George said:
The name is Ozark Mountain Arms. I have a .54 Hawken of theirs which I built from an 'in the white' kit in the early 80s. Green Mountain barrel, Ron Long lock, L & R Lock Co. double set trigger. Excellent gun. Here is an album of pictures of mine.
Spence
Actually, you are both right. The company started out as Mountain Arms, then the name changed to Ozark Mountain Arms.
Milt Hudson founded the company called Mountain Arms Inc. in Ozark, MO. It appears to have started producing Hawken rifles in 1977.
In 1979, Milt Hudson left Mountain Arms Inc. and formed a new company called The Hawken Armory located in Ozark, MO. Mr. Hudson had apparently been crowded out of Mountain Arms Inc. by some new partners he had taken in. The new owners changed the name of the company to Ozark Mountain Arms and moved it to Branson, MO. The company operated there until late 1983 or beginning of 1984 when Gene Arnaud sold it to Bob McKellar who moved it to Ashdown, AR. In the meantime, The Hawken Armory had apparently changed owners and moved to Hot Springs, AR in 1981.
It’s not clear how long The Hawken Armory operated in Hot Springs, AR, but the Ashdown, AR version of the Ozark Mountain Arms continued operating until at least 1987.
In an editorial in the November 1977 issue of
Buckskin Report, John Baird had this to say about the rifle,
The Mountain Arms Hawken replica is an excellent piece”¦However, for the record, their rifle is a near copy of a rifle made by Ed White (now deceased), who used Art Ressel’s original S. Hawken as his model; the same rifle we pictured on page 30 of Hawken Rifles, The Mountain Man’s Choice”¦We say ”˜near copy’ because, in the interests of mass production, some modifications were necessary in the Mountain Arms version, i.e.: 1” barrel instead of a 1â…›” tapered barrel as on the original, minor variation in hardware, etc. Mountain Arms’ Hawken replica is, in fact, a copy of a copy”¦
Art Ressel's The Hawken Shop had parts that were cast from at least two originals in Ressel’s collection. The Ozark Mtn. Arms Hawken is a copy of a copy of one of those two originals. So in a way, the Hawken Shop Hawken and the Ozark Mountain Arms Hawken replicas are interpretations of the same original Hawken. I once thought that Ozark Mtn. Arms used some of The Hawken Shop parts on their rifle, but now realize that isn’t the case. The Ozark Mtn. Arms parts developed independently.
The rifles were offered stocked in maple or walnut. As Spence said, they were built with Green Mountain barrels. Early versions used Ron Long locks while later versions used L&R locks. L&R triggers were used throughout.
The Ozark Mtn. Arms Hawken is a good lookin’ rifle, especially with the fancy wood. As Baird pointed out, it is not an exact duplicate of an original Hawken. The biggest compromise is in the 1” straight octagon barrel, but that isn’t too bad since the 1” barrel makes for an easy handling rifle.