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St.Louis Hawken Plan

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sharps4590
3K views 19 replies 5 participants last post by  Hawg 
#1 ·
Where can I find a plan for a St. Louis Hawken in .54 caliber?
 
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#5 ·
You might go straight to the source and get them from The Hawken Shop, these are the guys who ended up buying the stuff from the last owners of Sam's Shop in St. Louis.
https://www.thehawkenshop.com/hawken_rifles.htm

I'd toot my own shop's horn but it's against the rules so I'll plug someone else's instead. ;)

If you're going to tackle a first time muzzle loading build I'd go with the parts set that includes a pre carved stock and all the hardware, it's going to be a lot more work than a factory kit like Traditions offers but the finished product, depending on your workmanship and skill level, will be far closer to an original rifle of the period.
 
#6 ·
Griz is right. They bought the rights to the Hawken name from the estate of the late Art Ressel who owned the "The Hawken Shop" on North Lingberg in St. Louis for many, many years. If I'm not mistaken they also acquired all the inventory, which was significant, Art had on hand at the time of his death.

I'm not a fan of in-lines either.
 
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#7 · (Edited)
They didn't just get inventory, they got some of the tooling, templates and molds used by Sam and Jacob Hawken and J.P.Gemmer to produce those iconic rifles.

P.S. if you do decide to build a semi custom rifle from a parts set or a factory made kit gun and you get a might bewildered on how or where to go next during the build, post a few questions here, I'm sure there are enough of us that have built a few hanging out on these boards to point you in the right direction.
 
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#11 ·
They didn't just get inventory, they got some of the tooling, templates and molds used by Sam and Jacob Hawken and J.P.Gemmer to produce those iconic rifles.
I don't believe I knew that Griz, unless you told me previously and I forgot. Did we ever decide if you had a hand in building my rifle?

Gemmer was no slouch either. My Mother-in-law's late, former husband had an original Gemmer in 36 cal. Nice, old, honest, eminently shootable old rifle. She offered it to me for $500.00, ironically about 3 years before she and my Father-in-law wed. By the time they wed she had sold it. Talk about unlucky timing......:(
 
#13 ·
That sounds familiar. I believe that's what you said before. Ah well, it is still a real shooter even if you didn't do it......:D
 
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#14 ·
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This is one of my personal rifles I built from a parts set, I don't like to call them kits as a "kit gun" fits together with minimal fitting, think Traditions kits where you don't have to drill, tap or inlet anything, all you have to do is assemble, sand and finish.

If you go with a parts set you will have to hand fit all the pieces, drill and tap all the holes fit the breach plug and cut the dovetails and of course do the final shaping and sanding and finish work but the end product is by far well worth the extra effort.

Depending on the grade of the wood a decent parts set will run around $750 to $850, if you want really fancy wood be prepared to pay more, most suppliers will offer machine shop services for operations you can't do at home and they will charge extra for each machine shop service performed.
 
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#17 ·
Hawg, I've seen pics of yours and it's a very, very nicely built rifle, it's an accurate representation of what was coming out of the Hawken shop back in the 1840's and 1850's and more so than mine is.

Mine is a bit too fancy to be realistic, but you know how it is, if you have access to the best looking piece of wood in the pile your going to use it. ;)
 
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