Santa Fe Hawken

I bought one from some guy near Los Alamos back in the early 80's. Supposed to be a similar copy of the one in the NM museum. I have been in that museum several times and never have seen a Hawken. Does anyone know the skinney on this rifle.
TIA,
GT

Seems to me the Santa Fe Hawken (Ithaca?) was generally styled after a Hawken. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one so could have it confused with another gun from the time. Many of the guns called Hawken was not very similar to the originals, can you post a photo

The Santa FE Hawken rifle was not a copy of any existing original Hawken rifle:

Several urban or internet myths about the Ithaca Hawken have developed over the decades. One of the most prevalent is the belief that the rifle is an exact copy of Kit Carson’s Hawken rifle in the Masonic Lodge in Santa Fe. Dimensionally and stylistically, the Ithaca Hawken is significantly different than the Kit Carson Hawken. The Kit Carson Hawken has a barrel that is 1⅛” across the flats at the breech, slightly tapered to the muzzle, and is just over 31” long. The Ithaca barrel is straight octagon, 1″ x 32″. The Kit Carson Hawken has all iron furnishings where the Ithaca Hawken has German silver barrel key escutcheons and aluminum nose cap. Besides the difference in dimensions, the butt plate, trigger guard, hammer, and snail of the breech are not the same on the two rifles.

Below is a photo of the lock area of the original Kit Carson Hawken in the Masonic Lodge and pictures of two Ithaca Hawken rifles. First off, note the difference in the width of the lock panels around the locks. Second, note the difference in the snail on the breech and the shape of the fence at the back of the breech. Third, note the difference in the shape of the hammers and particularly how the hammer on the Carson Hawken fits the fence on the standing breech compared to the Ithaca Hawken hammers. You may also notice that there are different hammers on the two Ithaca Hawken rifles. Cherry Corners initially came out with the lower hammer that’s on SN H-254 on their Hawken lock in 1970. They came out with a slightly taller hammer in 1973 for their 1⅛” breech plug. It is interesting that Ithaca used both

http://grrw.org/ithaca-hawken-ithaca-gun-co/

I often wondered about production cost. It must have been cheaper to have made straight barrel then a tapered, but would machining a pewter cap been more expensive then aluminum?
Some of the Hawkens were mounted with silver ectusion plates, I don’t know how common on western rifles. It seems stamped iron would be as cheep. Wood around the lock would cost no more to machine to the proper demensions.
My point here is why companies could not have been closer to the original.
I do remember thinking when I first saw an Ithaca why couldn’t other companies couldn’t turn out a Hawken that was as close to a Hawken then TC and Navy Arms et al did. Or more like the Great Plains rifle.
That said I understand the Ithaca was a fine gun. I would be proud to own one.
If one wanted to make some improvements replacing the nose cap, and ectusion plates cutting the lock wood down would not be much of a problem.
I own a centermark TFC and it’s my favorite gun, in-spite of its little problems, my Tennessee rifle has the wrong lock. And I sure ain’t the craftsman Issac Hines was. Too many mistakes on that gun.... but I’m happy with them.

More Santa Fe and Uberti Hawken stuff:

http://grrw.org/uberti-santa-fe-hawken/

Okie Hog said:

The Santa FE Hawken rifle was not a copy of any existing original Hawken rifle:

Several urban or internet myths about the Ithaca Hawken have developed over the decades. One of the most prevalent is the belief that the rifle is an exact copy of Kit Carson’s Hawken rifle in the Masonic Lodge in Santa Fe. Dimensionally and stylistically, the Ithaca Hawken is significantly different than the Kit Carson Hawken. The Kit Carson Hawken has a barrel that is 1⅛” across the flats at the breech, slightly tapered to the muzzle, and is just over 31” long. The Ithaca barrel is straight octagon, 1″ x 32″. The Kit Carson Hawken has all iron furnishings where the Ithaca Hawken has German silver barrel key escutcheons and aluminum nose cap. Besides the difference in dimensions, the butt plate, trigger guard, hammer, and snail of the breech are not the same on the two rifles.

Below is a photo of the lock area of the original Kit Carson Hawken in the Masonic Lodge and pictures of two Ithaca Hawken rifles. First off, note the difference in the width of the lock panels around the locks. Second, note the difference in the snail on the breech and the shape of the fence at the back of the breech. Third, note the difference in the shape of the hammers and particularly how the hammer on the Carson Hawken fits the fence on the standing breech compared to the Ithaca Hawken hammers. You may also notice that there are different hammers on the two Ithaca Hawken rifles. Cherry Corners initially came out with the lower hammer that’s on SN H-254 on their Hawken lock in 1970. They came out with a slightly taller hammer in 1973 for their 1⅛” breech plug. It is interesting that Ithaca used both

http://grrw.org/ithaca-hawken-ithaca-gun-co/

Click to expand...

Thanks Okie Hog,
That was very informational. Mine was the .53 cal and I bought a mould with the rifle of that dimensions. I never got real good accuracy out of mine...I was a beginning shooter and may have never given it an fair effort. A pal rebarreled it in .50 using a Green River or Mountain barrel. Wish I had kept the original barrel. I will post a pic when I get home next week.
thanks again,
Lige

I still have my 53 Santa Fe. One of the most accurate muzzle loading rifles I’ve owned.

tenngun said:

I often wondered about production cost. It must have been cheaper to have made straight barrel then a tapered, but would machining a pewter cap been more expensive then aluminum?
Some of the Hawkens were mounted with silver ectusion plates, I don’t know how common on western rifles. It seems stamped iron would be as cheep. Wood around the lock would cost no more to machine to the proper demensions.
My point here is why companies could not have been closer to the original.
I do remember thinking when I first saw an Ithaca why couldn’t other companies couldn’t turn out a Hawken that was as close to a Hawken then TC and Navy Arms et al did. Or more like the Great Plains rifle.
That said I understand the Ithaca was a fine gun. I would be proud to own one.
If one wanted to make some improvements replacing the nose cap, and ectusion plates cutting the lock wood down would not be much of a problem.
I own a centermark TFC and it’s my favorite gun, in-spite of its little problems, my Tennessee rifle has the wrong lock. And I sure ain’t the craftsman Issac Hines was. Too many mistakes on that gun.... but I’m happy with them.

Click to expand...

We can only speculate why companies chose not to make replicas "closer to the original" since I know of no company that published their thinking or rational for designing the rifles the way they did. Production costs surely had something to do with it, but that's not the only answer. As you point out "machining a pewter cap" would not be more expensive than machining an aluminum cap. Also, I agree the "wood around the lock would cost no more to machine to the proper dimensions."

The background and experience of the designers in these companies probably contributed. I suspect that none of them were builders of accurate contemporary muzzleloader rifles. They most likely had tool & die maker background or other machinist experience or shop foreman experience. They were also used to making more modern cartridge firearms and likely viewed the process from that perspective.

I have a friend who is a master gun maker of Kentucky rifles. He has designed and made patterns of authentic locks for one of the major lock makers. Invariably, the person that makes the molds for the lock company makes changes to my friends patterns. Some are practical changes such as using existing lock internals rather than making new molds of the lock's unique internals to save time and money. Others changes are less easily explained. The mold maker has a background as a machinist and tool & die maker and not a Kentucky rifle maker. He obviously sees the function and aesthetics of the lock differently.

The issue of less than accurate reproduction rifles goes back to the beginning of the modern muzzleloader industry. If you look at a Navy Arms or a Dixie Gun Works catalog from the 1960s and 70s, you will see they sold a replica Kentucky rifle that barely resembles an original. Dixie called it a Deluxe Pennsylvania Rifle and Navy Arms called it a Kentucky Rifle. It had a very bold roman nose butt stock that doesn't accurately copy any antique style that I know of, though it resembles a Lehigh Valley rifle. Both companies offered a shorter barrel version of their Kentucky/Pennsylvania rifle they usually called a "carbine", which of course didn't exist in the 18th and early 19th century. Then there is the CVA Kentucky rifle with its two-piece forestock. A few take-down rifles were built in the period that had a similar brass joint and two-piece forestock, but these weren't common.

It's too bad we don't know what was behind Thompson Center's thinking when they came up the TC Hawken. It clearly was a marketing coup, and its timing was perfect, coming out as it did in 1970. They made a percussion half stock rifle similar to many that were being made in the 3rd quarter of the 19th century. At this time, half stock percussion rifles seemed to sweep the market and were being made in New York, Philadelphia, the Midwest, all along the Mississippi Valley, in Denver, and several locations in California. The designers at TC were probably influenced the most by these generic and omnipresent rifles, and the marketing department probably came up with the idea to call it a "Hawken" based on the popularity of Hawken rifles in the pop culture thanks to the writing of the likes of George Ruxton, Horace Kephart, James E. Serven, John Barsotti, Charles E. Hanson, Jr., and John D. Baird.

Thompson Center benefited immensely when the movie Jeremiah Johnson came out in 1972. The movie didn't use TC Hawken rifles, but they resembled them. TC had beat the others to the market and their rifles were readily available when the movie came out.

One thing that modern companies are good at is copying each other. The Italian companies chose to copy Thompson Center rather than develop an accurate Hawken rifle. And the die was set.

I can think with TC and similar they Aimed at a market that wanted old style but not a copy and with modern features that looked sharp. So sights and coil springs and handy machine fast makes sense, and they make good solid guns.
Should you look at guns like the Bess or Charley that was made for bicentennial reinactors, one can pick those apart but they are “pretty close”. You have to get in to the weeds to find it’s problems.... I can understand that. Things like the navy arms, Dixie rifle was looks vs cost and sell ability. Here on a traditional forum we have plenty of threads about people who worry a traditional long barrel won’t be handy in the woods. People today are used to 18-26” guns.
However I look at Pedisoli trade gun. Why change the side plate? How does that make sense?
Now the Ithaca isn’t a perfect copy.... that’s ok it’s an over the counter gun, you get what you pay for. Back in the day a great copy made by a good gun builder was five times more... I know which one I would have bought.
I know today I can buy $700 parts, but I can’t make a $4000 gun, but I can make a gun I’m proud of and take a lot of joy shooting.
Howsomever... for the cost I can buy mismatched parts or matched parts... why would I buy mismatched or out of place parts?
why would Pedi?

tenngun said:

I can think with TC and similar they Aimed at a market that wanted old style but not a copy and with modern features that looked sharp. So sights and coil springs and handy machine fast makes sense, and they make good solid guns...

Click to expand...

I agree. There weren't that many serious students of the American longrifle in the 1960s and early 70s. People didn't really know what an original Kentucky rifle or a Hawken rifle should look like.

I did some more reading on the origins of Thompson Center to refresh my memory. They started out much smaller than I had recalled. Assuming Wikepedia is resonably accurate on this subject, Warren Center designed his Contender pistol in his basement. He started looking for a company to manufacture it and found K.W. Thompson Tool Company. They formed a partnership and formed a new company that became Thompson/Center Arms Company and introduced the Contender single shot pistol in 1967. Warren Center was also the sole designer of the TC Hawken, which was the second firearm the company produced and came out in 1970.

The company was located in Rochester, New Hampshire, so I can see why Warren Center didn't have easy access to an original Hawken. It's conceivable that the only muzzleloaders he saw were brass mounted longrifles and New England half stock target rifles that could have also been brass mounted.

tenngun said:

...Should you look at guns like the Bess or Charley that was made for bicentennial reinactors, one can pick those apart but they are “pretty close”. You have to get in to the weeds to find it’s problems.... I can understand that...

Click to expand...

I agree. The Italian gun makers did a better job on military arms and mass produced arms like Colt cap & ball pistols and Winchester lever actions. There were a lot more originals around to study and copy plus they didn't exhibit the wide variability that original Kentucky and Hawken rifles did.

tenngun said:

...Things like the navy arms, Dixie rifle was looks vs cost and sell ability. Here on a traditional forum we have plenty of threads about people who worry a traditional long barrel won’t be handy in the woods. People today are used to 18-26” guns...

Click to expand...

That easily explains the "carbine" Kentucky rifles.

tenngun said:

...Now the Ithaca isn’t a perfect copy.... that’s ok it’s an over the counter gun, you get what you pay for. Back in the day a great copy made by a good gun builder was five times more... I know which one I would have bought...

Click to expand...

The Ithaca Hawken was as close to an original as one could get in a mass produced rifle. Ithaca saw an opportunity to buy Bud Brown's business--Cherry Corners Mfg. Co. Cherry Corners had built up a complete parts set or kit for the Hawken. They were reasonably well designed parts, especially the lock and breech, and made a decent replica of a late S. Hawken rifle.

Below is a custom Hawken built in April 1976 using all Cherry Corners parts. Note the bright metal escutcheons and nose cap. Baird's book showed pictures of a couple original Hawken rifles that had pewter nose caps. There were some magazine articles that showed some others. Builders and shooters back then thought that pewter nose caps and German silver escutcheons were common on original Hawken rifles.


Below is an Ithaca Hawken. Ithaca used Bud Brown's Cherry Corner molds and tooling for the metal parts, but redesigned the stock. They had Reinhart Fajen shape and pre-inlet the stocks. The main criticism I have of the Ithaca Hawken is that they left too much wood around the lock panel. Some may criticize the aluminum nose cap, but you have to look pretty close to realize it isn't German silver or pewter. It doesn't bother me.


As I show on my website, Leonard Allen either sent a custom rifle built with Cherry Corners parts (similar to the one above) or an Ithaca Hawken to Uberti in Italy as a pattern for the Uberti Santa Fe Hawken. The lock plate and internal parts are almost interchangeable. The top lock is from a factory finish Uberti Hawken and the bottom lock is from a Uberti Hawken kit. The middle lock is a Cherry Corners lock.


For further comparisons, the top rifle in the picture below is an Ithaca Hawken, the next two are a Western Arms Jedediah Smith Commemorative Hawken by Uberti and a Western Arms Santa Fe Hawken by Uberti.

The bottom rifle in the photo above was made in the late 1970’s by an amateur builder from Rifle, CO. It has a tapered, 1” to ⅞”, GRRW barrel that is 36” long. The lock is a late 1970’s era L&R flintlock Hawken lock. The rest of the components are from Art Ressel’s Hawken Shop.