Back in 1988 I was staying in NY with a girlfriend who used to lend me her car after i dropped her off at work. For several weeks I pottered around all over the Eastrern Seaboard and on one occassion found myself in Springfield. Even then apart from my interest in aviation ( I had been Pilot in the Royal Navy), I was begining to collect traditional military firearms,
pattern Room
from a Baker Rifle to SMLEs and most in between. I managed to locate Springfield Arsenal ony to find it was closed for refurbishment, howver the estate office was open so nothing venture nothing gained I breezed in and said I have come all the way from England to visit the Arsenal and when might it re open.
Someone made a phone call and next thing a curator turned up and said "come on I'll show you round" which he did for about three hours including rooms/floors he said not normallyu open to the public.
This was before the days of digital cameras and and one tended not to go mad photographing everything in sigtht. He did take me into the 'pattern room' where he said they had an example of every firearm ever made from the 1800s and on another floor racks of Springfield manufactured rifles that he said, having been finished and proved, had never left the site.
I assume those were the ones now displayed as 'the 'organ of muskets' although then they wer just stood in plywook racks.
It looks as though they have made a superb job of refurbishment, there were no fancy display cases, lit and labelled then, just floors full of racks of guns. I had no idea what I was looking at most of the time apart from specific guns he picked up and showed me.( he was very pround of a pair of gold plated MP40s that had belonged to Herman Goering!).