I recently purchased this firearm. I was sort of looking for a utilitarian black powder rifle to give me an extra week at the beginning of deer season. Smith357 talked me into this one.

It is marked "Western Arms Corp Santa Fe, N.M." "Jedediah Smith, 1799-1831". "xxx of 1000" on the tang. It appears to be in excellent condition with minor storage dings. I'm not sure if it has been fired, it doesn't show any signs of it to me, but I am far from an expert.

Pictures by Smith357:





















Through a little internet research I was able to find out that these were imported in the mid '70s starting in 1975.

I found the following on a several year old thread from another forum. I don't know if it is true or not, but it makes a good story:

Pedersoli Rocky Mountain Hawken Rifle - Topic

"As I remember it Allen Arms Manufacturing (or similar name) of Santa Fe, who also marketed Western Arms guns, had requests from customers in the 1970's for a Hawken rifle. The Masonic Lodge in Santa Fe had a Hawken donated by Kit Carson who had been a member (rifle since moved to a national/State museum(?)). They agreed that blueprints could be made. Allen Arms approached Uberti to make 1000 exact copies of the original but in .54 calibre. Uberti shipped them with Uberti and .54 stamped on the breech but mistakenly with the actual bore still .53 as per the blueprints (the way to identify that original custom order). Allen Arms were selling them for about $700-800 which proved a little too expensive for the market. A little later the young Uberti son who was running the USA side of the business thought Uberti could sell a cheaper version and they produced their own, the Uberti Santa Fe Hawken which they sold via their agents/importers. It looked similar, was stamped .54 and the bore was also .54. A good gun but not up to the quality of the Allen Arms special order."

My bore is .53

__________________
Dave