Horace Kephart S Hawken and an unknown halfstock

[HighUintas]

I visited the Missouri History Museum today and took a couple of pictures of rifles.

I apologize for the poor quality. I only had 20 minutes and my phone camera is very subpar.

The first is an S Hawken donated by Horace Kephart.
























The second didn't have any information about it. But many aspects of the rifle seemed like it was probably a later Hawken local trade or target rifle. The bore looked on the smaller side. The finish looked like most of it had nearly turned black it was so dark. It is the top on in the photos.

Does anyone have any information on this one?














Bonus:
S Hawken Jr's fire hat

[Longknife]

If you will look a little closer top one picture, it has been converted to a breech loader. It works like a trapdoor. I have seen it there, but I don't know if it was a Hawken conversion or some other 'smith that did it.

[Daryl]

Good spotting, Ed. something about the breech area didn't look quite right to me.

[HighUintas]

Thanks, Longknife! I did see that and couldn't make out what it was. I forgot to mention that.

The stock had a "34" written on it like it may have been from the museum. I plan to call the museum to see if they have some information on it.

[HighUintas]

Update on the Kephart Hawken, the first picture. There is no barrel stamp that I can see. I really think it doesn't have a visible stamp on the top of the barrel. The rear sight is an interesting shape in that it is shaped like the upper half of a heart. The butt plate appears cast and has some visible remnants of being case hardened.

[rich pierce]

The Kephart Hawken started the craze. He wrote about it.

[JTR]

If you will look a little closer top one picture, it has been converted to a breech loader. It works like a trapdoor. I have seen it there, but I don't know if it was a Hawken conversion or some other 'smith that did it.

Well that's novel!

[HighUintas]

The Kephart Hawken started the craze. He wrote about it.

Yes I wasn't sure if it was 1 rifle he had and wrote about or if he had several. I wasn't able to find any mention of it being unstamped or having the less than common breech snail style. I saw an old post by Herb mentioning it was nearly identical to the Carson Hawken, but no mention of either of these items.

[HighUintas]

Also, I'm pretty sure that breech loader rifle mentioned above is a Gemmer. I could barely make that out on the barrel but not well enough to get a picture.