*let the page load fully
before you scroll,lots of pictures !
this page
is dedicated to mamaflinter who without i wouldnt have found out about
ted hatfield and met bludragonfyre to get my first hatfield rifle as without
either one of these fine people i'd still be in the dark without
a rifle.........many many thanx for helping me out and to all the fine
muzzleloaders who have furnished the info i sought after to create this
page !!!!!!!.
*note theyre is a lot yet to be discovered since moses hatfields great great grandson decided to build his rifle after a long recess in production,some say devil anse hatfield built this rifle others say moses did,only time itself knows but here is much info i have gathered including the makers who made it after ted sold his company and went on........also more pics of various hatfields on the bottom of this page so let it load fully.
here is what i have gathered so far as to what ted used for locks and parts on his rifles,the rest is on who bought the company down the line and finally pedersoli is making the same rifle now called the frontier rifle in 4 versions.
thanx all for the info,im slowly gettin some in bit by bit to unravel his rifles somewhat.i found out when ted made them he had used several locks as one person who emailed me had said he did that in the start up of his buisness,
but the majority of them had ketland import locks ,to the best of my knowledge theyre not that hot either but some were good locks just not well known.
as far as the pedersoli locks made now go theyre alot better than from many years back but i dont think theyre an exact fit in ted hatfields mortice cut on the stocks from his time making them,so if repair is needed try to get the lock parts themselves from ketland,l&r classic or golden age locks have been seenon on them,as well as a couple with siler locked mortice cuts
i am still trying to find out what other locks he had used as well before missouri river rifle works bought him out though,M.R.R.W. had used the l&r classic or what was known as the golden age lock some time ago and can still be gotten thru jim chambers or track of the wolf,the l&r locks measurements were a tad smaller lengthwise in the classic lock vs the longer tailed golden age lock.
also after the missouri works i think that wilderness arms may have bought them after mrrw did as they had offered a rifle as well which featured a different cut on the wrist portion of the stock and comb but retained the 2 flutes alongsides the ramrod in the forestock.they also used a ketland lock as well.
ted had used 39" inch sharon barrels in his and later green mountains i am told with 36 caliber with a 1:48 twist and in .45,.50 calibers with a 1:70 twist at least in the rifles that M.R.R.W. had used with green mt. barrels to my knowledge at least,the sharon barrels were extremly accurate as well and i think but aint sure that they were all 1/48 twist for mini/patchball usage.if any one knows for sure please let me know.some were said also to have used mowrey barrels as well at one point in time.
now the wilderness arms rifles had also used an imported large style ketland lock as well,unmarked with the hatfield name,the frizzen springs on these were notorius for being thin and a bit weak in power,sometimes being an import lock flashed thru the assembly line without as much care being taken with it as others were at times,held in the mortice by just one plate screw and a rather large brass surface mounted sideplate that should have been inletted as well as its trigger gaurd being surface mounted but they werent set it as they should have been,the biggest question i have is who made the locks with hatfield engraved on the side?,also it had a northstar double set trigger group,i am not in knowledge of the barrels used on the wilderness arms rifles but these may have been cut down to 39 inches from a 42 inch green mountain rather,a few rifles i have dug up info on from mrrw had mowrey 32 inch barrels instead of the 39" standard tho!the early ted rifles i believe also used davis triggers as well.
the pedersoli's,the early ones when they ended up with the company had marked the locks hatfield with warented under the hatfield just under the flashpan.
teds locks were just marked hatfield and the wilderness arms locks werent marked at all,the Mrrw folks also had a cutdown version blanket rifle of this one called the companion as well,most people i have talked to said the hatfields were pretty accurate and held 2" at 100 yards.when i am done with mine by spring ill post on its results,
i just wished i could find ted hatfield to get as much info as i can on the locks mystery and more on barrels used......thanx again all whove emailed me with hatfield rifle info
it gets pretty interesting unraveling this mess of unknown
info but hey im still trying to gather as much as possible for a web page
info site on them for all to use who own them.................
here is how it all started................
Only by relying on the latest
manufacturing techniques can Ted Hatfield's company
re-create the craftsmanship
of his great-great-grandfather After a youth that
it would be kind to call
misspent,Ted Hatfield decided it was time to make something of
himself. He had been around
the world twice, driven a bus through the Khyber
Pass, been run over by a
bull in Pamplona, and worked as a hunting guide in
Alaska. He was nearly 30
years old and sensed that it was about time to
settle down and assume some
adult responsibilities. So, typically, Hatfield
chose to go into a nearly
impossible business. He would become a gunmaker.
Hatfield came to that conclusion
at a time when the once-proud U.S. firearms
industry was in a depression
from which it did not seem likely to emerge.
This was in the late 1970s,
when just about all American manufacturing was
in decline. The arms industry
was a victim of the usual problems -- old plants,
entrenched unions, intense
foreign competition, tired methods -- and of a few
problems that were either
unique to or especially acute in gunmaking.
Product liability, for one,
and an increasingly negative image with the public, for another.
Hatfield was bright enough
to be aware of all that and innocent enough to
have virtually no idea of
how formidable the entrepreneurial route can be.
Otherwise, he says, "I might
have just gone back to sea." He had decided to
seek his fortune ashore
after somebody had emptied an old military Colt .45
at him outside a Houston
bar one night . . . but that is another story.
Hatfield did have some things
going for him. First, he is one of those
Hatfields, the ones who
skirmished with generations of McCoys. Some of the
mountain tenacity had bred
true and, just as important, there was a
gunmaking tradition in his
family. In fact, he owned a Pennsylvania long rifle
that had been made by his
great-great-grandfather sometime before the Civil War.
Hatfield knew in 1979
that there was a growing, almost cultish interest in
traditional firearms. Both
sportsmen and collectors were eagerly buying
black-powder rifles. They
were handsome to look at and satisfying to hold.
They fairly breathed tradition
and were fun to shoot.Most of those rifles were custom-made by artisans
who worked alone and might turn out one gun a month. They were often highly
skilled, but they didn't know much about business, and neither, for that
matter, did Hatfield.Not in the traditional sense, anyway. Temperamentally,
he is about as unsuited for the world of offices, meetings, management
seminars, and
ruthless attention to the
numbers as anyone could be. His strengths are his
vast supply of energy and
his appetite for risk. He is most comfortable in the
world of improbables. And
he grew up with guns and loved them; he had taught himself how to take
apart, repair, and rebuild the guns he loved best.A gun was not a mute,
inanimate object to him but something that would respond to his touch.
So he had the talent necessary
to become a good craftsman, but he also
had something else. "I didn't
want to just make guns," he says. "I wanted to
make some money." He thought
there might be a crease in the market
somewhere between the custom-made
guns and those that were
mass-produced and looked
it. He had in mind to produce guns that would not
be custom-made, but would
have custom quality and looks. Something the
black-powder enthusiasts
would want to own. He wasn't sure, but he thought
he could sell several hundred
a year.
He spent a couple of months
in his hometown, St. Joseph, Mo., building a
strikingly faithful replica
of the gun his great-great-grandfather had built. He
packed it and a few hundred
brochures that he'd had printed locally and drove
to a gathering in Indiana,
where black-powder enthusiasts met to dress in the
old buckskin clothes; engage
in shooting contests; and buy, sell, and trade
various items, especially
muzzle-loading rifles.
Hatfield let enthusiasts
handle the gun so they could get the feel of it and admire the
richness of its striped
maple stock. When he left Indiana, he had orders for 20
guns and no idea how he
was going to produce them.That did not deter Hatfield, who had some money
from the deposits he had collected in Indiana and a friendly source at
the local bank. The good relationship was due not to his own financial
history -- not
even a modern savings and
loan would be that reckless -- but to his father's
long and successful run
at a sporting-goods establishment in town.Hatfield rented space in an old
garage and set out to discover what it took to produce guns in the 1980s.
The U.S. firearms industry
-- located for the most part in the Connecticut
River Valley, where it had
been a vital part of the Industrial Revolution --
consisted of large factories
full of machine tools that were run by skilled
workers. They took billets
of steel and, by cutting and drilling in scores of
different operations, changed
them into firearm components. The process
was expensive both in capital
and in the wages paid. Profits depended on
scale. Winchester, Remington,
and the others needed to sell thousands of
guns a year. A small operation
was, by the nature of the industrial process, almost
impossible. The logic
of economies of scale ruled. Someone could, of course, buy a gun or the
components and then assemble, fit, and customize until the end product
was unique.
During World War II, however,
engineers began to experiment with a process
called investment casting,
and developed it in a tentative fashion for arms
making. Poured steel replaced
cut steel. Capital costs were reduced to a
fraction of what they would
have been with the old machine-tool, drill-press factory system.The man
who recognized investment casting's civilian implications and
exploited them is William
Ruger, one of the most able gunmakers since the
legendary John Browning.
Ruger's company has been the one happy story in
U.S. large-scale arms manufacturing
since World War II.
Ted Hatfield is, in some
sense, the spiritual heir of Ruger on a smaller scale.
For Ruger, everything begins
with the product. When he brought out a single-shot rifle in the 1960s,
it was against all the wisdom of the trade.Americans, the line went, wanted
their guns to have lots of firepower. They wouldn't buy anything but a
repeating rifle. But Ruger's simple, elegant single-shot has been a tremendous
success.
"I built it because I'd
always been fascinated by the old drop-block buffalo
rifles, and I figured if
I liked those rifles, then a lot of other American shooters would too,"
Ruger says. That is his market test.
Hatfield, too, began with
a product he trusted and his intuition proved correct
in the market. But he had
to find a way to get the gun into production. He
quickly discovered that,
thanks to Ruger's pioneering work, he didn't need to
buy any machine tools or,
for that matter, pay to have any steel cut. All the
parts could be cast in small
foundries. He merely needed to find a supplier,
make the necessary forms,
and put in an order. He was able to subcontract
the work."Ruger," he says,
"revolutionized the whole business and some of the big
boys never realized it or
admitted it. They were stuck with those huge
factories and all those
machine tools and unions, and they went broke. And if
they didn't go broke, they
are struggling. They just got left behind. They're
right there on the cutting
edge of technology -- about 50 years ago."
With the money he had taken
in deposits and some additional liquidity
supplied by the bank, Hatfield
ordered the metal parts that he needed. He
could order in quantity
and do the assembly himself in the garage. But he
still had to make the stocks,
the wooden portions of the guns, and they had
to be made right, since
the stock is an integral part of a muzzle-loader.
"Without the wood," Hatfield
says, "all you have is a pile of parts. And if the
wood isn't cut just right,
you've got a gun that won't shoot straight."
Since there is no way to
cast wood, Hatfield bought an old lathe and began
turning stocks."That
thing probably made stocks for rifles that were used in the
Spanish-American War," he
says. Besides being obsolete, the machine was limited. Once the stock had
been turned to shape, there were still another 10 cuts that had to be made
for the barrel well, the ramrod sleeve, the barrel tang, and the rest.
Hatfield
improvised some jigs and,
using some handyman tools, was able to make all the necessary cuts. But
it was a slow process. "We were looking at a limit of 200 guns a year,
and I wasn't going to make any money at that level. I wanted to make 200
a month. I knew I could sell them. I just had to figure out how to make
them."
Hatfield made as many guns
as he could and set out to educate himself
about the available technology.
For a while, it seemed that everything was
either too big and expensive
or too small and specialized. Then he learned about computer numerically
controlled milling."That's what broke it open for me. Before that, I didn't
know the first thing about computers -- still don't know much -- but I
learned to love those rascals."
Traditional machine tools
are designed to perform one task -- one cut, say,
across the face of a block
of wood or steel. To make the 10 cuts in a Hatfield
stock, a production line
would require 10 machines -- an assembly line. The
cost of the machines would
make such an assembly line prohibitive unless
Hatfield could use thousands
of stocks. A CNC milling machine can perform
all 10 functions with no
physical adjustments. Each function is controlled by
a program that is run on
an ordinary personal computer. The tool is adapted
to the product, and limited
runs are possible. Hatfield found a CNC operation
in South Dakota that could
turn out a stock in seven minutes on one machine
and would handle any order,
no matter how small. The main capital outlays
were for a set of engineering
diagrams and the writing of a computer program.
"I jobbed that out," Hatfield
says, "and was happy to do it."I wanted to be a businessman, and I wanted
to make guns," he says. "No way I could have done both 20 years ago. Not
making the kind of guns I make. I would have had to own a factory and,
at the kind of numbers I'm dealing in, that would have been out of the
question. I wouldn't make enough in 50 years to pay off what it would cost
me to tool up.
"I'll tell you the way I
see what I'm doing," Hatfield continues. "I'm trying to
make a product according
to the standards of the old American craftsmen, who were perfectionists
and also liked to put a little personality into their work. And I'm trying
to do it with the very latest technology. It seems like kind of a strange
mix, but it works."
Once he had located the subcontractors
and ordered the necessary parts,
Hatfield began delivering
guns and taking orders, working out of the basement
of a liquor store and relying
on receivables and borrowed money for cash.
Sales of his first model
have grown by 100% annually in spite of the fact that
the black-powder craze peaked
and then crashed in the early '80s.
Why?
According to Sam Fadala,
an expert in the field of muzzle-loaders who is widely published on the
subject, the reasons can be found in both the product and the producer.
"In the first place, the gun is genuine. There really was a gun like it,
made more than 150 years ago. I looked it up and compared them. Hatfield
went to some pains to make a true replica."And then," Fadala goes on, "he
does real good work. The materials and the workmanship are first class.
I had a gun editor out here at my house, in Wyoming, and I showed him my
Hatfield and we took it out and shot it 30 times without a misfire. In
today's flintlocks, that's extraordinary."Fadala says that Hatfield's personality
has also contributed to the success of the gun. "This is a small world,
and people know Ted Hatfield and his reputation. They know he is more interested
in making a quality piece than in gouging his customer."
But Hatfield is also a businessman,
and it was always his ambition to be more than a small gunmaker. The black-powder
market, he knew, was limited. He could make and
sell only so many guns.
What he needed was another product.So Hatfield again followed the example
of Bill Ruger -- he made a gun that pleased him."Actually," he says, "I'm
not much of a black-powder enthusiast. I like the guns and I like to make
them, but I don't get all carried away with shooting them. When I was growing
up here in Missouri, what I liked to do was hunt birds with a side-by-side
double."
Perhaps because it has no military ancestry, the side-by-side shotgun is widely considered the most refined expression of the pure gunmaking art. It is a gun that English gentlemen used on their estates at the lavish driven shoots. At these shoots, a gentleman went into the field with a brace of fine doubles, and while his loader broke and reloaded one, he fired the other.English craftsmanship made these guns as light and clean and elegant as possible.
The great English guns with names like Purdey, Boss, and Holland & Holland have become collectibles and, often priced at $50,000 and more, are almost too valuable to shoot. One expert estimates that there are probably fewer than 100 side-by-sides made annually in England, and that number will almost certainly not increase. The death of the old system of long,impoverished apprenticeships ensures that.The classic American side-by-side was never as elegant. Many of the Parkers were mass-produced and sold off the rack. They were made -- and made well -- for ordinary American hunters. But after World War II, the average American hunter became enchanted with repeaters. The old side-by-side faded from the scene.
At the same time, sport in
America had taken an upscale turn. The vaguely Anglican sensibility for
fly-fishing and of upland bird shooting with classic
guns had begun to spread,
owing, perhaps, to increased affluence and
promotion by retailers like
The Orvis Co., whose image was -- and still is --saturated with the old
sporting virtues.Hatfield sensed there was a market for a good American
side-by-side. Orvis was selling Spanish-made guns. The few English guns
available sold for astounding prices. (That holds true today. You can order
a Purdey now for $40,000 and put down half of that price; but when the
gun is delivered, a year
and a half later, the balance
due will almost certainly be more than $20,000.)
The Italians were making
good side-by-sides. Browning had a gun that was
made in Korea and Japan.
Winchester still made a few of its top-of-the-line guns. But there was
no readily available American side-by-side. Hatfield, who had rebuilt a
Parker just for the fun of it and was familiar with the workings of the
classic American guns, went to work, applying the new technology with which
he was now so familiar. In 1985 he came out with his prototype, a 20-gauge
with short barrels and the same striped maple stock found on his muzzle-loader.He
made the rounds with the gun, displaying it at shows, lending it to sporting
writers, and generally making sure the word got out. The response was cautious
interest. Many side-by-side enthusiasts had become convinced that Americans
could no longer produce a quality side-by-side. They were
troubled by the maple stock
-- in their minds, a side-by-side required a walnut
stock. The gun was not as
slender as a Purdey either.
Hatfield had answers for
the critics. Maple, he said, had been used for stocks
before walnut and by any
measure was better wood. "People started using
walnut when curly maple
got too expensive. Besides, I like the way it looks."
As for the less than imperial
lines, Hatfield says: "Well, it is a little tubbier
than a Purdey. And a Jeep
looks a little burly sitting next to a Jaguar. Hell,
it's an American gun. That's
the heritage I was looking at when I designed it. I wasn't trying to build
a Purdey."
Hatfield sold his first
shotgun in 1986 and had orders for all he could make: some 40 guns.This
year he will sell 600, in five grades. The lowest-grade gun sells for around
$2,500, the highest for
$6,900. The differences between them are in small touches
and custom engraving. It
is, of course, at the top of the line that he sees the potential for growth."We're
getting people who want to own this gun for the right reasons. Last
year there was a vice-president
from Westinghouse whose associates flew him down here by executive jet
when he retired, so we could measure him and fit him for a gun and he could
pick out the blank we'd use to make his stock and he could talk to the
engraver."
Last summer, Hatfield
finished work on an elaborately customized gun
commissioned by a personal
friend as a gift for George Bush, complete with
the Presidential seal in
gold inlay on the floor plate.Lionel Atwill, a contributing editor at Field
and Stream magazine, remembers meeting Hatfield five years ago, when he
was showing the prototype of the side-by-side. "Back then, we all thought
it was great that Ted was willing to try. But we didn't give him much chance
of making it. What's so admirable about the story is that Ted knew there
was a market there, even if it was
small, and found a way to
sell to that market by innovation and hard work. He didn't try to cheat
on the product or the market. He used the most modern technology available
to produce something that earlier technology had made obsolete or economically
impractical."In the process, Hatfield's company remained a privately held
corporation.
He experienced early problems
with quality control, staggered orders, untrained
labor, long hours, and all
the other agonies of an infant business. He kept working, kept borrowing,
laid people off when he had to, and at one time or another did everything
that needed to be done himself.Hatfield's estimated sales last year were
close to $2.5 million. (He doesn't like to say how much his business grosses.)
By early this year he had back orders for almost 2,000 guns and had gone
to two shifts. His biggest problem
was the old perennial --
lack of capital. "I talk to my banker more than I'd like to," he confesses.
By then he was in a
large old brick building in the middle of St. Joseph. One
side of the building housed
a bar and hamburger restaurant. "Seems like it is
just my destiny to be in
alcohol and firearms," Hatfield says. "Moonshine and
muzzle-loaders are my life."He
is wearing blue jeans and a faded chamois shirt when I meet him at his
new quarters, and he wipes his hands on a rag before shaking my hand."Caught
me working," he says, as he leads me out back, to where the guns
are assembled.Muzzle-loaders
and side-by-sides rest upright in racks. They are in various stages of
completion. Some stocks are dry and rough, others have been
sanded, and a few have been
oiled and rubbed down with steel wool until they gleam.
The guns' barrels and actions
are a dull shade between silver and gray before
they have been dipped in
the bluing solution. The blued steel parts, which are
ready to be fitted on the
stocks, have the slightly ominous cast one associates with arms.The work
is done almost entirely by young women. They are unskilled, hourly
employees and are trained
in one or two basic tasks -- sanding, oiling,rubbing.
Hatfield oversees everything
and does the final assembly and fitting of the
side-by-sides himself, working
at a bench that is littered with the tools of his
trade -- hollow-ground screwdrivers,
taps, punches, files, and soldering irons.
He works with studied patience,
taking a micron off with the file, then trying
the metal-to-metal fit two
or three times before he picks up the file and
makes another soft stroke.
The tools and the gun, the pace of the work, and
the smell of linseed oil.
. . it is all satisfyingly redolent of a different time.
A man is bent over a bench,
carefully engraving the image of a quail in gold on the floor plate of
a finished gun. The engraver, Dennis Pitts, wears wire-rimmed spectacles
and has long, wild hair. Hatfield has known him "oh, just about forever."
He sent Pitts to Italy to perfect his technique. "But what he does," Hatfield
says, "is more in the
American tradition. Bolder
and broader than the European style."
Hatfield works for
an hour to get the fit just right. When the gun is ready, he
carries it to a rack where
the finished guns rest, waiting for a final inspection
and then shipment."Man in
Illinois bought that one for his wife. She liked his so much that henever
got to shoot it."He wipes his hands on the rag again and says, "How about
a beer and some lunch?"At a table next door, he talks about his plans.
"Well, I've never had a business plan, you know. It was just make as many
guns as I could, sell
them, and take more orders.
But now I've got a financial adviser, and we're
working up a three-year
plan. The way he sees it, I can go one of three ways:
I can go public, I can sell
to someone bigger and keep running the company,
or I can buy some machinery
-- investment casting and CNC -- and start making components for myself
and taking orders from other businesses."
Which way will he go?"I
don't know," he says. "Whichever way makes the most sense
economically, I suppose."
He doesn't say this with much enthusiasm, and
one senses that he might
already miss the days when he was on the road
with one of his prototypes,
taking orders and immersing himself in the details of the technology that
enabled him to succeed. The stability of a three-year plan probably does
not stir his blood much.
Hatfield has recently made
a prototype of a double rifle, like the old safari
guns. He believes he can
sell it to Americans who want to hunt in Africa theway Teddy Roosevelt
and Hemingway did. Hatfield especially enjoys describing how he called
an English gunmaker to price an African gun."Told him I was Billy Bob Brewer
from Midland-Odessa and I was thinking about going over to Africa to shoot
something. 'So tell me now, boy,' I said, 'how much you going to charge
me for one of them guns?'
" 'That will be 50,000,
sir,' he said." 'Real money or pounds?'" 'That will be pounds, sir.'
"I told him that sounded
fair, when could I pick it up? He said, 'Three years,'
and I said, 'Hell, boy,
I'm supposed to leave in a month's time. What's the bigholdup?'
"He explained how the gun
had to be fitted and handmade and all that. Got
right snooty about it. All
the time I was thinking how I could make that same
gun and see a profit selling
that thing for $15,000."And you know what?" he says. "I believe I'll make
a better gun, too. Better
looking and better shooting."
He has begun producing a
half-stock muzzle-loader, a replica of the guns
carried by the mountain
men as they roamed the American West. It is an
odd, and oddly satisfying,
juxtaposition. The old guns and the new tools --
especially computers. Workbench
and workstation. A niche where the
Hatfields of the world can
thrive. "It's been a lot of fun," Hatfield says, "and it
beats hell out of going
back to sea."
Another bit of Hatfield.........from
a past issue or muzzleblasts.
*Missouri River Rifle Works
has recently stopped
manufacturing this rifle.
Some years back, Ted Hatfield
began building a pretty good
reproduction Kentucky-style
rifle down in St. Joseph, Missouri.
The gun was a close copy
of rifles built by his
great-great-grandfather,
Moses Hatfield. If you seem to
recognize the name, well
you should. This is the same Hatfield family
of the notorious Hatfield-McCoy
feud from Kentucky and West Virginia.
It is well known as one
of the longest and bloodiest feuds on record
I'm told that it started
when the Hatfields invited the
McCoys over for dinner and
served them a rustled McCoy prized pig and
then bragged about it. When
I was growing up in Idaho, I knew of
ranchers who considered
it bad form to eat their own beef--always
the neighbors'. Never knew
any feuds to start over it, but then maybe
they didn't brag about it
to the cows' owner.At any rate, the Hatfield
rifle was pretty well received
and several were sold, when due to one
thing or another, the company
went dormant for a while. It has
recently been bought out
by Missouri River Rifle Works, 224 North 4th St.,
St Joseph, Missouri 64501.
They are making the same
basic rifle as before with a few changes in
components.The full-stocked
Southern-style rifles all utilize select
curly maple.The guns balance
and point well. Relief cuts parallel
to the ramrod extend from
the entry pipe to the muzzle end of the
wood, giving a long, thin
look to a forend that is rather wide for
this style rifle. The overall
effect is a graceful, well designed
rifle.The overall length
is 54+ inches with a 13+-inch pull and 3+-inch
drop at the heel. The guns
are available in .36 caliber with a
1:48 twist and in .45 and
.50 calibers with a 1:70 twist. These
are definitely round ball
guns. The barrel is 39 inches long. A .32
caliber with a 13/16 inch
barrel is also available as a custom
shop option, as are silver
or brass inlays, brass nose caps,
patch boxes, engraving,
adjustable rear sights, and iron hardware.
Guns come standard with brass
buttplate, trigger guard, and
ramrod ferrules, and a plain,
uncapped forend. Iron sights are
standard blade front and
buckhorn rear. Set triggers, styled
correctly for the rifle,
complete the system.
The locks and triggers are
made by L R Lock Company and are
interchangeable between
percussion and flint. A touch-hole liner is
used for flint, and drum
and nipple for percussion,
making this interchange
possible.Barrels are made by Green Mountain.
When asked to evaluate this
rifle, I
requested a flintlock in
.50 caliber for a couple of reasons. First,
it doesn't take much of
a lock to crush a percussion cap. A bent
nail and rubber band can
be made to work. A flintlock, on the
other hand, has to be of
pretty good quality to produce
dependable ignition time
after time. Hence, I like to evaluate flint
versions whenever possible.
The reason for the larger caliber is
that many of these guns
with fairly severe drop are pretty to look
at but serious cheek bone
attackers when shot in
heavy-recoiling calibers.
I'm built with long arms and a neck like
an ostrich, so they tend
to get after me worse than most.
I'm happy to report that
the lock, typical of L & R products,
sparks very well and I experienced
no problems with it. It was
sure-fire every time, assuming
that I did my part by keeping a
sharp flint. The set triggers
were solid and broke cleanly, again
pretty much what one would
expect from an L & R product.
When I received the rifle,
I wiped the barrel free of oil
preparatory to shooting.
There was a definite obstruction in the
vicinity of the touch hole
liner. On pulling the breech plug, it was
noted that the touch hole
liner extended into the bore of the
barrel for something like
a sixteenth of an inch. While this would
probably have little effect
upon shooting, it certainly would make
it nearly impossible to
clean past the touch hole and would lead
to a build up of fouling
and other gunk between breech plug face
and touch hole liner. I
removed the touch hole liner and
shortened it so that it
was no longer that the thickness of the
barrel wall. While I had
it out, I also coned the inside a bit more.
The double set triggers
are double acting, that is, the lock can
be tripped with the front
trigger unset. This is an important safety
feature as the lock can
be uncocked without having to deal with
a set hair trigger. It's
also handy for hunting as the front trigger
can be held back as the
gun is cocked and then released with
the hammer held firmly back.
The hammer is then lowered into
the full cock notch. This
eliminates the click when the lock is
cocked. That's a handy trick
when that big buck is close enough
to hear you cock your rifle.
After working over the touch
hole liner, I took the gun to the range
for the true test. Would
it shoot? Lock time and ignition were
very fast and accuracy was
very good with no breaking-in
required for good groups.
This is what I have come to expect
from Green Mountain barrels
over the years. I've never had a
problem with any of their
barrels and I've shot a bunch of them.
I used a .490 Hornady swedged
round ball patched with .015"
Ox-Yoke Wonder Patches.
Loads ranged from 65 to 100 grains
Elephant brand 3Fg. All
loads shot well. I was able to hold
100-yard groups of a couple
of inches quite easily. This is about
as well as I'm capable of
shooting with open sights and eyes
considerably over 40. Recoil
was very tolerable. The stock
handles it very well and
I found it a fun gun to shoot. In fact, I
enjoyed the little rifle
so much that after the work session at the
range was over, I took horn
and pouch and spent a couple of
hours walking the woods
and creek shooting at knots on stumps
and dirt clods at various
distances. The gun shoots and handles well.
I was impressed by the workmanship
and quality of this rifle.
Other than the touch hole
liner glitch, the rifle shoots well out of
the box. The front sight
is higher than required, making the rifle
shoot low, but this is a
plus, to my way of thinking. After you work
up the load you intend to
use and get good shot groups, it is a
small matter to file a bit
off the front sight to bring the group up to
your point of aim. The sights
are not adjustable so the tall front
sight allows you to adjust
for your particular load and sight
picture. Shooters often
see open sights differently and use
different sight pictures.
Not much can be done with a short front
sight that causes you to
shoot high.
Missouri River Rifle Works
also makes a half-stocked rifle called
The Hatfield Hawken. This
one sports a Mowry Gun Works
barrel and L & R Hawken-style
lock. Stock style is basically the
same as the full stock rifle.
The .50 caliber barrel is 32 inches
long, one inch across the
flats, and features a steel under rib and
Hawken-style breech. This
one is available from the Custom
Shop. They also offer a
"Blanket Gun" cut-down version of the
full-stock rifle called
the Companion.
It's entirely American made
and has some tradition behind it. As Ted
Hatfield said some years
back, "It's not a reproduction. It's a
continuation of production
after a few years' recess."
Various
Makers Hatfield Rifle Pics.
An early ted hatfield rifle.
A Wilderness Arms Hatfield,note
the stock cut.
A Missouri River Rifle Works
Hatfield.
The M.r.r.w. L&R "classic"lock
on the rifle.note no hatfield is engraved on the side.....
The pedersoli frontier rifle
comes in 4 models all with hatfield styled lines and one custom version
.
kens percussion hatfield ! note
*his lock is also marked hatfield as well as the barrel graved with the
hatfield name and also warrented under the hatfield logo on the lock !
interesting stuff!
Here is Trapper Gene's Wilderness
Rifle Works hatfield,its called the Cumberland Rifle.note the similarities
between this and the Wilderness Arms Rifle above,we think they may be one
and the same company.W.r.r. is located in indiana and is now Deer Creek
Rifles, Ken saidthis rifle was bought a few years ago in 97 or 98
so its a recent make,it sports a ketland lock and the barrel is believed
to be made on an old Douglas barrel machine.
