Flint striking steel was the most advanced ignition system for firearms when Springfield Armory began producing arms. This system was well known to George Washington and other military leaders. Patterned after the French Charleyville, the first US musket was a more rugged design, with its three iron bands holding the barrel to the stock, than the contemporary British "Brown Bess". This first model musket has become known as the Model 1795.
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The Model 1795 weighed approximately 9 pounds, was 5 feet long overall and had a bright, polished steel finish. It fired a single round lead ball that was 0.69 inches in diameter using black powder loaded down the barrel from the muzzle end for each shot. A small amount of priming powder was placed in the pan of the lock. When the flint, held in the jaws of the hammer, struck the frizzen, the resulting spark ignited this powder which, in turn, set off the charge in the barrel. Therefore this was a muzzle-loading, .69 caliber, smoothbore musket. A slender 14 or 15 inch steel bayonet slipped over the end of the barrel for close combat.
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The smoothbore musket had a maximum effective range of 100 yards, at which distance a man-sized target could be hit about 40 percent of the time. During the first year of production, 245 handmade muskets were produced. As machinery and manpower increased, production rose to 838 muskets in 1796, in 1797 there were 1,028 muskets produced, and over 12,000 muskets were made during 1811. At the close of the flintlock era, in 1844, Springfield had manufactured 475,197 flintlock muskets.
