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Introduction to Alterations1  183. It was widely recognized that without the tens of thousands of muskets and musket components received from France, and the other military aid received from Spain, Holland, and Prussia, the American military forces would have found it far more difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in the War of Independence from Great Britain. From shortly before the War of 1812, there was a concerted effort to build up the supplies of small arms in the possession of the U.S. armed forces. This effort resulted in the production of several hundred thousand flintlock muskets and rifles. The invention of the percussion system of ignition made the flintlock system obsolete. The percussion system was simpler and more dependable in adverse weather. It also provided faster ignition time. The increased cost of manufacturing a percussion barrel, caused by the addition of the nipple and its bolster to a previously smooth-surfaced barrel, was offset by the simple nature of the percussion lock. While the lock’s internal components remained the same, the percussion system utilized a one-piece hammer instead of the flintlock’s threepiece cock. It also did away with the pan, frizzen, frizzen spring, the machine screws to retain them, and the cost of the threaded lockplate holes for these machine screws. Once the Ordnance Department decided to adopt the percussion system, the question arose of modifying the hundreds of thousands of then-obsolete flintlock arms to this system. The decision was made to alter the existing arms and raised the questions of “Which arms to alter?” and “How to alter them?” Senior ordnance officers believed that the best quality arms were those that had been most recently produced; they decided to base the suitability for alteration on when a particular musket was made. All of the armed forces muskets were examined and categorized as to their suitability for alteration. The upper two categories were subject to immediate alteration. Arms in the third category were to be held in reserve subject to alteration at a later date, and arms in the fourth category were condemned and were to be sold. An ordnance board of officers was established to examine various forms of alteration and recommend the best of those forms. “Methods” is probably a better word than “forms.” 1 Unfortunately, both of these terms—“conversion” and “alteration”—are used to describe flintlock arms that have been modified to the percussion ignition system, whereas only the term “alteration” is correct. To “convert” something means to change or transform it from one form or use to another (such as swords into plowshares). To “alter” something is to make it different in details, but not in substance—to modify it. Only the arms’ ignition systems were changed; the arms themselves remained in their original configurations as muskets or rifles. Part I 4 The Ordnance Department’s original alterations of flintlock arms to the percussion ignition system in the 1850s usually involved changes to only two major components: the lock and the barrel. The locks’ external flintlock components were superfluous to the percussion system and were usually removed. However, in one form of alteration, the original flint cock was converted into a percussion hammer. In most forms of alteration, the part of the pan that projected more than 1 /8" from the lockplate ’s surface was removed. The pan’s remaining upper surface may or may not have been reconfigured to support a nipple bolster. The nipple bolsters of some alterations are so massive as to also require a substantial reconfiguration of the lockplate’s upper profile in the area of the pan. Although the concept of ignition system alteration is simple, many different alteration methods were used by the federal government, individual states, federal and state contractors, and private entrepreneurs. The Ordnance Department’s original alteration of the flintlock barrel to percussion prior to the Civil War usually, but not always, involved the plugging of the original vent in the right side of the barrel’s breech, and of providing a new vent and internally threaded hole for the percussion nipple in the upper-right quadrant of the barrel’s breech. Existing flintlock muskets were also altered, under U.S. contract, to Maynard primer percussion locks by Daniel Nippes in the late 1840s. These are described in section 185.43. The success of these arms led to the federal government’s adoption of the Maynard tape primer system...

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