200th Anniversary Hawken by Jim Parker, Celebrating the Hawken | Masonic Mountain Men
Hi I'm Ethan, I love muzzleloading today we're at the Masonic Mountain Men booth at the 2023 NRA show in Indianapolis Indiana. We're talking with long rifle Builder Jim Parker about his 200th anniversary J&S Hawken rifle. It's being used as a fundraiser to one raise awareness for the 200th Anniversary of the Hawken rifle as well as raising funds for Shriners Hospitals.
Artist Jim Parker details the build below:
This rifle is built on a on the plans that were made by I believe the boy's name is Thibodaux. He drew a complete set of Hawken plans of an original Hawken and that's what I use to build this rifle from. The barrel is a custom barrel by Charlie Burton out of Kentucky and he made the barrel to my specifications with the straight tapered 1 1/16” to the one inch tapered barrel. All the parts, the trigger guard and the nose cap and the butt plate came from the Hawken Shop and the stock is a stock that I've had drying for probably 30 years. All the other parts like the patch box are my creation. I kind of based this on the rifle that was made for a a relatively famous guy, the rifle is Loosely based on the Riverboat Hawken, so it's kind of a combination of the Riverboat rifle and some of my creative juices thrown in there so but it's a it's a great piece.
It's a 58 caliber we're trying to keep the caliber in the range of the original guns. I’m not a real Hawken authority, but I tried to use the good plans and I think those plans are some of the best plans that's ever been made on the Hawken rifle and Hawken shop parts so it should be a pretty true representation of what Sam and Jacob were building when they were in business.
I'd like to thank Jim for giving me the opportunity to sit down and film with him a little bit catch a little bit of the story behind this entire project and the team putting it on as well as the craftsmanship that went into this Hawken.
Walking around the NRA show there's not a whole lot of muzzle loading so it's always nice to be able to sit and talk with a Muzzleloading Enthusiast like Jim and the team at the Masonic Mountain Men Association here raising funds for a good cause and I think that's something that we see a lot in the muzzleloading community and it's something that really makes us special and sets the community apart from many others. There's the dedication both to history and the sport and the craft as well as to the the greater community at large and the willingness to raise funds for a good cause.