This is an excerpt of an article that appeared first in the January 2021 Issue of Muzzle Blasts Magazine. Join the NMLRA Today to receive this great publication.
By Fred Stutzenberger
“More complex than our flint longrifle parts kits, a Hawken rifle is not recommended as a first gun-making project unless you have machinist’s skills, or an experienced mentor to guide your work.” (Catalog # 18, Track of the Wolf, Inc.)
“They’re just too blessed complicated!” Dexter said.
Dexter Morris’s reply to my question was about what I had expected: somewhere in his long-distant past before the time that we became friends, he had started building a Hawken style rifle and ran into difficulty that caused him to abandon the project. Perhaps a large part of his problem was that he did not have excellent books on building Hawkens like there were for building longrifles. Ironically, Dexter was one of the most innovative people I knew in muzzleloading. He could take a mundane commercial lock, reshape it by cutting and welding, and come up with a beautifully modified creation that no one would identify as to its source. But one bad experience had buffaloed him, and he was not about to make the same mistake twice.
Furthermore, I suspected that Dexter was not the only experienced rifle builder who had been caught up in the “Hawken Craze” when every disciple of the American Fur Trade Era had to have a Hawken Rocky Mountain Rifle built in the spirit of brothers, Jacob & Sam. Fortunately, Charlie Hanson, Director of the Fur Trade Museum, Chadron, Nebraska, tempered my illusion that the Hawken was the weapon ne plus ultra of the fur trade. Charlie and wife Marie were the most knowledgeable couple I knew regarding the fur trade. Through the years of personal communication until Charlie’s death, they set me straight regarding the rightful place of the Hawken in history (see Hanson, references). While I did my best to pass the sobering benefit of their cumulative knowledge to others (Stutzenberger 8), I still liked building Hawken style rifles, whether for myself or for others. This article is a summation of selected experiences that I hope will help others avoid the frustration of pitfalls that builders might encounter along the “Hawken Path.”
