Should I get another T/C Hawken .54??

[Armored farmer]

My old T/C Hawken has seen better days. I built it from a kit back in the early '80's. Maybe I wasn't as careful about cleaning as I should have been years ago, but now my bore is pretty rough. I lose patches off the cleaning jag in the chamber area of the barrel. My groups are pretty open too. The stock has a bad crack in the wrist area. I sent the rifle back to T/C <S&W>for possible repair....but they sent it back saying they couldn't help me. All in all, I think that I am ready to retire the rifle in favor of a newer one with less complications. I am still deer hunting with this gun, but now I am also competing with it at my local b/p club.
My question is... should I get another T/C so that my parts will interchange, or are there better options out there for hunting/competition. I don't see very many T/C's at the shoots that I attend. Most rifles are custom made (flintlocks in fact). I have considered, and am willing to build one.

 

[JohnD13]

Well, you could get a Green Mountain barrel for it in your choice of calibers, and rifiling twists for round ball shooting or conicals. There's a fellow by the name of Ed Ott, who I believe makes replacement stocks for T/C's, but then your down to the original lock! If you have some good experience building black powder guns, you could get some amazing parts kits from TVM, or the Rifle Shoppe. ANyway you go, you'll enjoy shooting it.

 

[arcticap]

I think that you should hunt around to see if there's another model that you like better than the Hawken. If you find one then buy it, and if you don't or aren't sure then consider buying another Hawken or fixing up yours after weighing all of the pluses and minuses.
You Hawken barrel can be rebored, a Green Mountain drop in barrel can be purchased or it can be sold for parts on eBay.
I don't know how much you love shooting it, but if you're involved in competition then there may be other models available that you would enjoy shooting more.
Pecatonia River Supply may have a replacement stock for it:

http://www.longrifles-pr.com/

 

[AJumbo]

Pecatonica River Rifle Works also makes drop-in stocks for TC Hawken, and it opens up the possibility of going with a maple or cherry stock. I have a Green Mtn. barrel on my Hawken, and can't praise it highly enough.

 

[mykeal]

A new rifle is in your near future. Three options:

1) Replace the barrel and stock with 'drop in' replacement parts. The GM barrel and a Pecatonica River stock are excellent suggestions. This will save a little money, but do you like the T/C lock enough to keep it?

2) Consider a Lyman Great Plains Rifle. Excellent gun for the money. Can be had as a kit for about $400. I own two and both are better guns for me than any of five T/C Hawkens I've had.

3) Get a custom gun built. This is the preferred option in my opinion if you can afford it. For the plains style rifle there is no better gun than one by Don Stith, but Chambers or Curtis or TVM or Sitting Fox all do very, very good work also. As do many others.

My advice: option 3 gets the best gun, but option 2 is the best value. All three options are good choices, so you really can't go too far wrong.

 

[Chawbaccer]

I've seen a TC hawken with a Pecatony full stock and a green river barrel. Looked real nice and gave me some ideas. Of course you will still have your shiny brass fixins to deal with unless you replace with steel, then you are buying almost a whole gun.

 

[Armored farmer]

my shiny brass patchbox sports a unique Masonic emblem. I will most likely reuse it on whatever rifle I end up with.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will investigate them further.

 

[PapaG]

One more thing to try before you give up....get some of Brownell's paste lapping compound and give the bore a few hundred strokes, changing patches/paste every fifty or so strokes. This might clean it up and restore the accuracy. I brought back a 17hmr that had been smoke/water damaged so bad that you couldn't see light through the bore to begin with. It is now back to one ragged hole at 50 yards. Still have to rework the outside but it only took about six or seven patches/50 strokes per after getting the original crud out.

 

[Armored farmer]

Thanks to all for the good suggestions and ideas. I have solved the problem by contracting a Dickert style .45 cal flintlock longrifle with brass furniture and a maple stock from my long-time rifle building friend. I hope that he can have my new rifle done, and I can have my farming done in time to make it to Friendship in June.
I have been fortunate enough to have shot the entire program (all the events) at "The Grand American" when it was in Vandalia Ohio. It would be nice to go to the blackpowder mecca as well, and compete in an entirely different discipline.

thanks again to one and all who replied.

 

[OrangePwrx9]

Green Mountain for a new drop-in barrel and the online auction site that begins with 'e' for the Hawken stock. Re-use your old lock and trimmings.

Make sure the stock you get is for a .54 as the .50 Hawkens had a 15/16" barrel channel while the .54s were 1". It may come with a lock, so you'll have a spare.

As to the barrel, you'll have to decide if you're going to shoot round ball or conical. Green Mountain's slow twist roundball barrels are sweet shooters but with a 1 turn in 70" twist, they won't stabilize most conicals. At 32", the RB barrels are 4" longer than what you're used to.

For conicals the GM 1 in 28" barrels would work well, but I doubt they'd equal the accuracy of the roundball barrels.

You may not find what you want at GM on the first pass. They make barrels in batches and then wait for them to sell out before running another batch.

 

[Bushpilot]

+1 for OrangePwrx9. I've gone that same route and put together a very nice T/C flinter with a new GM round ball barrel in .50 for a very resonable total price.

 

[dprice3844444]

get a stainless 54 barrel from green mountain,saves all the corrosion probs for the long run.

http://www.tennesseevalleymanufacturing.com/catalog.php?category=all