TC Hawken Rifle Resurgence

acob and Samuel Hawken were American gunsmiths and traders that operated from their shop in St. Louis, Missouri from 1825 to 1855. They are famous for designing the famous "plains rifle" named after them (the Hawken rifle). The earliest known record of a Hawken rifle dates to 1823 when one was made for William Henry Ashley. The Hawkens did not mass-produce their rifles but rather made each one by hand, one at a time. A number of famous men were said to have owned Hawken rifles, including Auguste Lacome, Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Orrin Porter Rockwell, Joseph Meek, Jedediah Strong Smith, and Theodore Roosevelt. In 1815 Jacob Hawken established a gun shop in the village of St. Louis. Jacob’s brother, Samuel, joined him in 1822. The Hawken brothers established a reputation for manufacturing excellent Muzzleloading Rifles. There claim to fame was the "plains rifles". The Plains Rifle was what their customers needed when they ascended the Missouri River in search of Beaver, a quality gun, light enough to carry all the time and capable of knocking down big targets at long range. They called their Rifles "Mountain Rifles". Rifles Stamped “J&S Hawken St. Louis” were sought after throughout the rapidly expanding frontier among trappers and mountain men. In 1849 Jacob Hawken died and rifles were marked S. Hawken. In 1970 the TC Hawken is produced. The traditional Thompson Center muzzleloaders are largely responsible for the resurgence of black powder hunting that began in the U.S. in 1970.When the first explorers of the early 19th century ventured west beyond the Mississippi River, they carried long, slender and somewhat delicate medium-bore Pennsylvania-style rifles.They quickly found that while such arms were practical for foot travel and the game found back East, this Western region abounded with bigger and more dangerous animals, such as the ferocious grizzly and buffalo. Even game like the elk needed more power to bring down; more surely then available in most of the Eastern rifles. Furthermore, much Western travel was accomplished via horseback, thus requiring a heavier and sturdier-built longarm.Enter the plains rifles. These stockier, less ornate front loaders of bigger bores, like the .50 caliber and larger, were what frontiersmen needed to take out many of the game animals encountered out West. Early guns had full-length stocks like the Eastern rifles, but a half-stock rifle turned out to be ideal for work in Western environs. The half stock, turned out by renown rifle smiths such as the Hawken brothers in St. Louis, Missouri, became the standard long gun well into the 1860s and beyond.