J & S Hawken

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

A friend of mine as always wanted an authentic Hawken rifle, in flint.  He mailed me letter from the Yukon many years ago asking for particulars, but decided to buy a Traditions Hawken - he had an advertisement with a picture that said "old Sam and Jake would have been proud to have produced this authentic rifle" or something along that line.  He since has moved to Prince George, and we built a half stock flinter together a few years ago, and he was happy.  Sort of.
He commissioned me to build the following rifle, the parts for which I purchased from our friend, Don Stith.  This is his fullstocked J & S Hawken with L & R flintlock, Ed Rayle .62 cal tapered barrel (1" - 15/16" x 36" long)  It has Roller triggers.  The nose piece is mine, hammered out of sheet steel one piece.  The stock is the hardest piece of maple I have ever seen.  I scraped it but confess to using paper in a few tough to get at spots.  It is stained with AF and finished with boiled linseed, then Sandy Allen"s oil finish, then cut back with pumice and BLO again to kill the shine.  All the furniture including the lock, is forge case hardened except the nose piece which is riveted to the wood, so I cold blued it.  The barrel is rust blued...a two day project.
I finished it up as a new rifle just leaving the shop.  They get old fast enough.  The lock is a spare that my friend has for his half stock, and has about 600 shots on it.

[Ben I. Voss]

That's an awesome rifle , Taylor! I wonder if the original Hawken boys work was anywhere near that nice?

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

Those Grizzlies will just lie down when they see that beauty!!!!  Especially the nosecap 

He will be proud of this gun.

Thanks for the pics Taylor.

[smart dog]

Hi Taylor,
Beautiful!  What a nice rifle.  I love the finish and the styling.  It is so nice to see a Hawken with narrow lock moldings.  So many reproduction Hawken rifles have wide boxy lock panels that just don't look right.  Well done Taylor!

dave

[Birddog6]

Taylor,  That is a great looking rifle. Wush I could shoulder it on time. Really like the lock, superb job !   

Keith

[Gary Tucker]

That is a great looking rifle!!  The fit and finish are superb.  The color looks great.  Nice job on the rolled over cheekpiece.

[Mike Brooks]

That's an awesome rifle , Taylor! I wonder if the original Hawken boys work was anywhere near that nice?

I agree, very nice. I have been fortunate to handle a couple fullstock Hawken rifles over the years. They were slab sided and fairly ugly. The Hawken Bros. would have been pleased to produce a gun of this quality!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Thank you my friends.  Mike that is an interesting observation.  I have only seen one original and it was a half stocked percussion rifle.  The stock colour was much like mine - not dark by any means - and the overall impression I came away with, was it could have been finished better.  There were grind marks laterally on the butt plate, and the edges of the lock panels were anything but sharp.  Still, it was a soundly built rifle and a pleasure to be able to hold it.
This rifle has the feel of a Tennessee or Southern Mountain rifle.  It is very very slim through the wrist, in fact everywhere - no extra wood anywhere.  This rifle weights 8 pounds 1.5 ounces.  It will make a great hunting rifle, and that was the goal we were looking for.

[stoneke]

Taylor: That is one beautiful rifle. Your shaping of the lock panels is right on. Great job.

[Leatherbelly]

Beautifull rifling gun Taylor! I like the barrel finish too. Hatchet will be pleased! Can't wait to shoot it. hehehe

[Ken G]

Taylor,
Great gun.  Overall appeal is something anyone could appreciate.  Even one of us TN die hards.  great job.  I especially like the lock and nose cap.  
Ken

[Mike Brooks]

Thank you my friends.  Mike that is an interesting observation.  I have only seen one original and it was a half stocked percussion rifle.  The stock colour was much like mine - not dark by any means - and the overall impression I came away with, was it could have been finished better.  There were grind marks laterally on the butt plate, and the edges of the lock panels were anything but sharp.  Still, it was a soundly built rifle and a pleasure to be able to hold it.
This rifle has the feel of a Tennessee or Southern Mountain rifle.  It is very very slim through the wrist, in fact everywhere - no extra wood anywhere.  This rifle weights 8 pounds 1.5 ounces.  It will make a great hunting rifle, and that was the goal we were looking for.

I saw Two different full stock Hawken rifles at the CADA show in Chicago in past years. They were both light colored...might have been refinished, I don't know. The lock panels were very crude and clunky and the forestocks especially were very slab sided on both. Both had fairly light straight barrels and were surprisingly light in weight when held. Pretty unimpressive work for such highly worshiped rifles.
On the other hand, I have handled a few Hawken 1/2 stock guns that were quite impressive in their craftsmanship and architecture.

[Dave K]

That is on beautiful gun. I agree, I am sure that the real Hawkens weren't as nice. Well done!

[John Archer]

Taylor.....this is a beautiful job on a full stock Hawken. The fit and finish are just what I've come to expect when I see your work. Love the colour that AF gives. I'll have to try a one piece nose cap in steel one day...yours is a good example for me to strive for. The lock is bang-on! Did you do the Ashmore engraving? The only little thing that doesn't look quite right is the crowning at the muzzle but I guess in the interest of easy loading it's acceptable. Fantastic job!

John.

[Ben I. Voss]

I was fortunate enough to exam an early fullstock Hawken a while ago. It was somewhat clumsy looking with wide lock panels and none of the later refinements. The tang was long and parallel sided like Taylors- the end came to a triangular point. Butt plate and trigger guard were forged- trigger guard was the flat-to-wrist style. Straight heavy barrel was held in with wedges- no escutchions. The walnut stock showed a lot of saddle wear. I have to agree with Mike, while this fullstock was a fencepost plain working gun, somewhere along the line the Hawkins learned to make very refined rifles like Taylors. I think what I like about Hawkens is that they learned to blend American style with British refinements and attention to detail.

[northmn]

Taylors rifle is made like old Jake should have made them.  Most reports I had read about original Hawkens included the word "crudley" in their descriptions.  The fullstocks were I believe credited with being the earlier models.

DP

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Thanks again for the great feedback.  John, other than polish the crown with some 280 grit on my thumb, it is Rayle's factory crown, and is just fine for a tight patch/ball.  The bore is .620" and groove depth is .010".  We'll be shooting a .615" ball of pure lead, and a denim patch between .025" - .030".  I expect a charge between 85 - 125 grains FFg GOEX will give acceptable hunting accuracy, and power.

I studied the photo of the Ashmore lock in Baird's first book, for reference in filing and engraving mine.

I confess that I left some scratches and chatter marks in the wood, having finished primarily with scrapers.  But I can't imagine letting a rifle go out of the shop that was not finished up as well as I can.  Perhaps I'll build myself a simple clunker poor-boy around a good barrel, so I'll have a better representative gun in my collection.  A significant difference between the Hawken bro's and me, and about 99% of you too, is I don't have to make a living at this, and pay workmen as well.  Even so, and conceding the use of a parts set, I started on Jan 4th and finished yesterday, Feb 5th, and had some parts to make or alter as well.

[caliber45]

Gorgeous work, Taylor. The slimness of that forend makes me cringe (from a maker's standpoint), but makes my mouth water (from a shooter's standpoint). I've tried to approach that with one of my carbines, and while it's not that slim, it is substantially slimmer than my previous builds -- and one of my favorite rifles. I'm gonna keep after it. Your beautiful example shows me it IS possible, if only I'm not too chicken to keep working it down a "bit more." -- paulallen, tucson az

[J. Talbert]

Great work Taylor!  It suits me just fine, even if it is nicer looking than the real thing.

Jeff

[Sean]

Real nice job Taylor.  You pulled it off well.    That's also going to be a heck of a hunting gun for BC.  About the only thing I could suggest doing differently is the tang shape.  That one looks a lot like the Louer gun which is an unmarked piece likely from the 1840's or the one on the Dunn rifle (which is a replacement).  Most of the earlier J&S guns had a distinctive stepped tang shape.

Sean

[Harnic]

WOW!  HJ must be thrilled with that Taylor!  I look forward to seeing it & hopefully firing it at Heffley this summer.  It must balance beautifully!  I am strongly tempted to re-barrel mine with a 1" 62 cal Rice barrel to get a more manageable weight/balance point.  I'm just concerned about the additional recoil over my 50 cal.  We'll find out in August!  Nicely done again Taylor.  

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Sean, thanks for the observations on the tang.  I have to work with the info I have, and that isn't much.  I used a photo from Baird's book for the tang shape, and shaped the tail of the trigger plate to match.
I'm going to build myself an S. Hawken one of these days - have all the components but the wood - and I'll be giving the tang, toe plate, and trigger bar terminations a more familiar treatment.

[Chuck Burrows]

Taylor - excellent rendition!!! and with all due respect to mi compadre Sean that's not the only Hawken with a long straight tang, the Dunn rifle on page 365 of Jim Gordon's book has such a tang. I really like the early 1830's era rounded trigger guard on this one - that flat to the wrist style so often seen as being early is now considered by students of the genre, to be an 1840's style although there is some overlap in the time frame.

I saw Two different full stock Hawken rifles at the CADA show in Chicago in past years. They were both light colored...might have been refinished, I don't know. The lock panels were very crude and clunky and the forestocks especially were very slab sided on both. Both had fairly light straight barrels and were surprisingly light in weight when held. Pretty unimpressive work for such highly worshiped rifles.
On the other hand, I have handled a few Hawken 1/2 stock guns that were quite impressive in their craftsmanship and architecture.

Mike - I'm betting those fullstocks were made for the local trade which are generally of lesser quality. Also depends on when they were made - it's documented that when Sam returned from his time in Denver in the early 1850's and came back to the shop in St. Louis he was not happy at all with the quality he found.....

Most reports I had read about original Hawkens included the word "crudley" in their descriptions. The fullstocks were I believe credited with being the earlier models

Not all were crude by any means - Shumway wrote one such up in a Long Rifles of Note Muzzle Blasts article some time back that is IMO easily the equivalent of the English sporting rifles of the same period.
re-fullstocks: Sam was still making full-stocks in the early/mid-1850's so they are not all early. The full-stocked so-called Smithsonian Hawken (a flint conversion) and the Kennett Hawken at the School of the Ozarks are both from the 1850's and are very well built guns.

For those wishing to see excellent pics of several Hawkens get Jim Gordon's book - some of the work is of quite excellent quality.
On line the Buffalo Bill Historical Center has several Hawkens in their collection with the ability to zoom in for closeups - on one rifle though there is a mix up in the photos and it shows parts of two different guns:
http://www.bbhc.org/collections/bbhc/ObjectList_CFM.cfm?filter=byFreeSearch

FWIW - I've been a student/fan of the Hawken rifles since I saw my first one in a Guns magazine article in 1962 and have had the luck to handle/view first hand about a dozen including the Bridger and Modena rifles so I'm admittedly a bit biased.........

[B Shipman]

Well done Taylor. I like the long straight tang and can imagine seeing that on an original flint if one existed. Different tnan the usual.

[El Mac]

Very nice Taylor...beyond nice.  I've always loved the lines of the J&S Hawken full stock flint.