Crazdgunman
32 Cal
Just picked up a Gemmer Hawken, and thought I’d offer a review. This was my experience, yours may differ.
Ordered it from it’s new importer in La Grand Oregon, and was pleased to receive it is lightning fast time. Out of the box the fit of barrel into the channel wasn’t too inspiring. A bit of twisting in the forearm developed during shipping and storage perhaps, but that has improved now that the rifle is together. The fore end tip channel required a couple layers of brown fiber packing tape to get even bearing force on both wedges. The front trigger pull is pretty heavy (much more so than my TC Hawken), but after being set, is quite crisp and usable. The metalwork and inletting seemed fine for a factory produced gun in this price range. The rifle came with a simple but sturdy looking rear sight, adjustable for elevation, and a bold front sight. The barrel has a 1 in 60 inch twist, optimized for shooting patched ball.
A casual glance through the sights however showed no light on either side of the front post in the rear sight notch. Zilch. Zero. The rear sight notch was way too narrow, but a few minutes with a set of needle files and cold blue solved that issue. No biggie. At the first range session however, the Hornady .535 diameter ball (pushed with 90 grains of FFG and a 0.015 pre-lubed patch) impacted almost six inches low at 50 yards. And that was with the rear sight set to its maximum elevation. Still, with the conditions being pretty breezy and spreading the group horizontally, the group it shot with nine balls was 1.6 inches. I thought that showed potential. The patches were pristine, with no abrasions or burn-through.
So, back to the workbench, and after applying a micrometer and some high school trigonometry, I was a bit aghast. I basically had to lose almost half of my front sight height to get it to shoot on at fifty with the rear sight set in the middle of its adjustment. So, I filed away. Lots of metal dust and a bit of cold blue later, I was back in business.
Back to the shooting bench. Today, the winds were fairly still and at fifty yards off the bench she put five shots into 0.729 inches. Does that qualify her as “good”? I don’t know. I’m a serious shooter and have a lot of experience in different shooting disciplines, but this is only my third black powder weapon. Suffice it to say that I’m satisfied, and I’ll be dropping some big game this season with this rifle. Probably some small game as well.
Would I buy a Gemmer Hawken again? Yes, absolutely! But anybody doing so had better count on some serious file work. The sights are an issue.
Ordered it from it’s new importer in La Grand Oregon, and was pleased to receive it is lightning fast time. Out of the box the fit of barrel into the channel wasn’t too inspiring. A bit of twisting in the forearm developed during shipping and storage perhaps, but that has improved now that the rifle is together. The fore end tip channel required a couple layers of brown fiber packing tape to get even bearing force on both wedges. The front trigger pull is pretty heavy (much more so than my TC Hawken), but after being set, is quite crisp and usable. The metalwork and inletting seemed fine for a factory produced gun in this price range. The rifle came with a simple but sturdy looking rear sight, adjustable for elevation, and a bold front sight. The barrel has a 1 in 60 inch twist, optimized for shooting patched ball.
A casual glance through the sights however showed no light on either side of the front post in the rear sight notch. Zilch. Zero. The rear sight notch was way too narrow, but a few minutes with a set of needle files and cold blue solved that issue. No biggie. At the first range session however, the Hornady .535 diameter ball (pushed with 90 grains of FFG and a 0.015 pre-lubed patch) impacted almost six inches low at 50 yards. And that was with the rear sight set to its maximum elevation. Still, with the conditions being pretty breezy and spreading the group horizontally, the group it shot with nine balls was 1.6 inches. I thought that showed potential. The patches were pristine, with no abrasions or burn-through.
So, back to the workbench, and after applying a micrometer and some high school trigonometry, I was a bit aghast. I basically had to lose almost half of my front sight height to get it to shoot on at fifty with the rear sight set in the middle of its adjustment. So, I filed away. Lots of metal dust and a bit of cold blue later, I was back in business.
Back to the shooting bench. Today, the winds were fairly still and at fifty yards off the bench she put five shots into 0.729 inches. Does that qualify her as “good”? I don’t know. I’m a serious shooter and have a lot of experience in different shooting disciplines, but this is only my third black powder weapon. Suffice it to say that I’m satisfied, and I’ll be dropping some big game this season with this rifle. Probably some small game as well.
Would I buy a Gemmer Hawken again? Yes, absolutely! But anybody doing so had better count on some serious file work. The sights are an issue.