Not really liking this overall rifle design.
A couple issues I have, they have brass ramrod thimbles and then the ramrod uses silver end pieces. The wedge key plates are also silver. To much going on here!
The stock is very bulky and the wrist is short which gives it a funky short stubby look.
I do like the rear sight, all except that the actual sight sits, 2 3/8" behind the dovetail. Way to close to the shooters eye and makes the rear sight extremely difficult to see clearly.
Now what really though me off is the fact that they are using a heavy 1" barrel on this rifle! This rifle is a little over 8lbs which I think is a lot for a 28" barrel Hawken.
The trigger is inletted to deeply and requires the shooter to set the trigger so the sear clears the trigger bar. I will have to shim it later on to fix this problem.
The tang is spring like steel and has a ton of springiness to it, which makes getting a perfect rock solid fit very impossible. The barrel is loaded up with pressure/springiness which I always try to remove, but is impossible on this rifle.
The lock fits nice and tight with great inletting, tightest inletting ive ever seen with a traditions. However, inside the lock panel, they did not remove enough wood, so all the internals are rubbing tightly against the wood, locking it up. Not happy with this at all!
The overall feel of the rifle feels great, it feels like a real gun, hefty, strong feeling, beautiful balance, just looks funny right now! I want to try to thin this stock out as much as possible and try to make it look clean.
The fish belly stock once again has appeared and IMO, this is what gives the stock an ugly look.
You see what I mean about the rear section of stock and that fish belly? Its just huge and unattractive! To help, I will shape the stock with the hawken style thumb hook to break up the stock outline. But that lower half, holy crap! Im at a loss of what I could do to help it. I sure would hate to cut it straight and mess it up, but man....
