AHC: Mass Interchangable gun parts by the 1800-1810

Have the mass production of interchangeable gun parts possible by the first decade of the 19th century.

The best POD I can think of so far is having Thomas Jefferson convince Honoré Blanc to move to the USA, circa 1785, to improve his methods. Then folks like Simon North and Eli Whitney, still young, tutor under him and do what they did in OTL sooner and better.
 
In 1798 a contract was issued to Eli Whitney for 12,000 muskets which he accomplished by using Honore Blanc's system of interchangeable parts. While his original demonstration of the interchangeability was staged he did produce interchangeable gun parts under Blanc's system and delivered the weapons in 1809. Most of the delay was the result of him misusing funds to try to get his cotton gin business going. If he focuses on the guns he can likely deliver several years earlier.

Blanc's system was adopted pretty immediately in the US even without him immigrating. It seems like your goal was already accomplished in OTL.
 
Last edited:
I did not know that. Do you have any other ideas. Like another individual taking up said contract sooner than Eli Whitney. Or perhaps individuals who built other finely machined weapons like Bartholomäus Girandoni and/or his son Johann move to the USA to work together with Whitney and others.
 
The issue is not a lack of excellent gunsmiths or craftsmen, the US has plenty of those. What was really lacking was just the idea of interchangeable parts and the advantages behind them. It turned gunsmithing from a master craft to "have laborers file those parts to spec" which is why Blanc's ideas were opposed by gunsmiths in Europe. It took much of the technical skill out of the work. I don't see why someone couldn't have come up with Blanc's system fifty years earlier and had it adopted. The guns were all still handmade anyway.
 
Last edited:
In 1798 a contract was issued to Eli Whitney for 12,000 muskets which he accomplished by using Honore Blanc's system of interchangeable parts. While his original demonstration of the interchangeability was staged he did produce interchangeable gun parts under Blanc's system and delivered the weapons in 1809. Most of the delay was the result of him misusing funds to try to get his cotton gin business going. If he focuses on the guns he can likely deliver several years earlier.

Blanc's system was adopted pretty immediately in the US even without him immigrating. It seems like your goal was already accomplished in OTL.

If Whitney sticks to his guns, that might make for some interesting butterflies elsewhere. ;)
 
People have examined those guns, and the parts WEREN'T interchangeable, in fact. There was a lot of filing and fitting involved.

Still better than making every gun individually, but the tech just wasn't there yet.
 
The idea of interchangeable parts was definitely around, the British Land Pattern musket ("Brown Bess") was built to a very specific "pattern" which was a master which all the manufacturers copied, for every single part.

If the issue is about the mass production of said parts, that would have to wait until some very major advances in industry.
 
Top