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Flintlock Plaines Rifles.

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Marinekayak

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Quick question, and I don't want to open a can of worms kid of just curious. How historically accurate are half stock flintlocks plains rifle or Hawken style rifles? Not just the modern repros, I know most of them have hc/pc issues but I mean in general. When half stock short barrel heavy plains style rifles came into use weren't they percussion? Weren't most of the flinters in use during this period long rifles?
 
Ok, firstly I am not an expert and only have what learnings gained from this site, so take for what it is worth.
As I understand things, “Plains rifle” is a term used in modern text, and not historical text at all. It is given to larger bore, half stocked rifles of essentially the mass migration Westward time period, and as such would most likely fall within the percussion era.
Far more knowledgable answers will follow, and we can both learn together.
Walk
 
The best my reading on the subject at hand is as follows. Hawken rifles were finely made rifles that drew a higher price then others. The half stocked ones were percussion in general by 1830 that being the state of the art in rifles by then. Many full stock flintlock rifles were made and sold to the mountain trade as late as 1840, the end of the classic period. The plains style rifle that continues threw the gold rush and made by many again were percussion. I’m lead to believe that even Hawken made a full stock flintlock at a much later date but can’t find a reference to it at this time. The clear advantages of the percussion system were well known to the frontiersman.
 
There are high quality English Rifles made as half stock flintlock rifles. There have been no half stock or full stock flintlock rifles (in any caliber) Hawken stamped rifles located. There are a couple of Hawken stamped rifles that have a percussion lock that may be a converted flint lock, but the barrel appears to have always been percussion. None of the orders from the fur trade era have specified a flint lock Hawken, always percussion. There are trade rifles from Pennsylvania (Deringer, Leman, Henry, Tryon and some others) that have flint lock documentation. You could try to get a copy of Hanson's "Trade Rifle Sketchbook" to see examples of the Fur Trade era rifles. Natives seemed to prefer flintlocks since they could always knap a flint, but they couldn't make a percussion cap. The book, "The Hawken Rifle: Its Place in History" by Charles Hanson goes into far more detail than we would want to go into on the forum.
https://www.amazon.com/Hawken-Rifle...1582235921&sprefix=The+Hawken+,aps,183&sr=8-1
 
Thank you fall all the responses. Also sorry about the typo at the start of the thread!
 
Half stocks were coming in to style about the same time as percussion. So you do see a few flint half stocks, as above with English sporting guns, then the US military rifles, Harpers Ferry rifles were flint/ half stock.
There was a full stock rifle owned by Kit Carson that was cut to half stock, shortened and converted to percussion. I’m thinking it had a replacement trigger guard that was just a bent flat piece, reminiscent of a trade gun guard. Was the changing all done at one time? Was it converted to half stock while still flint?
The work was crudely done. Carson gave the gun to a Pueblo friend.
 
When studying the plains rifle you should also look at Henry Leman rifles, his company made more rifles on Friday than the Hawken boys did in all their career.
His design went from trade guns, to fowlers, to long guns, to plains rifles. He produced rifles from the early 1800's up until his death in 1885.
The Leman company produced flintlock rifles into the 1900's
At one time Leman had almost 400 people working for him.
And yes the Brits made some very fine 1/2 stock rifles in percussion and flint.
Fred
 
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A few folks appear to be citing information from memory and inadvertently misrepresenting the facts.

There have been no half stock or full stock flintlock rifles (in any caliber) Hawken stamped rifles located. There are a couple of Hawken stamped rifles that have a percussion lock that may be a converted flint lock, but the barrel appears to have always been percussion. None of the orders from the fur trade era have specified a flint lock Hawken, always percussion...The book, "The Hawken Rifle: Its Place in History" by Charles Hanson goes into far more detail than we would want to go into on the forum.

"There have been no half stock or full stock flintlock rifles (in any caliber) Hawken stamped rifles located." This statement requires a lot of qualification. I believe I know what Grenadier1758 is saying, but it would help if he was a little more explicit for people who are less familiar with the Hawken brothers and their rifles. There are Hawken marked rifles that are or were originally flintlocks. Some of them just weren't made in St. Louis. This one is marked "S Hawken" in script and was likely made in Hagerstown, MD or Xenia, OH.
S Hawken flintlock - Maryland School.jpg


There is also a "C & J Hawken" marked rifle that was flintlock, now converted to percussion. Both of these rifles are now in the James Gordon collection.

"There are a couple of Hawken stamped rifles that have a percussion lock that may be a converted flint lock, but the barrel appears to have always been percussion." This statement is not supported by published information. The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly - Winter 1977 published an article by John T Powell on the Kennett Hawken Rifle and the Smithsonian Hawken Rifle. The author requested that the Smithsonian examine the S. Hawken in their collection and answer a number of questions about it. Powell wrote, "After careful examination personally and with additional consultation from without the Institution, Mr. Goins [of the Smithsonian Institution] advised that the rifle was now percussion but had definitely been a flintlock in its original form." Mr. Powell also writes, "This lock was not engraved; does not appear to have been a commercial product, and has every appearance of being fabricated in the same shop as the Kennet Hawken [likely the Hawken shop]."

Smithsonian-Hawken-breech-lock-details.jpg

This is not the best quality photo, but I see nothing in it to suggest that "the barrel appears to have always been percussion". In fact, I don't know how one would tell from the barrel alone that it had always been percussion. There are often signs that a rifle had been flint, then converted to percussion, and later re-converted back to flint. The fulminate from the percussion caps often corrodes the barrel around and forward of the nipple. It can also affect the wood of the stock.

On another forum, a person relayed second-hand information that the stock did not show any evidence of having a cut out for a cock on the lock panel. The Smithsonian Hawken was made in the 1850s. At the end of the flintlock period, one of the last flint lock styles developed did not have the cock stopping on the top of the lock bolster. These locks had double throated cocks that were designed for the cock to stop on the rear fence. There was no need for a cut out on the lock panel. The Hawken shop could have copied one of these very late flintlocks for the Smithsonian Hawken.

Another published report on the Smithsonian Hawken was presented in the December 1977 issue of Buckskin Report. In it John Baird wrote a letter to Col. Vaughn Goodwin, who was active in the NMLRA and contributor to Muzzle Blasts, asking Goodwin's opinion on several points concerning the Smithsonian Hawken. Baird was setting Goodwin up because Baird already knew the answers and was hoping Goodwin would take the bait and make a fool of himself concerning the question about whether the Smithsonian Hawken had originally been flint or not.
This is Goodwin's response to Baird.
77_12 BR Smithsonian Hawken Flint or Percussion_2.jpg


Baird then proceeded to show a number of close-up pictures of the Smithsonian Hawken refuting all of Goodwin's points. In fact, the reader is left with the impression that Goodwin had never inspected the Smithsonian Hawken, at least not as closely as he claimed. The whole report covered six pages in the magazine. This is the last page where Baird sums of the analysis and expresses his opinion that the rifle was originally a flintlock.
77_12 BR Smithsonian Hawken Flint or Percussion_6.jpg



"None of the orders from the fur trade era have specified a flint lock Hawken, always percussion." This statement is only half true. It should say that none of the orders from the fur trade era mentioned whether the Hawken rifles were flint or percussion. Hanson only found a couple of orders that distinguished between full stock and half stock and none that distinguished between flint and percussion. There is an invoice for the 1836 rendezvous that listed "10 boxes" of percussion caps. A box likely contained 1,000 caps. The invoices also lists 12 Hawken rifles, but does not specify if they are flint or percussion.

There is also a surviving letter, dated January 2, 1829, by Kenneth McKenzie requesting Pierre Chouteau, Jr. to “Please add to the spring order two Rifles similar in all respect to the one made by Hawkins for Provost.” McKenzie saw Etienne Provost with his Hawken rifle in 1828 at either Fort Union or Fort Tecumseh or both. Provost likely bought his Hawken rifle in 1827 for he spent the last half of that year in St. Louis before going up river and on to the mountains in early 1828.

Considering the dates, Etienne Provost's Hawken would have certainly been a flintlock.

When studying the plains rifle you should also look at Henry Leman rifles, his company made more rifles on Friday than the Hawken boys did in all their career.
His design went from trade guns, to fowlers, to long guns, to plains rifles. He produced rifles from the early 1800's up until his death in 1885.
The Leman company produced flintlock rifles into the 1900's
At one time Leman had almost 400 people working for him...
Fred

Ignoring the obvious hyperbole in the statement about "his company made more rifles on Friday", there are other lapses of memory.

Henry Leman started his business in 1834. Charles Hanson, Jr. in a paper presented at the American Society of Arms Collectors and published in their bulletin as well as published The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly - Winter 1984, states that Leman produced 250 rifles in his first year and had an early order from a St. Louis merchant for 50 rifles to be used in the Indian trade. Leman received a contract from the government's Bureau of Indian Affairs for 500 rifles in 1837. In 1842, he started supplying the BIA with NW trade guns, but made no more rifles for the government. He also never had any business with the American Fur Company. He sold the bulk of his rifles directly to merchants scattered around the country. Leman rifles didn't make it west until late in the mountain man period and in numbers not that much greater than the Hawken brothers. His production increased with those government contracts, and he became the largest supplier of trade guns and rifles in the 1850s through the 1870s.

The 1850 census reported that Leman had 34 employees with an annual production of 5,000 gun barrels and 2,500 complete guns. By the 1860 census, he had almost doubled those numbers with 62 workers and 5,000 guns. There's no indication that he "had almost 400 people working for him."

Henry Leman died in 1887, and his factory, which had declining business for the past decade, shut down with his death. It did not operate into the 1900s. That was the Tryon's.
 
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Phil,
Thanks for all the clarification and documentation. It was the lack of the cut out in the stock that made me think the Smithsonian rifle was always percussion. I have a Kennedy Buttstock that is dated July 1837 and it has the flintlock cut out. Unfortunately the lock is lost.
 
Soo a modern flintlock half stock like a lymans or traditions may not be HC do to the several varied issues with modern repro's but a half stock in flintlock is PC?
 
DCB2C25C-8219-44BD-8553-4F34CBDCC42B.jpeg
Caps were on sale in St Louis by 1830. But the flint lock was state of the art technology for well over 100 years by that point.

I am no expert, but I think the brothers were building half-stocks by the mid 30’s (don’t know if that is documented or not). Now five years is a long time. It was longer back then, than it is now.

From a simple common sense human perspective I don’t see why many men who had spent their entire lives with flinters would suddenly drop them complete to switch to percussion. How many of us today are Early Adopters of new technology? Particularly of new tech that your life literally depends upon? Wood rifle stocks are clearly not the best option any longer...but how many of you run carbon fiber stocks or metal chassis on your modern rifles?

I don’t see any reason to think (without evidence other than common sense) that a rifle like mine pictured here would not have been built and used.
 
Brazosland, you're not wrong. It's just that we can't say you're right, either. We don't know when the Hawken brothers started building half stock rifles. It may have been before the 1830 date when percussion caps were readily available in St. Louis or about that time. If they built half stocks before 1830, there is a good chance they were flintlock. Just don't know.

That's why most folks would view a half stock Hawken in flint a fantasy rifle. But contemporary builders make a lot of fantasy rifles. There's another thread about Virginia Colonial rifles on this forum, and the message that's come out of it is that pretty much all contemporary "Virginia" Colonial rifles are fantasy rifles, especially- if they are iron mounted.

On the other hand, there were people building half stock flintlock rifles in the period. Mention has been made of the English sporting rifles. Eastern US makers were copying the English. The March/April 2020 issue of Muzzleloader magazine, which just came out, has a picture of a contemporary half stock flintlock on pages 22-23. It's a copy of the antique rifle below made by Jacob Kunz of Philadelphia, probably in the 1820s.

48490.jpg

48490x1.jpg

Kunz's rifle is basically an English sporting rifle with a crescent butt plate, Pennsylvania/Kentucky style trigger guard, brass patch box, and a long 43-7/16" barrel. It has a hooked flint breech in the English style as well as the beaver tail cheekpiece.

The Hawken brothers probably had English guns in their shop for cleaning and repair. They would have been familiar with this style of gun.

Jacob Hawken also worked at Harper's Ferry from 1808 to 1818. He was well acquainted with the HF 1803. This next rifle is in Jim Gordon's collection. He doesn't know the history on it, so we don't know who made it or where, but it is a restock made with mostly HF 1803 parts and a full octagon barrel. It even has a beaver tail cheekpiece. The HF 1803 lock is dated 1806.
HF-1803-model-for-Hawken-Gordon-n-Taylor-full-length.jpg

A few of the early HF 1803's are known to have burst barrels. This rifle could have been made from parts of a damaged 1803.

As shown above, others were doing it. It is very plausible that Jake and Sam had the same idea occur to them.
 
Brazosland, you're not wrong. It's just that we can't say you're right, either. We don't know when the Hawken brothers started building half stock rifles. It may have been before the 1830 date when percussion caps were readily available in St. Louis or about that time. If they built half stocks before 1830, there is a good chance they were flintlock. Just don't know.

That's why most folks would view a half stock Hawken in flint a fantasy rifle. But contemporary builders make a lot of fantasy rifles. There's another thread about Virginia Colonial rifles on this forum, and the message that's come out of it is that pretty much all contemporary "Virginia" Colonial rifles are fantasy rifles, especially- if they are iron mounted.

On the other hand, there were people building half stock flintlock rifles in the period. Mention has been made of the English sporting rifles. Eastern US makers were copying the English. The March/April 2020 issue of Muzzleloader magazine, which just came out, has a picture of a contemporary half stock flintlock on pages 22-23. It's a copy of the antique rifle below made by Jacob Kunz of Philadelphia, probably in the 1820s.

48490.jpg

48490x1.jpg

Kunz's rifle is basically an English sporting rifle with a crescent butt plate, Pennsylvania/Kentucky style trigger guard, brass patch box, and a long 43-7/16" barrel. It has a hooked flint breech in the English style as well as the beaver tail cheekpiece.

The Hawken brothers probably had English guns in their shop for cleaning and repair. They would have been familiar with this style of gun.

Jacob Hawken also worked at Harper's Ferry from 1808 to 1818. He was well acquainted with the HF 1803. This next rifle is in Jim Gordon's collection. He doesn't know the history on it, so we don't know who made it or where, but it is a restock made with mostly HF 1803 parts and a full octagon barrel. It even has a beaver tail cheekpiece. The HF 1803 lock is dated 1806.
HF-1803-model-for-Hawken-Gordon-n-Taylor-full-length.jpg

A few of the early HF 1803's are known to have burst barrels. This rifle could have been made from parts of a damaged 1803.

As shown above, others were doing it. It is very plausible that Jake and Sam had the same idea occur to them.



So that's the lock, and ramrod off a harpers ferry?
 
Pretty much all the hardware was reused. There is a pic of a HP 1803 that was on the Pike expedition that was just a rebarreled 1803. Full length octagon barrel.

I had a relative on the Corps of Discovery and I have always wanted an 1803 barreled as such.
 
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