A Select Committee Report of 1817 states that the New Land Pattern Musket has ‘a lock so tallying in all its parts, that any part of one lock may fit another’. This is the earliest claim of interchangeability to have been found for Board of Ordnance firearms. It has focussed the authors’ attention on understanding the British efforts in the interchangeable manufacturing of firearms in the early 19th century, and more specifically on the manufacture of the lock of the New Land Pattern Muskets. This has also necessitated and included some work to unravel the story of the development of the New Land Pattern Musket and its variants, and to appreciate the contemporary use of lock jiggers by the East India Company (EIC) and others. Our approach has blended multiple iterations of archival research, object study, analysis of musket lock ‘Types’, and experimental evaluations of interchangeability. The methods used have allowed a comparison with contemporary American achievements at the Springfield and Harpers Ferry National Armories.

This paper reports our results, including those of a close study of 35 New Land Pattern Muskets; the generation of a typology identifying three distinct variants of New Land Pattern Musket locks and a chronology of key aspects of their design, manufacture and supply; a five-lock component exchange experiment with 20 potential interchanges and other supplementary interchange tests; and an experimental evaluation of the use of two surviving EIC lock jiggers (i.e. gauges). These demonstrate that Great Britain had made significant strides in the interchangeable manufacturing of musket locks by 1817, but that these achievements, based upon the use of gauges and other similar tooling, were limited by their use of manual methods, chiefly filing by hand. They also show that Henry Nock, Ezekiel Baker and others contributed to the design of the variants of the musket, the lock and the tooling.

The work also indicates that Britain was attempting interchangeable lock manufacturing in more than one geographical location, at the workshops of key suppliers in Birmingham and the Black Country (the metal working district to the West and North West of Birmingham), the London trade and the new Royal Manufactory in Lewisham. This multiple site approach would have been particularly challenging, and it is also important to note that much of this work was carried out in time of war. These British innovations may have influenced others through the transfer of technology by former Ordnance artificers, including at the Imperial Manufactory at Tula in Russia via John Jones, father and son.

The experimental comparison with contemporary American achievements shows that the British were realising levels of interchangeability at least equivalent to those at US National Armories, but that whilst the dimensional control sought in Britain may have been less demanding it was being attempted at many more sites.

一份 1817 年的专责委员会报告指出，“新地型火枪有一把锁，它的所有部分都如此吻合，一个锁的任何部分都可能适合另一个”。这是为军械委员会发现的最早的可互换性声明。它使作者的注意力集中在了解 19 世纪早期英国在可互换枪支制造方面的努力，更具体地说是制造 New Land Pattern Muskets 的锁具。这也需要并包括一些工作来解开 New Land Pattern Musket 及其变体的发展故事，并欣赏东印度公司 (EIC) 和其他公司在当代使用锁扣的情况。我们的方法融合了档案研究、对象研究、步枪锁“类型”分析的多次迭代，和可互换性的实验评估。所使用的方法可以与斯普林菲尔德和哈珀斯费里国家军械库的当代美国成就进行比较。

本文报告了我们的结果，包括对 35 种新土地模式火枪的仔细研究的结果；生成类型学，确定 New Land Pattern Musket 锁的三种不同变体及其设计、制造和供应的关键方面的年表；五锁组件交换实验，包括 20 个潜在的交换和其他补充交换测试；以及使用两个幸存的 EIC 锁紧夹具（即仪表）的实验评估。这些表明，到 1817 年，英国在火枪锁的可互换制造方面取得了重大进展，但这些基于使用量规和其他类似工具的成就受到他们使用手动方法的限制，主要是手工归档。他们还表明，亨利诺克，

这项工作还表明，英国正在尝试在不止一个地理位置制造可互换的锁具，包括伯明翰和布莱克国家（伯明翰西部和西北部的金属加工区）的主要供应商的车间、伦敦贸易和位于刘易舍姆的新皇家制造厂。这种多站点方法将特别具有挑战性，同样重要的是要注意，这项工作的大部分是在战争时期进行的。这些英国的创新可能通过前军械工匠的技术转让影响了其他人，包括通过约翰·琼斯父子在俄罗斯图拉的帝国制造厂。

与当代美国成就的实验比较表明，英国人正在实现至少与美国国家军械库相当的互换性水平，但虽然英国寻求的空间控制要求可能不那么苛刻，但它正在更多地点进行尝试。