Here are photos of my 5th rifle build. It’s my interpretation of a St. Louis made rifle of the 1825-1830 period. To avoid controversy, I’m not calling it a “Hawken”.
I made everything on the rifle except the barrel and lock. The barrel is a 42” long .50 cal. Rice tapered and flared “C” weight barrel (1 1/6” at the breech). The lock is the Jim Chambers “Late Ketland”.
I color case hardened the lock and triggers. Everything else was browned.
I forged the butt plate in 2 parts with a brazed seem. The trigger guard was formed with 3 parts and brazed together. The trigger guard is early in form, having front and rear finials like a traditional trigger guard. It is screwed to the stock with wood screws. It is not fastened to the trigger plate.
The short trigger plate is fastened with the tang bolt at the front and a wood screw at the rear. The breech plug was the short tang style that came with the barrel.
I finished this rifle in February, all except the case hardening. Too cold to fill up a quench tank in February. So I put it aside and built rifle #6 (the Gemmer-Hawken I posted a couple of weeks ago). I case hardened the lock and triggers for #5 on September 7th.
