The standard musket manufacturing system in Europe, and in the United States prior to 1818, had been the careful creation of master copies of firearms, known as pattern firearms, which were then distributed to the various armories for replication. As suitable precision measurement methods had not yet been devised, production specifications were, for the most part, more qualitative than quantitative.

For Springfield Armory, even the fabrication of the first gauges had more in common with the older system of pattern musket production than with any precise quantitative process. Orders for gauges in 1821 specified that they were to be made “as convenient for skillful and attentive workmen to conform to.” Throughout the 1820’s, as a result, there had been considerable variation in weight from musket to musket. This was the case for the private contractors as well as for the national armories. The production in 1824 of bayonets at Harper’s Ferry Armory that would fit musket barrels made at Springfield Armory was considered a real achievement.

The use of gauges for anything but the inspection of finished arms was virtually unknown except at Springfield Armory where it was apparently the rule by 1819. This technological advance occurred first at Springfield Armory around 1818 when Springfield Armory’s master armorer, Adonijah Foot, and several other workmen developed a system for gauging musket components. This achievement so impressed the new Chief of Ordnance, Col. George Bomford, that he ordered it in 1821 to be enacted not only at Harper’s Ferry Armory but among the private contractors as well. By 1823, the system of inspection and gauging developed at Springfield Armory was the Ordnance Department standard. Private manufacturers soon found that the issuance of future arms contracts depended on their adherence to the standard set by Springfield Armory.

The use of interchangeability in clock manufacturing in Connecticut