Quote:
Originally Posted by herr_oberst
When classics like these were state of the art and the latest, greatest thunderstick on the plains, were the parts interchangeable or was everything hand fitted, the way you're going about it now?
|
Very good question. Many gunmakers of the period built nothing but one-off guns, what we would call "custom" today. Especially prior to the Hawken brothers starting their business in the 1820's.
Their early rifles, the ones stamped "J & S Hawken St. Louis" continued this practice. They were buying some parts, like the locks, from other manufacturers, who had begun to "standardize", to a degree. Once Jacob died (I believe in the '30's, maybe early '40's) and Sam carried on on his own, he very much began to standardize parts. Parts that had perviously been hand formed from sheet stock, or forged, were now cast. By the time Sam had sold the business to J.P. Gemmer, the rifles were pretty much "standardized".
Does that mean, for example, if my lock broke in the field I could borrow one from another rifle and it would fit? No. There was a lot of handwork that still went into making things fir. They were close, but manufacturing methods were still not repeatable enough to ensure a level of uniformity that ensures "drop in" interchangeability. That was still a ways down the road.
There is a great book that goes into some detail as to how we developed interchangeability not only in gun parts (although that is its primary focus), but in manufacturing in general.
American Rifle (A Biography) by Alexander Rose goes into great detail on this. Not surprisingly, it was the military that really drove this need. Believe it or not, even up through the Civil War, gun parts simply did not interchange, not without the loving attention - and very careful hand fitting - of the company armorer. And these were mass produced, "identical" military firearms.
One would think this relatively "easy", but it's worth noting that not even by WWI could gun parts be interchanged without some work. Oh, many could be, but things like the bolts in Springfield service rifles still had to be fitted and headspaced. We were not quite there, even by then.
Even today, manufacturers struggle with this. A good example in Ruger's resurrection of Marlin. Ruger found those old designs to still, today, require too much hand fitting to be able to manufacture them profitably. They had to make some design changes to the rifles, along with changes in manufacturing methods. Even then, they still require a bit of hand fitting.
This is one of the "holy grails" firearms manufacturers are still seeking. They have more or less achieved it in certain classes of firearms, particularly military or the civilian counterparts thereof. But, well - it shows. Compared to expertly hand fitted firearms, they are pretty darn rude and crude, sloppy and loose as can be, with function being the only requirement. Fine sporting firearms, however, just aren't there yet, and may never get there.
Granted, that's a finer point on it than "will it fit and function". So, no, in short - when these rifles were new, no one was even thinking about that. They eventually were, but only to reduce, not eliminate, the amount of handwork required. It was, after all, a business. So that was their only real concern. Whether parts could interchange in the field wasn't a question they were even asking back then.