200th Anniversary

[Jeff Higgins]

Of the Hawken rifle shop.

While they didn't keep the best of records, it is widely acknowledged in these circles that Jacob and Samual Hawken first officially opened up shop and began their rifle manufacturing business in St. Louis in 1823.

The gentleman in this video has built a rifle commemorating that anniversary. He has utilized authentic Hawken parts from The Hawken Shop. Many of these parts are still being manufactured on the same tooling, utilizing the same methods employed by the brothers Hawken when they first opened their shop. Samual continued to develop these rifles after Jacob's death in 1849. This rifle, like mine, represents Samual's ultimate development of this rifle.

You'll notice a lot of similarity between this rifle and mine. We used the same parts, so that should be expected. This one is far more ornate, as a commemorative probably should be, but it's really not in keeping with the "working" rifles produced by The Hawken Rifle Company. Very pretty rifle, though.



My rifle, just for sake of comparison:

[GH85Carrera]

It is remarkable that the same design, built the same basic way for 200 years works so well.

The 1911 Colt ACP 45 s only 112 years old and still a great pistol, but just a puppy when compared to the Hawken.

How many other "tools" have been used for 200 years in the same basic design. Yea, a modern rifle can do the job and be a better choice for firing multiple rounds, but they likely will not last 200 years as the same design.

[911Ghia]

Straight Razor


Do have a 1911 from 1917.

Rich

[Jeff Higgins]

What really captivated me about the Hawken Shop is that their rifles, whether they build them for you or you choose to take on the challenge of doing it yourself, is that they are not reproductions. We can purchase reproductions of virtually any historic firearm we can think of, from Brown Bess muskets to Civil War era Springfield rifled muskets to all manner of Kentucky Rifle. You name it, someone produces a reproduction.

These are not that - these are continuations, an important distinction. We can buy reproductions of immensely varying quality and authenticity from a number of manufacturers, right up to some as good as the originals. I own a couple, one from Thompson/Center, one from Lyman. Both eminently useful, quality rifles. Neither one all that faithful to the originals, but they are not intended to be. Others provide very faithful reproductions, but none are stamped "S. Hawken St. Louis" on the top barrel flat, behind the rear sight. It would be difficult to over state how important that is to me.



This arrived a few weeks ago in the mail. It took them longer to make this than it took me to make the rifle. I'm almost as proud of this as I am of the rifle itself. You don't get one of these if they build it for you, or if you use one of their recommended builders.

[Racerbvd]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

What really captivated me about the Hawken Shop is that their rifles, whether they build them for you or you choose to take on the challenge of doing it yourself, is that they are not reproductions. We can purchase reproductions of virtually any historic firearm we can think of, from Brown Bess muskets to Civil War era Springfield rifled muskets to all manner of Kentucky Rifle. You name it, someone produces a reproduction.

These are not that - these are continuations, an important distinction. We can buy reproductions of immensely varying quality and authenticity from a number of manufacturers, right up to some as good as the originals. I own a couple, one from Thompson/Center, one from Lyman. Both eminently useful, quality rifles. Neither one all that faithful to the originals, but they are not intended to be. Others provide very faithful reproductions, but none are stamped "S. Hawken St. Louis" on the top barrel flat, behind the rear sight. It would be difficult to over state how important that is to me.



This arrived a few weeks ago in the mail. It took them longer to make this than it took me to make the rifle. I'm almost as proud of this as I am of the rifle itself. You don't get one of these if they build it for you, or if you use one of their recommended builders.

Ok, I'm officially jealous

[GH85Carrera]

That is really cool.

So I presume there is a serial number and documentation to say when it was made. Even though it is a real continuation, I an guessing that one that is from the 1820s is more valuable.

I suspect you did not consider resale value in your choice to buy the parts and build it. Enjoy you cool toy!

[Jeff Higgins]

Nope, no serial numbers have ever been marked on any of these rifles. Literally the only marking is the "S. Hawken St. Louis" on the top barrel flat. The caliber is not even marked anywhere on the rifle. I put my name and the year I built it on the stock, in the barrel channel, on the bottom flat.

The lack of serial numbers or any real factory records make these somewhat difficult to date. We can only really date them by the changes incorporated over the years. Every now and then someone who kept their own records, like a diary, noted when and where they obtained theirs. It is largely from those records, not those of the Hawken brothers, that we are able to roughly date similar examples. There remains a lot of confusion over what was made when.

This is pretty much always the case with arms made for the civilian market, by these small manufacturers of that time period. Most didn't even put their own names, or company names on them. No markings whatsoever of any kind. These can only be identified by any unique features the maker liked. But, even then, many are only narrowed down to region and time period, with the individual who made it remaining a mystery to this day. Seems odd in this day and age, but at that time, these really were just "tools", like a shovel or an axe. Many of these shops made those as well, by the way.

The Hawken brothers themselves started their business by supplying traps, tools, and other hardware to the early fur traders heading up the Missouri out of St. Louis. Just general blacksmithing and hardware, with gun repair as a sideline.

They eventually decided, after repairing a good number of firearms, that they could probably make a better one themselves. No one is 100% sure when they started, so we've settled on 1823 as a best guess. Even then, they were far from a "production" shop, building only bespoke rifles for those who could afford them. They were about triple the cost of any other rifle of the time.

It wasn't until the mid to late 1830's that they went into "production". Even then, many other commercial manufacturers of the day outbuild and outsold them by factors of 100:1 to 1000:1. The notion that every Mountain Man worth his salt carried a Hawken is a myth. They were not only too late to the game to catch the height of the mountain fur trade, they were just too few and way too expensive.

Think of them more as the rifle of the Oregon Trail. Their "day in the sun" was relatively short, hitting their stride in the 1840's, with breach loaders a mere two decades away. Once those hit the scene it was all but "game over" for these big "plains rifles". Jacob had died, and Sam was getting on in years anyway, so it looked like the company was done.

An employee by the name of J. P. Gemmed purchased the company and had rifles on hand until WWI, but it gets a little murky after that. A guy by the name of Art Ressel is where the trail picks up just after the Korean War, producing guns on the original equipment. He kept it going until 1990, when he sold the whole works to its current owner, Greg Roberts. There remains a steady, if small demand for these rifles, but I don't think Greg produces more than a couple dozen per year.

Yes, the older guns are more valuable, and providence certainly counts, as with anything else. Not many survived the days when they were being ditched in favor of breach loaders. They were, after all, just a tool, and most led very, very hard lives. The only really decent ones survived by virtue of having been donated to museums and such. So, scarcity drives value, of course. Interestingly, though, quality examples produced by Ressel in his shop, or Roberts in his shop, do approach the value of guns dating from the 19th century. Even those made by professional makers outside of those shops, using Hawken Shop parts and plans, command similar prices. They are recognized as "originals" and valued accordingly.

[GH85Carrera]

Thanks Jeff. It is just the type of obscure trivia that I find so interesting.