Nw Rifle Build

[svandamme]

They are free in Belgium , but only if vintage
repro modern BP is regulated.

that being said, a free old BP gun
you can't shoot it unless you get licensed.

so ownership is free , but shooting is not

[Jeff Higgins]

Here are a few pics of progress so far. As mentioned earlier, the butt plate and toe plate are fitted to the stock, and the tang has been fitted to the breach plug on the barrel.

The crescent shape of the butt plate in no way matched that of the stock, which was left with the afore mentioned ridge in the middle of their mating surface, and the mating surface of the butt plate was far too rough in its "as cast" condition to fit anyway. The toe plate should have been easy but, alas, it was too short to reach the butt plate once the "inletting" for it was cleaned up enough to accept it. I wound up having to build up its aft end by welding. But, they now fit.





Speaking of "matching" (or not), the octagon of the tang in no way matched that of the barrel. The mating surfaces of both parts were anything but "flat". Both required extensive filing and grinding to make them mate up. Beyond that, the "hook" on the end of the barrel, on the breach plug, was too big to fit through the mortise in the tang. And its vertical sides were not even parallel, nor precisely "vertical".







None of this is insurmountable, of course. Maybe inexcusable, though, especially in a kit of this price. And this is the "easy" stuff to start with. It gets much harder from here.

[tabs]

A pair of original spoons.

Top is a Dbl rif..le by Nel..son Lew..is of NY. apx 40 c. Circa 18.50 to 18.80. Proflic maker, well known for Dbl, and Tgts. From WI

Bottom is a JH John,son Gre.at Wes, tern Ri,fle Works Pit.tsburg..maker of lower cost spoons, 40 c. this is a deluxe, xlt shiny bore. Have shot. Came from a MO estate of a man whose father was a blk pwd shoo,ter who passed around 1960..Note the hm made sights.

[tabs]

Top: is Unsigned 1/2 stk Hawk. 36", 54 c Gre,en Riv,er B. very hgh qual. came from a friends estate who never spared any expense.

Bottom: L Pea,rson full stk Hawk 34" 54 c Gre,en Riv,er B little lessor qual, used a propane torch tocase colour

both as nu, about 7h ea.

[tabs]

These came from Ya,kima, neither is signed, came from an MD's estate. I would bet Do,n He,nry Br,own was the maker as he specialized in making xlt qual En,gl,ish style per,cuss,ions in Yaki,ma. Extrm high qual, fit finish engr,aving go,ld band in B. apx 50c

again about 7h ea.

[tabs]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

Hey Jeff, maybe I can help a tad since I have "assembled" quite a few of these kits and also several rifles from "scratch" and with the help of my late mentor Doug Knoell learned how to get one done reasonably well. There are some tools which I don't know if you have or not?
- Chisels....NOT the Harbor Freight ones but great ones made in Japan or even Some Chinese ones are good now and they have to be soooooo sharp they can shave the hair on your arm and need to have a dedicated sharpener to be used every few hours when carving any hardwood. I bought a sharpener that uses a turning disk with different pads.
- Inletting stuff....I use a tube of red lip stick although many videos show "smoking" which I am not crazy about.
- Preassembly items....Make sure the trigger assemble will "set" and trip at about 2oz, the hammer assembly so it works at half cock and full cock. If the trigger is not smooth, knock apart the pins and polish where any parts rub together since most triggers are made of cast parts.
- Use "super glue" and glue the tang assembly to the hooked breach AFTER you make sure there is 100% contact (red lip stick). Once the barrel has been fully inlet that joint is easy to break apart.
- Fit the barrel by hand using channel scrapers such as the ones made by the same folks that make checkering tools. That will take days of removing a little at a time. Once the barrel seats well, slide it back to seat the tang fully into the stock. Then put on the "under lugs" and cut their openings. You will need a way to measure the fore end for the pins or whatever holes are used to hold the barrel down and I used a 6 inch piece of aluminum angle stock that one side fits on top of the barrel the other side goes down the side of the fore end.
- Buy NEW files, especially a large very fine flat file to smooth the barrel flats which can take several days before it will be ready for browning or bluing. I usually finish with 600 to 1200 sand paper to make the finish as smooth as possible.
- Use a bore scope to make sure the barrel is clear from muzzle to the breach plug where you can see the light shining in the fire channel. Many people like to polish the inside so the inspection will show if it is needed.
- The butt plate is usually well fit so if it is then fasten it to prevent a chipping of the wood when you test it.
- Fully assemble the rifle before you finish the wood or the metal and test fire it several times making sure the gun goes bang! By this I mean the barrel, tang, hammer assembly and trigger assembly. Worry about the under lug and any parts that attached the cleaning rod later. Make sure the hammer contacts the nipple 100% so you'll get a bang. Now is when you have to move things back and forth or in and out, not after the gun has been finished.
- When use a blue or brown finish use a "gun" degreaser such as that by Beechwood Casey. I bought a gallon of it a few years ago after trying it and then other de-greasers which none worked as well.

As you noted the hook on the breach plug and how it fits into the tang are required to be worked on. That is almost normal now days unless you get a kit by Jim Kibler or one or two others. Many times parts are made to a default and may or not fit right in easy.

Here is a picture (posted before?) of a "kit" I made of an underhammer 45 caliber slug gun that shoots less than 1 MOA at 300 yards. I bought the parts from Pecatonica River and it took me 3 months to finish it completely. Part of that time was doing the 25 coats of clear gloss lacquer.
John

have Undeeer hammer wt 2 Ken Bresian B, wt pinned Short Starter..2 red field Int mtch set of sights and some other accouterments in a wooden box,,6h

A H B under hammer unsigned with paper patch short starter..and Tasco tgt 20x scope..1k

A Chunk spoon, wt Wm Large hvy 48 in B, Sprg Field 1863 lock...weights bout 35 lb. vtg 50's 60's. 4.5h

[tabs]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

Jeff,

Great thread!! I grew up reading about the Mountain Men and their lives West of the Mississippi. I still have my 1970's copy of John Baird's book "Hawken Rifles, the Mountain Mans choice."

One name to add to the above is Jedediah Strong Smith. An early Mountain Man and fur trapper, he was the first white man to trek from the plains over the Rockies and find a route to the Pacific.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedediah_Smith

Cannot wait to see the finished muzzle loader!!

Joe A

Why u have an original Hken...

[herr_oberst]

When classics like these were state of the art and the latest, greatest thunderstick on the plains, were the parts interchangeable or was everything hand fitted, the way you're going about it now?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

When classics like these were state of the art and the latest, greatest thunderstick on the plains, were the parts interchangeable or was everything hand fitted, the way you're going about it now?

Very good question. Many gunmakers of the period built nothing but one-off guns, what we would call "custom" today. Especially prior to the Hawken brothers starting their business in the 1820's.

Their early rifles, the ones stamped "J & S Hawken St. Louis" continued this practice. They were buying some parts, like the locks, from other manufacturers, who had begun to "standardize", to a degree. Once Jacob died (I believe in the '30's, maybe early '40's) and Sam carried on on his own, he very much began to standardize parts. Parts that had perviously been hand formed from sheet stock, or forged, were now cast. By the time Sam had sold the business to J.P. Gemmer, the rifles were pretty much "standardized".

Does that mean, for example, if my lock broke in the field I could borrow one from another rifle and it would fit? No. There was a lot of handwork that still went into making things fir. They were close, but manufacturing methods were still not repeatable enough to ensure a level of uniformity that ensures "drop in" interchangeability. That was still a ways down the road.

There is a great book that goes into some detail as to how we developed interchangeability not only in gun parts (although that is its primary focus), but in manufacturing in general. American Rifle (A Biography) by Alexander Rose goes into great detail on this. Not surprisingly, it was the military that really drove this need. Believe it or not, even up through the Civil War, gun parts simply did not interchange, not without the loving attention - and very careful hand fitting - of the company armorer. And these were mass produced, "identical" military firearms.

One would think this relatively "easy", but it's worth noting that not even by WWI could gun parts be interchanged without some work. Oh, many could be, but things like the bolts in Springfield service rifles still had to be fitted and headspaced. We were not quite there, even by then.

Even today, manufacturers struggle with this. A good example in Ruger's resurrection of Marlin. Ruger found those old designs to still, today, require too much hand fitting to be able to manufacture them profitably. They had to make some design changes to the rifles, along with changes in manufacturing methods. Even then, they still require a bit of hand fitting.

This is one of the "holy grails" firearms manufacturers are still seeking. They have more or less achieved it in certain classes of firearms, particularly military or the civilian counterparts thereof. But, well - it shows. Compared to expertly hand fitted firearms, they are pretty darn rude and crude, sloppy and loose as can be, with function being the only requirement. Fine sporting firearms, however, just aren't there yet, and may never get there.

Granted, that's a finer point on it than "will it fit and function". So, no, in short - when these rifles were new, no one was even thinking about that. They eventually were, but only to reduce, not eliminate, the amount of handwork required. It was, after all, a business. So that was their only real concern. Whether parts could interchange in the field wasn't a question they were even asking back then.

[herr_oberst]

Well, that is interesting; Makes sense, I guess, there will always be people engaged in building machines where good enough is the starting point. Clockworks, racing engines, cameras; as we learn to polish off the rough edges we just adjust the microscope to keep finding the rough edges we missed.
Thanks for the lesson. Very well explained.

[Jeff Higgins]

I've made some satisfying progress in the last couple of days. Best of all, I have found my "zen", or my "happy place" in all of this. My shock and dismay over the lack of "completeness" of the inletting, most of the metal parts, and all of that is now behind me. And I'm having fun "learning as I go". Big thanks to John for his tip on using lipstick as a spotting agent to help fit the parts.

I've gotten the ramrod entry thimble on the front of the forearm, along with the nose cap fitted. I put about ten hours total into getting these parts to fit, but it was an enjoyable learning experience. The "before and after" pics of the forearm where they fit are pretty telling, and indicative of where I have to start in getting anything to fit.

Here is how it came from the Hawken Shop:



Here is how it wound up before these parts fit:



Parts installed. All of this work was done by hand, with wood chisels and sandpaper.:



Here is the lock installed into the stock. I do have to say, the Dremel Moto tool is one hell of a boon to frontier gunsmithing I made good use of one on all of the inner radii that had to be cleared to fit:

[fanaudical]

Progress!

[Jeff Higgins]

All of the major parts are now inletted and located to one another. The only inletting left will be for the barrel escutcheons, the two keys that hold it to the stock. I can actually assemble it and get an idea what it's going to look like.



Boy was I ever ill prepared for what it has taken to get this far. I now clearly understand what I was getting into, though, and am very much enjoying the challenge. Literally nothing "fits" anything right out of the box. Every single part had to have its inletting finished, nothing was even close. Every single metal part that mates or interacts with any other metal part had to be extensively filed to fit. There has even been some welding involved, to make a part fit its mating part properly. But, come to find out, that is what these kits are all about. "Building" as opposed to "assembling".

Beyond that, now that I can actually hold it like a rifle, I'm a little surprised just what a massive beast this thing is. I can see why modern "Hawken" semi-replicas have all been so extensively reduced in size and lightened. I knew this thing was supposed to go around 11 pounds, but the full appreciation of that didn't sink in until I was able to shoulder it and able to carry it like a rifle.

The photos don't do it justice, really, but here it is up against my Lyman Great Plains rifle, widely regarded as "the best" representation from a mainstream manufacturer. It goes around 8 pounds and both shoulders and carries very nicely. Its reduction in weight comes from its much lighter barrel, which is 32" long and a straight 7/8" octagon. The new rifle sports a 34" long barrel that is a tapered octagon, going from 1 1/8" at the breach to 1" at the muzzle. Hopefully you can see the difference.









The Lyman rifle, with its lighter barrel, is restricted to 100 grains of FFg behind a patched .530" diameter round ball of 230 grains. That is actually a pretty light charge for a .54, but that's what Lyman says. The new rifle can be loaded with the same patch and ball combination, but but with a much stiffer charge of up to 160 grains. I'm thinking if I do go that heavy (for hunting purposes), I may begin to better appreciate that weight...

Anyway, that's it for now. Most of the hard stuff is done, with the only critical locating to be done on the escutcheons. After that it's all down to finishing. Getting there...

[sc_rufctr]

That looks amazing Jeff. Well done!

You must have many hours in that already!

[fanaudical]

Nice work. That barrel is hefty!

[svandamme]

you have waaaaaay more patience and attention to detail then I do

[oldE]

Indeed!
When I was looking at the side by side comparison photos, part my mind was thinking, " sort of like a 16 guage next to a 20 guage ". Then I saw the pic of the muzzles . There's a lot of mass in that barrel. No wonder they rate it for a 60% greater charge.
What a beast!

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Jeff.

Best
Les

[Tim Hancock]

Looks like a fun and rewarding project Jeff!

[herr_oberst]

Wow, 11 pounds? Jeez, How much does a .52 cal Sharps weigh?

Can't even imagine lugging this heavy thing around all day every day like a plainsman of olde.

[Jeff Higgins]

The weight of a Model 1874 Sharps is entirely dependent upon how it is configured. About the lightest I have ever seen is around ten pounds, the heaviest around 22 pounds. Their average weight is probably around 12 pounds. Here are two of mine that illustrate the range that most will fall within. The upper is my long range match rifle in .45-2.6" (aka ".45-100"), which has a 34" #1 heavy full octagon barrel. It weighs over 14 pounds. The lower is one of my hunting rifles in .45-2.4" (aka ".45-90"), built as light as possible. It has a 28" half octagon half round barrel in the standard weight, coming in at just about ten pounds.



Also typical for the era (late 19th century) is my original Ballard Pacific in .45-70, sporting a #1 heavy tapered octagon barrel in a 32" length. It goes about 12 pounds.



Then again, I have a first year Winchester Highwall in .40-70 Sharps Straight that only goes about eight pounds with a standard weight 32" half octagon half round barrel.



So, like today, rifles were all over the map back then. They did, generally, put up with a bit more rifle weight than we like to today. In light of that, an 11 pound Hawken was not out of line. They were, however, carried far more often in saddle scabbards and on wagon seats than by hand, on foot. Eastern rifles tended to be lighter, because their owners were more apt to be still hunting their game in thick woods. Not many did that out West, and they wanted greater power and range, so they accepted that their rifles had to be bigger and heavier.