I have two Don King Flint Hawkens. Don made these all almost identical. And he made a lot of them in the late 1960s and up till he retired. He had access an original FS percussion and I suspect that it was the rifle on Pg 27 of Baird’s “Hawken RIfles…”
So far as the heavy rifle once owned by Harold Fuller. As a friend of mine stated “The only thing Hawken is the stamp”.
Now its entirely possible that it was converted in the Hawken shop, though the unfilled holes in the plate seem a little sloppy. But most sloppy conversions used a drum and nipple. Maybe freshed as well. It was pretty obviously a match rifle and if the owner won a lot having your name on the barrel was good advertising.
The Smithsonian rifle is obviously converted from flint. Full blown flint “patent” breech. Lock still has the fence from a water proof pan. But this, IMO, was not done by the Hawken Shop.
The Buckskin Report article cited did pretty much step on Goodwin pretty had. But Goodwin was in the “never a flint Hawken” camp (which is silly of course) and reported what he wanted people to think about the rifle and John corrected him since he had photos of the rifle with the lock removed which leaves no doubt that Goodwins statements were completely bogus. But John got the letter from Goodwin just to get him in a jam. I get the feeling that Goodwin and John might have had some arguments over this prior. But no way to know now and if John ever mentioned it I don’t recall.
I have some photos of the rifle on my computer or maybe on this thing I could post but I think I may have already in another thread sometime back. And I had enough trouble finding the photo below.
This was taken at Chadron, NE Rendezvous in 1972 IIRC. Don King Hawkens on display. I think the top one was John Bairds which I owned at one time but got broke and had to sell it.
Other than one by Bob (RAT) and one I did years ago as a percussion, these are the only FS Hawkens that look right. Don made all the hardware but the barrels in shop. Carney Pace made lock internals for him (Schilliger used the same internals) and he bought the cocks, frizzens and springs for the lock. I know of 2-3 at least that have been used a lot won many matches and have killed a lot of deer, Elk etc. With no failures related to heattreating or Don’s work. I consider thsi the best FL hunting rifle ever made. And standard was 38” barrel. And I have hunted in the brush with mine and killed a number of whitetails in creek bottoms with it. A friend of mine did order one with a 32” barrel but he also spent a lot of time on a horse at the time.
