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Whoa, Nelly. Grin. I'm going to have to ask you to explain that more fully.
I agree the French were the first to really try to make interchangeable parts muskets in their national armories, but they did not succeed in the 18th century.
Gus
Hi Gus, I was reading through Didler Bianchi’s book, I think I’m a generation too late, according to Bicanchi the model 1777 muskets were fully interchangeable in 1777 (Bianchi, page 58-59).
Bodrouits prints I had to translate in french, he seems to specify that they were interchangeable between factories.
I would call it an advantage over the Bess, making the armor’s job in the field much more easier in terms of replacing broken parts.
Personally while the concepts that the 1777 brings to the table I think are great, however the musket itself I’ve always felt was a poor design. The band system was over engineered, with screws… screws are very easy to lose, Bianchi points this fact out. That screws were often lost for the front band’s retaining screw. The slanted brass pan’s intended use to tilt the flash away had minor success, however the tilted pan did have a beneficial purpose to the rank and file reloading systems. While priming the musket could be held at an angle where rank space was limited.
The cheek recess (a useless feature) I think was a way for the french to avoid the rail comb, a rather expensive feature on muskets, the Americans got it right with the 1816 musket when they simply made the comb and wrist join and the British adopted this feature on the New Land Pattern Infantry Musket.
The 1777 was also widely copied in Europe and America.