were all out of focus with big "Photobucket" stamps on them.  He phoned me on another matter and I mentioned the photos, which he corrected.  Thus my post about them.
Herb

Offline Mick C

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #40 on: October 13, 2019, 07:20:31 PM »
From someone who has a LOT of experience dealing with technical drawings, that is a beautiful set of drawings.  And it's a very nice way of turning something done in tech school into a money maker.
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Offline Craig Wilcox

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #41 on: October 14, 2019, 12:56:13 AM »
Mick, to make the man a whole lot richer, let us know how to get copies of the plans.  Many of us want to strive for period accuracy in our rifle builds, and this is a good way to accomplish that,
Craig Wilcox
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Offline Scota4570

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #42 on: October 20, 2019, 10:50:23 PM »
Are Wayne Robidoux’s blueprints still for sale?  Where? IF not, has the copyright expired?  IF so a person who has a bluepeint set could make some cash by making copies at a blueprint place or even Kinkos aka (FEDEX). 

I would pay up for good drawings, I'm sure others would too. 

The only downside is that the dimensions are in fractions of an inch.  To me that indicates they were done with a ruler.  Yes, I know digital calipers were not used back then.   Decimal measurements done with a modern digital caliper would be more accurate and easier to work from.  I may have a chance to examine an original in a museum.  If so I will make every effort to gather as much data as possible in the time I have with it. 
« Last Edit: October 20, 2019, 11:13:35 PM by Scota4570 »

Offline JTR

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #43 on: October 20, 2019, 11:35:14 PM »
Digital calipers, you mean the really nice stainless steel ones, with the perfect 90 degree edges on them, that are razor sharp?
You won't find a pair of those ever touching one of my guns!
The plastic ones might be less prone to damaging the finish on the wood, but I'd think that fractions with a tape measure would be accurate enough for most guys.
John Robbins

Offline Scota4570

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #44 on: October 21, 2019, 04:00:34 AM »
Well, I guess I come at it more as a machinist than a folk artist.  There is no reason not to knock off the pointy ends if concerned.  I have no recollection of damaging a gun with a caliper.  I guess I am careful.  Another big reason is making mistakes.  In my professional life I made an error reading a ruler that cost me dearly.  It is very easy to misread a ruler. 

Offline Taylorz1

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Re: "Roubidoux" Hawken in Lincoln, NE
« Reply #45 on: October 21, 2019, 10:38:12 PM »
I called 402-435-7203 from one of the adds above and got in touch with Curt Robidoux who is handling these prints now. They are available if you contact him. Was a nice guy to talk to. Hope this helps. Best

Zack