original halfstock Hawken flintlock conversation etc

[heinz]

There is a wide range in the shape of "crescent" buttplates.  I have shot slightly crescent buttplates in reproduction Hawken and original Ohio rifles in Buffalo matches, off cross sticks, offhand, and at long ranges using heavy charges.  All of the rifles used fired just fine off the shoulder.  Same for Southern Mountain rifles.

I do not know where these myths about holding the buttstock on you bicep or the riduculous story about spitting balls down the muzzle   after pouring an undetermined charge down the muzzle, all on a galloping horse come from.  I have never read a reliable first hand account form a period target shooter  or Buffalo hunter  mentioning these odd uses.  I can tell you I would not try that off the bicep with my 45/110 unmentionable offhand or off the cross sticks.  I have only shot it prone once and will not do that again

And Rich Pierce's comment about the trade gun makes perfect sense.

[JHeath]

There is a wide range in the shape of "crescent" buttplates.  I have shot slightly crescent buttplates in reproduction HAwken and original Ohio rifle in Buffalo matches, off cross sticks, offhand, and at long ranges using heavy charges.  All of the rifles used fired just fine off the shoulder.  Same for Southern Mountain rifles.

I do not know where these myths about holding the buttstock on you bicep or the riduculous story about spitting balls down the muzzle   after pouring an undetermined charge down the muzzle, all on a galloping horse come from.  I have never read a reliable first hand account form a period target shooter  or Buffalo hunter  mentioning these odd uses.  I can tell you I would not try that off the bicep with my 45/110 unmentionable offhand or off the cross sticks.  I have only shot it prone once and will not do that again

IIRC the "ridiculous story" about bison hunting on horseback came from John Palliser CMG, an Anglo-Irish geographer who among other things led the British North American Exploring Expedition, mapped a large part of Saskatchewan and Alberta, located passes through the Canadian Rockies, established the location of a long section of the international boundary, wrote five books of his expeditions of the Canadian and American west, and fed his expeditions by rifle. A large section of south central Canada - the northern plains -  is called the Palliser Triangle. Your argument is with him.

I've also been reading George Ruxton, a British officer who traveled and hunted extensively in the Southwest and Rockies, and among the mountain men. Just possibly the account came from Ruxton, but I think Palliser.

As far as the myth of crescent plate bicep etc I have seen countless people do it, and heard countless people, accustomed to flat plates, complain of extraordinary discomfort and confusion when trying deep crescent plates. Try a schuetzen rifle from the shoulder pocket. I have also seen countless target shooters of unmentionables with flat plates shooting from the upper arms.

[smart dog]

Hi,
Don't be fixated on Chance.  There were others such as Henry Tatham and Wheeler who made good quality English rifles for trade in North America and the Hawken brothers may very well have been familiar with them.  Moreover, gunsmiths such as John Haslet of Baltimore made guns of British styling. The British copied American long rifles for some of their Indian trade guns but the sporting rifle designs above were not derived from American guns.  They are adaptations of common British fowler designs from the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries to rifles.  The barrel on the rifle in question looks to be a stub twist (not Damascus), which was expensive and developed in England.

dave

[Dphariss]

I find the top rifle to be rather interesting. Definitely a 1/2 stock flinter or plains-rifle-type build.
The middle rifle as well.
The top rifle is a 6 bore, approximately a .92 calibre.

Daryl, do you have more information on those builders? Again, it's an English rifle that appears to predate the Hawken halfstocks. So again, did the Hawkens copy an English pattern?

Photo is from “English Guns and Rifles” by J. N. George, who I believe was KIA in WW-II. It faces pg 174 in my copy.
The 6 bore  is a H.W. Mortimer circa 1800
The second is 24 bore, 58 cal
Both are straight taper barrels from the description.
Number 3 has a 7 deep groove, swamped  barrel made in Germany 52 bore, 45 cal.

[Dphariss]

Given the resistance in some to the percussion lock in the west thinking the Hawken brothers never made a flint 1/2 stock is just silly. But the only surviving originally flintlock  “mountain rifle” marked  S. Hawken is a fullstock. So apparently they were still making FL rifles in the late 1840s..
if the made a 1/2 stock flint with a single lock bolt and it came back for conversion and they cut the breech, fitted a patent breech with the proper standing breech and a new lock how would we know? 
Before someone starts talking about cuts for the cock in the wood of the lock surround check this out. By 1800-1810 this was not always required. Nor was the front lock bolt.


This is a photo of the breech of the Smithsonian flint S. Hawken. Its from the Dec 1977 Buckskin Report. The waterproof pan flintlock fence is still on the lock plate. The photos from this issue are the only detail photos I know of the  rifle

[Bob Roller]

As far as any of us know there are no specimens of a half stock Hawken that never was a flintlock at any point in time and the few I have examined had cap locks of mediocre quality and that seemed to be the rule on most American hunting rifles.The exception would be the fine schuetzen and other target rifles of the Northeast.
Bob Roller

[OLUT]

This is a photo of the breech of the Smithsonian flint S. Hawken. Its from the Dec 1977 Buckskin Report. The waterproof pan flintlock fence is still on the lock plate. The photos from this issue are the only detail photos I know of the  rifle

Folks, I'm NOT becoming involved in the comments in this topic, but here's the Smithsonian's gun that Dpharris mentioned ... OLUT

[Dphariss]

There is a very similar FS percussion rifle shown in “Firearms of The American West 1803-1865 as well as an overall view of the Smithsonian rifle. It also has a number of period comments both pro and con about the FL. Some still did not trust the  percussion system in the early 1840s. This is important. Some hated flintlocks. To this day some people can’t shoot accurately with a fl.
The Hawken shop was in the business of making money. If someone came in and wanted a rifle and had the money they are not going to run them off because they wanted a 1/2 stock fl. At least I would not even today.
I seem to recall that Hanson or some other researcher found that the Hawkens were still ordering flintlock locks well into the percussion era. As the Smithsonian rifle indicates.
And both Jake and Sam were very well acquainted with the  1803 Harpers Ferry.
A good flintlock is very reliable in hunting it’s about as good as a caplock.
Right now with the “availability” of caps a flintlock looks pretty good. For the same reason some pointed out in the early 19th c.  Anyone remember the story in Ned Roberts book where the guy was treed by wolves?

I don’t care if they never built a half stock fl or not. But over my lifetime the argument has morphed from “they never made FLs” to, they never made half stocked flintlocks, since it’s obvious they made FS flintlocks way later than 1830.
Our attitudes and opinions based on today or what we might think are meaningless. We have to look to the attitudes of the people of the time. Unfortunately when describing firearms many did not differentiate between ignition systems in the time frame  we are dealing with.
The earliest, by stocking and features J&S Hawken I have personally examined is a non-patent breech, half stocked percussion rifle. Surely early to mid- 1830s at least.  Sure the barrel might have been on a fl but if it was the restock is all percussion. I don’t see how it could ever have been flint.
AND most of the Hawken rifles we see were made well after the classsic “mountain man” era.

[Daryl]

To this day some people can’t shoot accurately with a fl.

Now I KNOW you're talking about me!!
 

[Dphariss]

To this day some people can’t shoot accurately with a fl.

Now I KNOW you're talking about me!!
 

Actually I was thinking of a guy in the lower 48. Another friend says he has a very consistent flinch and even sights his guns for it. But it don’t work with the longer lock time.

[Dphariss]

I’d rather use a NW gun than an 11 pound rifle with double set triggers when running buffalo. Imagin trying to reload. Not trying to be argumentative; just saying crescent buttplates were in vogue and few makers deviated from them in the 1830s-1850s. Trying to reason why they suddenly became “necessary” or helpful is an exercise of the imagination.

The question was why two British rifles were converted to crescent plates. One was an expensive london rifle owned by Ruxton. According to the auction description, Brit visitors were intrigued by our crescent plates. Why? What use was happening in the US that was not happening in England?

Well for one, buffalo running. I think it was Palliser who said the trick while racing on a horse alongside buffalo was to carry roundballs in your mouth; dispense a random handful powder from a stash in your pocket; and not use a patch. Just spit a ball down the barrel, keep the muzzle up until the moment of shooting, and the spit will help hold the ball in place for an instant while you tip the rifle down and let fly.

I do not have a horse or buffalo so have not tried this. But Palliser fed an expedition doing it.

Set trigger not an issue if you use the front trigger only.

Impossible to know if a question about the evolution of rifle features is answerable if you do not try to find out.

I'm fascinated by the intense research on some minor curlicue embellishment appearing on two masters and one apprentice's rifles in a 20 year period in one PA county, while a radically different functional development like a crescent plate, appearing everywhere and virtually dictating how the rifle can be used, goes practically unquestioned.
[/quote]
Most set triggers produce a very hard trigger pull when used unset. The geometry is wrong for a useable trigger pull.
Running Buffalo is a point and fire operation at maybe 5-15 feet. For those with the money this is an option
J&S Hawken 65-66 cal. Can’t imagine any other use for these. Captured rods, heavy ball. And at least 3 of Millers paintings show pistols used while horseback though I have not seen one involving buffalo. Loaded heavily a pistol with a 9-10” barrel at close range is ballistically similar to a rifle at 100 yards.
There are books/journals that mention shooting Buffalo from horseback with Colt Dragoon revolvers. But I suspect in the Fur Trade era the trade gun, used as Francis Parkman describes, was very common. Natives used arrows. 

[Daryl]

The .54's and indeed, some of the British Dueling pistols were used in buffalo "running".
The .44 percussion revolvers, 1860's and the dragoons, were said to have 6 buffalo in one loaded revolver.

[JHeath]

Hi,
Don't be fixated on Chance.  There were others such as Henry Tatham and Wheeler who made good quality English rifles for trade in North America and the Hawken brothers may very well have been familiar with them.  Moreover, gunsmiths such as John Haslet of Baltimore made guns of British styling. The British copied American long rifles for some of their Indian trade guns but the sporting rifle designs above were not derived from American guns.  They are adaptations of common British fowler designs from the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries to rifles.  The barrel on the rifle in question looks to be a stub twist (not Damascus), which was expensive and developed in England.

dave

You're right of course. Yet the Chance rifle is unique on certain points.

It is apparently a Birmingham trade rifle of some kind. Chance supplied the American Fur Company and forwarded goods through St. Louis. The AFC are known to have done business with Hawken in the mid-1820s. This is not a London rifle so less likely to have been brought to the US by a gentleman hunter, like e.g. a Manton. On the other hand it might have been imported in 2010, we don't know.

It has a lot of drop at the heel for an English rifle. The drop looks like an American rifle. Why would a Birmingham company build like that? It is as though they were trying to match American expectations.

The buttplate seems to have been converted to crescent, from a wide flat butt. You can see on the left where the stock was narrowed. Presumably this was done in America (?)

At some point it was converted to percussion. Where and when was this rifle altered? The AFC connection is speculative. But if this were an AFC flint rifle that passed through St Louis, it is *possible* it was altered there.

Regardless, from the similarities between Hawkens and late English flint halfstocks, it seems likely that J&S had seen an English halfstock or two before the percussion era. In particular this Chance and some Mantons have two keys. So it seems entirely possible that J&S turned out some English-modeled halfstocks before the percussion era.

J&S seeing a London rifle would depend on the stray Englishman passing through St Louis. But J&S seeing a Birmingham trade rifle imported for the AFC seems fairly likely. If this was an AFC rifle, it's even possible that the Hawkens did the alterations.

[borderdogs]

I have no way to verify this other than personal experience but if you have a rifle over your lap riding a horse if you have to shoulder that rifle on horseback and shoot a crescent buttplate makes it easier to "catch" and hold it there. I haven't shot from horseback but carrying a rifle on horseback a relatively short barrel and a crescent buttplate makes the process easier. I have tried doing it myself, standing, trot, and at a lope.
Rob

[Hungry Horse]

 In my book you said it all, when you mentioned Hawken family members working at Harpers Ferry. The resemblance between half stock Hawken made guns, and Harpers Ferry half stocked rifles are obvious. Hawken rifles are just a little more robust, and iron mounted.

Hungry Horse

[Bob Roller]

Another possibility is that a converted lock was used was used to build a halfstock caplock rifle and that will have historians wondering for ever as to who did what and when and why.
Bob Roller

[JHeath]

Another possibility is that a converted lock was used was used to build a halfstock caplock rifle and that will have historians wondering for ever as to who did what and when and why.
Bob Roller

Always possible, but the wrist is checkered, stock walnut, trigger guard engraved, barrel striped, single trigger, horn tip, and the butt has been dished out on the left apparently to convert from a wide flat butt to a narrow crescent. All of which suggest this is a converted English rifle. Each of those features could be American but all of them together on a rifle with an English lock suggest that the whole rifle is English.

But as was said above the classic Hawken is obviously derived from having seen English rifles. Maybe not this one, but some English rifle or rifles.

[JHeath]

Another possibility is that a converted lock was used was used to build a halfstock caplock rifle and that will have historians wondering for ever as to who did what and when and why.
Bob Roller

Bob, I am not qualified to comment on the breech and tang but perhaps those are English too.

Oh and the cheekpiece doesn't look very American.

[Notchy Bob]

I'm trying to remember where I read it, but I read a lot and don't take notes on everything, but I do recall a description of running buffalo from horseback.  The author indicated that the gun was not raised to the shoulder at all, but was laid across the pommel (or the horse's withers if riding bareback) and left there.  The range was so close that the buffalo fur was often singed from the flash.  They would just ride in close to the buffalo's right side and shoot point-blank.  So, the shape of the butt plate didn't really matter.

The bison's respiratory anatomy is different from that of humans.  They don't have a mediastinum like us.  Most of us, anyway... There is a rare medical condition, a physical defect in humans, known as "buffalo chest."  You are welcome to look it up if you like. Anyway, if you can puncture one of the buffalo's lungs with a ball or arrow or lance, he (or she) will quickly develop a pneumothorax and collapse. Then you've got him (or her). There was an article in a very old issue of The Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society about a buffalo hunt with Miami Indians in the 1850's.  It was specifically stated that they used Colt Navy revolvers, which would seem under powered to me, but that's what it said.  Given that feature of the buffalo's pulmonary anatomy, I suppose it would work, with a close-range lung shot.

John Palliser did indeed describe buffalo hunting, or "running," from horseback.  However, he wrote that the ideal weapon for this task was a "self-priming flintlock."

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

[Notchy Bob]

I looked some things up.  If you are interested in historical accounts of hunting on the plains, John Palliser's Solitary Rambles of a Hunter (1853) is an excellent resource.  It was he who wrote, "...in running buffalo you never bring the gun to your shoulder in firing, but present it... across the pummel of the saddle, calculating the angle with your eye and steadying yourself momentarily by standing in the stirrups as you take aim.  This is difficult to do at first and requires considerable practice; but the facility once acquired, the ease and unerring steadiness with which you can shoot is most satisfactory, and any one accustomed to this method condemns ever afterward the lifting of a gun to the shoulder whilst riding at speed, as the most awkward and unscientific bungling (pp.112-113).

Regarding loading technique and his choice of arms for buffalo running, Palliser said:



Someone in one of the posts above mentioned not having seen a period illustration of buffalo running with pistols.  This is from Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, by George Wilkins Kendall, published in 1844:



Kendall was an avid hunter, and made many comments about firearms in the text, including the shooting of buffalo with pistols.

Finally, here is a link to Ely Moore's account of a hunting trip with the Miami people:  A Buffalo Hunt With the Miamis in 1854.  This is on the Kansas Memory website, which is a little tricky to navigate at first, but you'll find a trove of historical information once you get the hang of it.

Notchy Bob

[Dphariss]

In Parkman’s “The Oregon Trail” I beleive you will find an 1840s reference to running buffalo with a long gun. Though not a rifle most likely a 36” or shorter trade gun. After all if you drop a trade gun its not nearly as serious as dropping your rifle. And the trade gun is better for this purpose anyway.”. Remington even did a illustration of this in at least one printing.
And these people could ride. If you want an illustration of this watch the movie “Stagecoach” the ordinal with John Wayne. Watch the natives, real not extras from Hollywood,  running TD Springfield from a running horse. One of these Navaho (IIRC) extras said in a later interview that they “lived on horseback”.
They used to guide a buffalo pony with their knees.