That's true Marty, I spend a lot of my time talking to suppliers about pricing, quality of the different parts and any issues they have heard about different parts.
Pete I have a H.E. Leman Indian Trade Rifle (fullstock) and a J&S Hawken (fullstock) both in .50 cal. Jonathan wrote a report on the Hawken when he had the gun for various services which ended up being just applying a different finish and sighting it in, eveything we were planning on doing had already been done at the time of the build.
Both guns are flint, the Leman has a single trigger while the Hawken uses the double triggers, both guns have a 3-4 lb trigger pull. Personally I like the single trigger of the Leman but the appearance of the Hawken. Both of these guns were on the money copies of originals that GRRW had at their shop to copy and make the prints that Track of the Wolf sell today. All the guns we offer today are copies of original guns either purchased or loaned to GRRW.
The only weapon that's just slightly different is the NW Trade Gun in .50 cal. copied from an original seen at the Denver Museum of Natural History 40 years ago. This smoothbore weights 10 pound because of the barrel thickness, otherwise its the same as any other good copy of a NWG. Being heavy makes the .50 cal. shoot like a .36 cal. (just heavy).
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