That movie was 43 years ago.
Yep but it still doesn’t change that movies like Jeremiah Johnson. Who by the way was truly known more for his lever action guns NOT a hawkens gun , which by the way seems to never have been made in the caliber suggested by the movie .
Movies like The Mountain Men , Man of the Mountains , Winter hawk… all became a base for the buck skinning movement with its image of a Fur Trapper clad in a fur skin hat , full buckskins and a so called Hawkens gun slung across his Spanish saddle .
Problem is that there is very little supporting such an image , be it the gun or the way of dress . However the movies ingrained it into our minds . Manufactures jumped on the wagon producing what they called a Hawkens Gun .
But as was said before , the hawkens didn’t make a hawkens gun , they made plains rifles , which were similar of earlier European sporting rifles . They were not alone however and as I said produce rather small qualities of less then 300 guns a year . Factually by their own records averaging more around 150 a year and most of those were destined for the south west fur trade NOT the Northern Rocky mountian fur trade . which is most often thought of when thinking of the so called Mountain men.
But again the Manufactures jumped in and started offering what they called a Hawkens gun . Funny thing , none looked like a Hawkens. Those that were very close , Like the Browning , Ithicas , CVA MT and couple others , Did not refer to their guns as hawkens .
Ironically until Deer Creek started reproducing the CVA mountain rifle and Lyman the GPR , the guns that did resemble True Hawkens made guns , had fell away . Thus leaving the CVA St Louis , the Thompson lines or Traditions .
So I find it very hard to accept that Hawkens stand on their own merit as that merit simply doesn’t exist . What does however exist is the misconception that every half stock was a Hawkens or that the hawkens set the line for the ½ stock design . Neither can be substantiated .
Here are a few photos or original guns which ones are hawkens , no fair cheeting
also can you pick the ones that were the most exspensive and most likly not within the price range of the avarge trapper ?
there has been allot of information put out and if one wants to actually start doing some research on the subject i would recommend the AMM web site and its links to documentation, a very good place to start its by no means the end all on the subject .
they also have some links to fur trade museums as well as their own online museum showing the most common items , to include guns .
http://www.mtmen.org/
but anyway . this isnt to say that the Hawklens made guns were not good guns . To say other wise would be a mistake . however that doesnt change the fact that makers like Derringer ,Leman , Lewis , Hummel , Derrick , and countless other makers from the east, were far more likly to to be seen