Traditional Muzzleloading Association
Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons => Reenactors and Traditional Muzzleloaders => Topic started by: Rob DiStefano on December 31, 2025, 09:08:35 AM
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...by the pioneer mountain men and later in the Civil War?
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The American fur trade era (roughly 1800-1840) was largely dominated by lightweight flintlock muskets known as Northwest Trade Guns, popular with Native Americans for general hunting, alongside heavier, more accurate rifles like the Hawken , and large-caliber "dragoon" pistols for traders and mountain men, with firearms evolving from early flintlocks to percussion systems by the end of the era.
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Where does the Hawken fit into the mountain man era?
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Where does the Hawken fit into the mountain man era?
Roughly mid to late era.
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That's what I kinda figured, Rondo. Also read somewhere that Rev war muskets were used as well by some of those hardy men!
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That's what I kinda figured, Rondo. Also read somewhere that Rev war muskets were used as well by some of those hardy men!
Many types of arms made it west at that time, ranging anywhere from fowlers to squirrel rifles, but from what studies I've done NWTG's were the most prevalent. The NWTG was a rather popular trade item with the indians and many trappers carried them as well.
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Also what I have heard about the NWTG.
Also from what I have read, the Hawken rifle was rather expensive compared to all the smoothies and the rifled trade guns. Only the better healed could afford one, Jim Bridger, etc.
I think the movies in a large part have helped fuel the thought that the Hawken was on every mountain man's saddle. That and the T/C Hawken.
Although the squirrel rifles and long rifles could have made a western trek, they were not up to the task of the larger game found in the west.
That's about all that I have read about the situation.
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Yep, what I read too, that the squirrel guns weren't up to the West's critters and also that long guns weren't fun on horseback and many got bobbed down to 36", more or less.
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Id agree with everything above , not much I can add.
I imagine one could find just about any and all types of smokers on the range from NWTG to Ferguson's to contract rifles.
Run what ya brung until you could afford to up grade .
Kevin
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The Civil War was fought right in the middle of a major firearms transition, so you see a real mix of old and new technology on the battlefield. Most infantrymen carried percussion-cap rifled muskets like the Springfield 1861 or the British Enfield, firing the Minie ball and giving soldiers much better range and accuracy than earlier smoothbores. Early in the war, though, plenty of troops -especially in the South- were still using smoothbore muskets such as the old .69 caliber Springfields, often loaded with buck-and-ball for brutal close-range fighting. Cavalrymen and specialists tended to carry shorter carbines like the Sharps, Burnside, or Spencer, and in a few units, repeating rifles like the Spencer or Henry really changed the game with their higher rate of fire. For sidearms, percussion revolvers from Colt and Remington in .36 and .44 caliber were the norm and showed up everywhere.