Flintlock Hawken

[JSTRAW]

Were there many original flintlock Hawken or Plains rifles or were they most all percussion? Just curious. I recently bought a new T.C. Hawken at a very good price. I have been shooting percussion guns since 1976 but this is my first flintlock. I have a lot to learn. All info or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks, I enjoy this forum and am eager to learn all I can.

 

[Dphar]

Were there many original flintlock Hawken or Plains rifles or were they most all percussion? Just curious. I recently bought a new T.C. Hawken at a very good price. I have been shooting percussion guns since 1976 but this is my first flintlock. I have a lot to learn. All info or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks, I enjoy this forum and am eager to learn all I can.

I cannot speak to what the Hawken shop was making. But in the early 1830s precussion guns were not being ordered by the American Fur Company.
March 1830 Ramsey Crooks to J. J. Henry:
"I hasten to inform you that Percussion Locks will not answer at all for the rifles..."

Its extremely likely that Hawken was making rifles in flint for the west into the 1830s. But the SURVIVAL is something else and if Hawken later converted the guns to Percussion then is would be very difficult to determine.
Remember the US military did not adopt the percussion cap for general issue until 1842.
For one thing the early percussion guns were really no more reliable than a good flintlock.
See Chapter 4 of "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865" Garavaglia and Worman. Should be obtainable through interlibrary loan.
In any case they would likely have looked like this.

Dan

 

[Stony]

As far as the experts go, no. Every now and then, someone comes up with a full stock, flintlock Hawken that they claim to be an original, but after careful examination, turns out to be either converted from percussion and/or restocked. Mr. Hanson, curator of the fur trade museum, has often said such a gun does not exist or ever did exist. You can get one built by a custom maker but a flintlock Hawken just didn't happen. Trade guns, Pennsylvania, Southern Mountain, Tennessee and fowlers were all out there in flintlock but no Hawkens. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy what you got.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Dvid, I'm not well versed on this subject. But, I'll betcha, someone is going to jump in and tell you you are wrong. I dunno. But, I do know discussing Hawkens is like debating WD-40. :shocked2: Bar the doors. :wink:

 

[tg]

Technicaly some of the "Hawken" family of gunmakers did build flintlocks but not the Brothers from St Louis or the style of gun they are associated with ( based on current data). just so someone does not blindside you with a piece of related but irrelivent history during a conversation on the topic.

 

[szihn]

Jake Hawken set up his first shop in St Lewis in 1815 at 214 North Main Street, and he had learned the art from his father in Maryland, so the guns made in those early years would be what you'd expect.
Now what we can know from evidence is that Jake advertized in the St Lewis paper the he made "Rifles Fowlers and shotguns" (In my understanding, in this days a "shotgun" was so called if it had 2 barrels, and a Fowler was a bird gun with one barrel)
So if Jake was making 'shotguns' in 1815, as well as rifle and fowlers it can lead us to 2 conclusions.
#1 He did make flintlocks. What else was he using in St Lewis in 1815? That town was WAY out west then, and even the gunsmiths on the eastern seaboard were not using cap-locks to any great extent then. They were as new then as caseless ammo is today for modern guns.
#2 He had and could get left hand locks. All double barreled guns have to have left and right hand locks.

How many of you can come up with a "full set of documentation" for the existence of an 8 track player?
I am sure we could find a few these days , but we are talking about music players that were "new" in the late 1960s and were all gone from the manufacturing companies in the 1980s
Can any one here come up with a set of instructions?
If you can't, would that 'prove' they didn't ever exist?

I bet we could find one somewhere that still works, but do you think it might be a real challenge to find one in 30 or 60 more years?
How about in 193 years?
Would that prove they never made any?

They made tens of millions of 8 track players, but I bet it would be tough to "document" one now.

Let’s use the brains we have, and think about the reality of this.

I would have to take a stand that Jake Hawken probably several dozen. I'd be willing to bet he was making more flintlock rifles in the teens and very early 20s then he was cappers. It's just a sensible conclusion. If he was a one man shop in those years I would also bet he would average about 20 guns a year.

I am quite well qualified to know about how much time is required to make muzzleloading rifles, especially if he had to make many of the parts himself instead of ordering them as we often do today. They worked long days back then, so if he worked an average of 12 hours a day 6 days a week, I think 20 guns a year is probably about right.

Now at 20 a year in part of 1815 all of 1816-1821, plus part of 1822, we can see that there were probably more then a few guns made. In 1822 Sam Hawken (his brother) came to help him. So we have a total time of the "one man shop" of about 7 years.
7X20 guns is about 140 guns. All made in a time when caplocks were VERY rare, and caps were expensive and hard to get.

Dose anyone think that Jake "Never made a flintlock"?

I know Charlie Hanson personally. He was knowledgeable in many things, but he was not god, and he made mistakes too.

 

[Dphar]

As far as the experts go, no. Every now and then, someone comes up with a full stock, flintlock Hawken that they claim to be an original, but after careful examination, turns out to be either converted from percussion and/or restocked. Mr. Hanson, curator of the fur trade museum, has often said such a gun does not exist or ever did exist.

Well that statement simply is not true and Hanson knows it.
Hanson apparently became bigoted toward the Hawken after writing the plains rifle.

The Smithsonian Hawken WAS flint and was subsequently converted to percussion. AND its an S Hawken. Probably from late 1840s at least.
THEN we have the American Fur Company SPECIFICALLY telling J.J. Henry in 1830 that percussion locks would not do at all for their rifles. The Hawkens DID do work for American Fur in this period and for Ashley in the early-mid 1820s 5 years or so before the "no percussion locks" letter was written by Crooks.
The most common rifles of the Western Fur Trade the various J.J. Henry's are FLINTLOCK all through the 1830s. Yet we are to believe that the Hawken brothers only made percussions? Its silly on its face.
The percussion system was not trusted by a great many people (besides the American Fur Company) in the west into the 1840s and THIS is documented as well.
Then there was the fact that some caps were EXTREMELY corrosive (W. Greener writing in "The Gun" in the 1830s) and damaged locks and breeches.
This seen in many American Rifles if people will look. To the point of the barrel thickness on drum and nipple guns being reduced at the breech on the lock side.
Then we have the percussion cap timeline. The percussion cap that every percussion Hawken I have ever seen used was just starting production when Sam moved to St. Louis. It was not patented in the US until 1820-22. In Europe maybe 1818. Initial use was a RELOADABLE steel cap NOT the throw away "foil" version of today, this came later.
Then there were the teething problems and they did exist. Greener writes of poorly converted to percussion flintlocks being dangerous. Even George in "English Guns and Rifles" states that the shotgun shooters adopted the percussion cap almost immediately but the flintlock hung on with riflemen.

People interested in rifles of the Fur Trade West need to read the appropriate sections "Firearms of the American West 1803-1865".
Given the timeline of the Hawken Shop in St. Louis its not possible for them to have NOT made some flintlock rifles. They were the standard in the west until well after 1830, I have examined a Connestoga Rifle Works (Leman) in unused condition with a Leman Flintlock dated 1840.
As I stated before a GOOD flintlock is just as reliable as a percussion and better than many.

Dan

 

[crockett]

Jstraw- a couple of different things going on here, so....
1. On the Hawken, one of the first mountain man era Hawken rifles went with Ashley on his first trip up the Missouri- I think that was 1822-(it was lost when the boat sank), but I believe it was a percussion lock. I saw a photo of a Hawken with a drum and someone said it was a flint conversion but as has been said- just too many unknowns. As a general rule (nothing etched in stone) I would say Hawken rifles were percussion.
NOW, the Hawken was probably carried by no more than 10% of the mountain men. 90% of the rifles carried by mountain men appear to have been plainly finished "Kentucky" flintlocks that are called trade rifles.

 

[David W.]

The debate will probably continue. It has been said by some that S. Hawkens made a few flintlocks.

 

[buford87]

Any rifle marked S. Hawkens was made after Jacob died in 1849. At which time was after the main mountain man time frame and during the California gold rush or later. Really doesn't help one way or the other as far as the debate goes..................watch yer top knot..............

 

[Rifleman1776]

The debate will probably continue. It has been said by some that S. Hawkens made a few flintlocks.

The Hawkens shop was a custom gun building business. The built what the customer wanted. It is not unlikely that some folks after 1840, or whenever, still wanted a flintlock rifle. I hear tales that, even today, some throwback types still use them. :wink:

 

[LaBonte]

Jstraw- a couple of different things going on here, so....
1. On the Hawken, one of the first mountain man era Hawken rifles went with Ashley on his first trip up the Missouri- I think that was 1822-(it was lost when the boat sank), but I believe it was a percussion lock. I

1) Not according to Ashley - he stated years later that he had used percussions but little... by that time
2) While the percussion system dates to 1807, the percussion cap does not appear in the record until the mid-1820's - it was not patented until 1822, the same year Ashley went west.
"In 1827 the AMERICAN SHOOTERS MANUAL noted that eastern sportsmen were almost exclusively using shotguns fitted with precussion locks, and by 1830
many eastern guns, regardless of type, employed the percussion system."

3) Both Sam and Jake made flint lock rifles - the existing ones are mostly Maryland style rifles, although as Dna pointed out above the Smithsonian Mtn Rilfe made by Sam defintiely began life as a flint lock and it dates from the mid-1850's.

4) A correction to Steve's post above, - Jake didn't get to St Louis until 1818, Sam arrive in 1822, and they became partners in mid-1825, a parnership that lasted until Jake's death in mid-1849.

5) re: Dr Hanson - which one? If Charles he contradicts himself several times in his Hawken book and was on a bit of a vendetaa aginst the rising price of original Hawkens. Jim Hanson notes that NO Sam Hawken ever made it to rendezvous - a comment without basis in fact (only conjecture?) since Sam was in business for almost 3 years prior to his joining his brother Jake. In a letter by a member of the AFCo in 1822 he notes that EVERY gunsmith in St Louis was busy supplying the first Ashley/Henry Expedition and Sam reputedly built at leat the one rifle for Ashley himself. I do have respect for the Hanson's research but they are far from "gods" and like most writer's there research can be "colored". i.e the Sam Hawken pre-1825 flinter that is pictured in the Hanson Hawken book is noted as "probably" having been made in eitehr Ohio or Md, but could just as well have been built by Sam in his early St Louis days.
Also the Hanson Hawken book is dated (still a good refence but like all it needs to be cross referenced)- for instance just a few short years after publication came to light that Etienne Provost purchased rifles from the Bros Hawken in 1828 and Ken McKenzie the factor for Ft Union bought some in 1829 after seeing the Provost rifles.
6) There is a lot of mis-conceptions out there by even the experts on Hawken family - Several members, including Jake and Sam, were making guns in the east and mid-west before the percussion cap was introduced.

Also the Jake and Sam Hawken mtn rifle did not spring full-blown out of the ether. It developed over time and that can be seen when you do the in depth research - i.e compare say the so-called Peterson J & S rifle to the later Sam Hawken rifles that are the most commonly known and reproed. All can be seen via the BBHC old site.

 

[LaBonte]

Any rifle marked S. Hawkens was made after Jacob died in 1849. At which time was after the main mountain man time frame and during the California gold rush or later.

Actually that's wrong - despite the research available since the late 1970's "lazy" historians keep touting it as absolute fact.
Sam was making rifles on his own and marking them as such in Md, Ohio, and St Louis. If the statement read "western style mountain rifles - plains rifle is much later appellation - the Hawken shop advertised them as mountain rifles - then it would be correct.

 

[buford87]

Of course you are correct , what I should have said was , made before he came to St. Louis and went to work with Jacob or after Jacob died in 1849..............watch yer top knot...............

 

[JSTRAW]

All the discussion is very interesting. As stated earlier I do plan on enjoying my T.C. flintlock. I have 3 caplock Hawken rifles and have enjoyed them for years. Should I buy more flints for back up before I even shoot my new gun? I have read good things about the newer T.C. locks but so much bad about the supplied flints. Will the factory flint last for at least a twenty shot initial range session? As stated earlier I am a complete novice at this type of ignition.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Will the factory flint last for at least a twenty shot initial range session?

That is impossible to answer. It might last one shot. Or it might go for fifty or even much more.
Most flinters have a bunch of extras on hand. Contact member Rich Pierce and get a couple dozen.

 

[roundball]

As stated earlier I do plan on enjoying my T.C. flintlock.

That's really the bottom line...I used several T/C caplocks for 8 years, then migrated to several T/C Hawken Flintlocks for 8-10 years...filled many deer tags with them, plus turkey and squirrel...GM drop-in smoothbore Flint barrels added tremendous versatility.

Should I buy more flints for back up before I even shoot my new gun?

Absolutely...be a wasted trip to get to the range and have a flint shatter part way through the session.

I have read good things about the newer T.C. locks but so much bad about the supplied flints.

Based on my experiences, I'd suggest not wasting the gas and components going to the range until you get the new style improved lock...AND...the new style improved / faster vent liner.

I never had good results with the sawed flints supplied by T/C or any so-called Arkansas agates.
You need something like a belt sander or diamond type file to get them sharp again, compared to simply knapping the edge of a black English flint.

After fooling around with agates for the first few weeks, I switched to Tom Fuller black English flints and they've been outstanding for almost 20 years, particularly in T/C's redesigned locks.
(3/4" wide x 7/8" long)

 

[silverfox]

Straw call Rich Pierce. I just watched a session with a TC Hawken with the new flintlock and a Pierce flint. 25 shots were fired without fail. The flint still appeared almost new. I was quite impressed.
Rich's Flints are easier to find and much cheaper. Get a dozen at least. Fox :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

I just watched a session with a TC Hawken with the new flintlock and a Pierce flint. 25 shots were fired without fail. The flint still appeared almost new. I was quite impressed.

That's good to hear...when I went with Tom Fuller's flints, they were so outstanding that I got in touch with Fuller in England and arranged to buy a bulk order of several hundred from him directly...been using off those ever since with no need to buy / try other brands.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I never had good results with the sawed flints supplied by T/C or any so-called Arkansas agates.
You need something like a belt sander or diamond type file to get them sharp again, compared to simply knapping the edge of a black English flint.

After fooling around with agates for the first few weeks, I switched to Tom Fuller black English flints and they've been outstanding for almost 20 years, particularly in T/C's redesigned locks.

This never ending flint issue is interesting.
I have been dry firing my Jaeger for a couple weeks hoping I could get back to using it for our rregular shoots and hunting come fall. I used a pistol sized (small) Arkansas novoculite sawn flint in it for the practice. Seemed to work fine. Left it in for our shoot (from which I just rreturned). The flint lasted another 15 shots before I had to turn it around. And, surprisingly, it gave reliable ignition with a Davis lock that has never given me reliable service. A proper sized flint might have lasted longer. BTW, I was able to shoot our full course of targets with my Jaeger after shoulder problems a couple years ago. Shoulders will never be 100% but I'm back to using my favorite guns again. :applause: :thumbsup: