Just plain wrong -- the rifle that is
He was very accurate in his measurements and the copy he made which is displayed in the Carson Museum in Taos looks exactly like the original,
Good point about the mule -- Bridger also preferred mules. It's easy to understand why given their demands on a saddle animal.
It's not a question of the authenicity of what's displayed in the Taos museum, but rather what's depicted on the statue.
The artist's rendition has a rediculous trigger guard that appears to be some kind of a strange hybrid with a Spencer lever. The patch box is like the Harper's Ferry or Mississippi rifle patchbox not a Hawken patchbox. Kit's Hawken was a percussion not a flintlock. And not least, I suspect Kit tried to keep a ramrod in his ramrod pipes.
Overall the dimensions of the rifle in proportion to Kit's small body are too small -- more like a Thomposon Contender imitation than a real Hawken.
Obviously, the artist didn't handle a real Hawken very much. I don't know how much Kit's rifle weighted, but Hawkens rifles are quite commonly 12-to-14 pound rifles. Even a fit and wirey little guy like Kit would not ride a running horse holding a 12 pound weight outstretched at arms length.
Such points of historical authenticity are often most quickly resolved with experimental archeology. That is -- just go ride a a running horse with a long 12 pound weight held out at arms lenght -- then offer a more informed opinion on whether or not Kit's pose on the running horse is likely to be historically authentic.
I suspect what inspired the artist for that pose was watching the stunt man playing Brian Keith's Henry Frapp character in the movie "Mountain Man." In one great scene the the character runs down the stuntman for Bill Tyler played by Charlton Heston and they go crashing into the river. In that scene Brian Keith's stuntman is waving around his rifle like it's a barrell racer's quirt instead of a long heavy piece of steel and hardwood.
My friends who were extras on the set of that movie tell me the movie people had a bunch of painted rubber rifles made for the action stunt scenes that were about the size and proportions of a TC immitation rather than real plains rifles.
Keep in mind that the modern mass-produced commercial imitations usually only have 26-to-28 inch barrels while the the real Hawken plains rifles were often 32-to-36 inch barrels.
We should care about how well artists and Hollywood depict history becasue they often create myths and distortions of history. Sometimes little details in the material culture of history contribute a lot to our understanding of that time in history. For example, the fact that Bridger and Carson used percussion Hawkens in the 1850s tells us they were pretty frequently close to a source of supply for percussion caps. Back in the pre-1840 fur trade period most of the beaver trappers stuck with flintlocks because a once-a-year resupply at rendezvous wasn't a frequesnt enough opportunity to replenish your supply of percussion caps if you lost your caps or ruined them crossing a river. Even during the Mexican War many of the troops issued the new percussion firearms complained about running out of caps, and they were followed by Army supply trains.
Sorry for the rant, but details matter a lot to a correct understanding of history.