Interchangeable Parts - First Use

First Use

Evidence of the use of interchangeable parts can be traced back one thousand years to China. Bi Sheng first employed the concept in the 11th century by using moveable type.

Before the 18th century, devices such as guns were made one at a time by gunsmiths, and each gun was unique. If one single component of a weapon needed a replacement, the entire weapon either had to be sent to an expert gunsmith for custom repairs, or discarded and replaced by another weapon. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the idea of replacing these methods with a system of interchangeable manufacture was gradually developed. The development took decades and involved many people.

In the late 18th century, French General Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval promoted standardized weapons in what became known as the Système Gribeauval after it was issued as a royal order in 1765. (Its focus at the time was artillery more than muskets or handguns.) One of the accomplishments of the system was that solid cast cannons were bored to precise tolerances, which allowed the walls to be thinner than cannons poured with hollow cores. However, because cores were often off center, the wall thickness determined the size of the bore. Standardized boring allowed cannon to be shorter without sacrificing accuracy and range because of the tighter fit of the shells. It also allowed standardization of the shells.

Gribeauval provided patronage to Honoré Blanc, who attempted to implement the Système Gribeauval at the musket level. By around 1778, Honoré Blanc began producing some of the first firearms with interchangeable flint locks, although they were carefully made by craftsmen. Blanc demonstrated in front of a committee of scientists that his muskets could be fitted with flint locks picked at random from a pile of parts.