Who Is Doc White (The Man Behind GRRW) ....

Who Is Doc White (The Man Behind GRRW) ....

Doc White takes a deep and abiding interest in the technology of modern day muzzleloading, contributing to it through design innovation, perceptive writing and ongoing research. He also builds high-art carved, engraved and inlaid Kentucky rifles, Jaegers and double guns, as well as plainer Hawkens and Fowlers.

Doc understands that the structure of muzzleloading is undergoing a vast change. Muzzleloading is popular because of its historical structure, the romance of primitive weapons used to open and conquer a vast country. But he also understands that form preserves structure, that the change in muzzleloading technology we are currently experiencing does not destroy muzzleloading, but preserves it. The traditionalist should celebrate the resurgence of modern-day muzzleloading, not deride it, as it preserves all forms of muzzleloading even as it changes.

“Doc” has been in muzzleloading for over 65 years, as an entrepenuer, inventor-designer, muzzleloading writer-philosopher and gunsmith. He’s also sat on the board of directors of the National Muzzeleloading Rifle Association and participated in the acquisition of muzzleloading hunting seasons across the nation. He held better than a dozen muzzleloading “top tens” in the SCI record book.

• * To give the muzzleloading hunter/shooter the best and most useful information there is.
  
  * To contribute to the fund of muzzeloading wisdom available to the beginning and advanced hunter/shooter.
  
  * To make muzzleloading hunting/shooting simpler and more fruitful as well as more enjoyable.
  
  * To eradicate the frustration and confusion associated with muzzleloading.
  
  * To follow the ABC’s of muzzleloading, promoting (‘A’), accuracy, (‘B’) better ballistics and (‘C’) conserve the resource.
  

Doc’s Designs & Inventions

The following is a listing of DOC’s designs and inventions. Some of them became fairly famous, some went nowhere. DOC always was the inventive sort, born with an Idealist personality with only a little bit of Rational thrown in as a weak second. As such, inventing was second nature. Teaching the doctrine of the inventions came just as naturally. All this was a profound influence in his life, culminating in the organization of Green River Rifle Works back in the 1970’s and then White Systems/White Rifles in 1991.

It should be obvious that I didn’t invent the Hawken Rifle. Sam and Jake Hawken did, using the best of American barrels with their deep grooves and slow twist for round ball and mounting it in a stock that , except for the curved American buttplate, looked very much like an English Sporting rifle. I had the privilege of handling quite a number of Hawkens, 32 of them if I remember right, shooting two of that number back in the 1960’s and 70’s, when they were cheap and first coming to fame and prominence. Most are now in permanent collections and are worth a fortune.

The Hawken

It is a complex rifle and did not lend itself to easy manufacture, which is why most modern ‘Hawkens’ are barely similar to the real thing. As ardent traditional muzzleloading enthusiasts, we at GRRW wanted to make our rifles as close to the real thing as possible. The effort resulted in me designing the tools to manufacture the gun as quickly and efficiently as possible. A 6 place furniture carver helped, it at least roughly formed the gunstock. A series of small single use mills were developed and used to cut the lock mortise, buttplate curve, tang and trigger plate mortise. These tools facilitated the handwork that completed the inletting of the gunstock to fit the parts. All the Hawkens produced in those early days were custom, but many of the parts were standard which eased the use of the small machines. Even with the machines, it took about 40 hours of labor to fully finish a Hawken rifle, including manufacturing the barrel, fitting the breech and tang, carving the stock, cutting in the mortises, then hand fitting each part, then file finish shaping, sanding, staining and varnishing the stock. In the meantime the metal parts, once fitted, were likewise finish shaped, sanded, polished and then browned. At least 5 skilled workers were involved in the production of a Hawken, or indeed, any GRRW rifle.

The Leman Trade Rifle and Leman Indian Rifle

Doc with the very first Leman Trade Rifle, Alaska, 1974 or so. Leman made rifles of all types and varieties, some cheap for frontier use and some expensive for the gentry. One would almost think that there was a pile of parts in the middle of the floor in Leman’s factory and the smiths grabbed the first available thing for whatever they had in hand. If there was any central theme, it seemed to be tremendous variation.

The Leman Trade Rifle design was a compromise. I designed a plain, easy to manufacture but sturdy and effective hunting rifle that at least in general represented the half stock Leman rifles found on the Western Frontier. Thus the brass furniture, standard inch wide octagon 33 inch barrel, single key, single trigger, plain short tang and drum/nipple combination designed into the final product. It was much easier to manufacture than the Hawken, using its own set of small carving machines. Many were custom ordered, with patch boxes and double set triggers. Most took about half the time to make as did a Hawken, using the same processes and similar tooling.

The Leman Indian Trade Rifle was an amalgamation of the few surviving full stock Leman rifles in Western collections. As we designed it, I say we because I wasn’t the only one interested in the project- “BlueJacket”, Phil Saunders, was especially helpful, it used a thicker 1 1/16th inch octagon barrel again 33″ long (but often shorter on custom order), plus a slightly slimmer full stock in mostly maple or sometimes walnut. The rest of the furniture was standard Leman brass as made for the halfstock with the addition of brass ferrules for the ramrod. It took only a little longer to build than a half-stock Leman. There were relatively few made compared to the half stock. GRRW had their Leman brass butt plate and trigger guard custom cast, using a special black sand (lost wax investment casting was not available then) but the custom made casting plates have long since disappeared, which is sad as the design was especially authentic.

The Poor Boy

There was a demand for a less expensive rifle than the Leman or Hawken in the 1970’s. Our response was the so-called “Poor Boy’. It was full stocked, no butt plate, single trigger, 3 pins instead of keys, two forward ferrules only, no fore-end cap, plain as a yard of pump water kind of rifle. Greg Roberts, who was manager at the time, contributed heavily to the design and final product. His insistence on quality was famous. There was a nail in the tip of the butt and a piece of horn for a toeplate- there were other features, like DST’s, on custom order and at extra cost. GRRW made quite a number of them, but few in comparison to Leman and Hawken rifles. I’ve never seen one back in the market. The small machinery invented for the other guns adapted fairly well in this instance.

The Leman NW Trade Gun

Henry Eichholz Leman was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, March 8, 1812, and died there March 12, 1887. His ancestors had lived in Lancaster County for generations but there is no evidence that any of them were gunmakers. The name was and still is pronounced in three different ways: Lehman, Leamon and Lemon. The gunmaker's local friends and many of his descendants said "Lemon." However, some of Henry's cousins spelled their name Leamon and he himself said that was the correct pronunciation. I'll do the same: if it was good enough for Henry it's good enough for me.

The story of identifying the Lemans as French Huguenots is one told over and over again. Henry Leman was apprenticed at age 16 to Melchior Fordney for three years. He then went to work for George W. Tryon as a journeyman gunsmith in 1831 and stayed there until he opened his own shop in part of his father's brewery in 1834. This combination of training in his youth, three years of apprenticeship to a master workman in the Lancaster style and three years working experience in a busy production shop, probably influenced his development of a cheap production rifle of good quality in a consistently Lancaster style but adapted to the new economic considerations of the developing markets in the South and the West.

During his first year's operations Leman made 250 rifles. His rifle business grew steadily and on November 7, 1837, he received his first government contract for 500 flintlock rifles, triumphing, along with Deringer, Tryon and J. Fordney, over a field of a dozen other makers who submitted rifles for examination and trial. Price of the rifles was $14.00 each and in general they were flintlocks with long patch boxes and barrels about 42 inches long. Each rifle had a woolen cover and was accompanied by a mold, wiper and charger. They were to be packed in boxes of not more than 25 rifles each. First proof was one-half ounce of powder and two patched balls. Second proof was one-half ounce of powder and one patched ball. Finished rifles were inspected. Apparently the contract was completed satisfactorily: he had finished 310 rifles by July 14, 1838.

Indian trade guns and received a government contract to make 500 of them, together with 250 plain powder horns and pouches, on February 8,1842. In August of the same year he was awarded another contract for 600 Northwest guns of two barrel lengths and 300 each of powder horns and shot pouches. He was now in direct competition with the Tryon Company and by 1855 he had eliminated it as a competitor for government Northwest gun contracts. During these years Leman made a wide variety of rifles for the regular civilian market. Many of the surviving specimens are long Lancaster rifles, often stocked in plain maple artifically striped. As early as 1840 he also repaired muskets and other arms for the state at Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Meadville Arsenals.

Leman Northwest guns of the 1850's, 0.60 caliber, 30-inch barrel. Found at the Museum of the Fur Trade, Chadron, Nebraska. The Northwest guns also experienced some evolution in design through the years. Leman's earliest guns were rather heavy and clumsy. The locks used slender and deeply rounded gooseneck hammers and the frizzens were tall and thin with slight curves in the tail. In the 1850s the gooseneck hammers were more substantially made and frizzens had a nearly right angle with straight tails like U.S. muskets. The stocks became more graceful with slender wrists and thinner forestocks. In its final development the Leman flint Northwest gun of 1860 copied details of contemporary Hudson's Bay guns.

GRRW Leman Northwest gun was a copy of the 1860's details of contemporary Hudson's Bay guns. Gunsmiths at GRRW liked the lines of the more graceful with slender wrists and thinner forestocks. GRRW Collectors Association has followed those same lines for design and styling on the first NW Gun built.

GRRW Barrels

While I didn’t exactly invent barrels, I did design the interior of the barrels that GRRW manufactured. This particular story started in 1972 when it became apparent that  GRRW  could not acquire all the Douglas barrels it needed, on time, for production of its famous rifles. Delivery in those days was terrible and they were expensive, payment being required up front. My old friend Bill Large was slowing down at the time, age catching up to him, and he sold me a Pratt & Whitney 1/2B x 50 rifling machine and a deep hole drill and planer to match. I acquired another set in Salt lake City when Rocky Mountain Arms went out of business. We modified a huge hydraulic planer to plane near a dozen barrels at a time and installed the turret lathes and other small machines needed for muzzleloading barrel production. It was then that we discovered why delivery was so sporadic. The problem lay in delivery of barrel steel. It took about a year to get GBQ (Gun Barrel  Quality) steel from the foundry. What a mess.

Since the Hawken's had used 7 lands and deep grooves in their rifles, we had to, too, so the machinery had to be re-tooled. We spent so much money getting all this done and buying a huge quantity of barrel steel that I could not afford a production bore reamer. We ended up cutting the top of the lands with the same cutter that was used to cut the grooves. This was labor intensive but resulted in fantastic accuracy. It proved to be a better technique with improved results over the reamer anyway. We sold thousands of barrels into an enthusiastic market until Carter’s inflationary recession killed the Co. In 1980.

Semi -production manufacturing

Was a concept that I came up with, not so new in reality as many manufacturers in the past have used similar processes. I was merely the first to formally name it and define the process. Most custom makers now use it. They may not know it, but the availability of 5 axis carving machines, lost wax investment castings, and a plethora of nicely manufactured CNC  parts that need little final finishing all contribute to the concept. The secret, of course, is the availability of parts that are an almost -fit for the stocks available. This could not have happened without modern machine tooling and techniques.

For the whole story on this man, go to his website at: http://whitemuzzleloading.com/index.php


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