Thanks to being on a business trip that ran over a weekend I had the opportunity to visit a couple of museums in the Boston area of Massachusetts.
One was the original Springfield Armoury Museum.
This is the original site of smalls arm manufacturing for the US Government since Washington's times. The museum is all on one floor, with good access for wheelchairs etc. and is split into two.
- The history of small arms manufacture on the site and the methods used.
- The history of small arms in general
As a Manufacturing Operational Excellence Manager, coming somewhere like this - the home of mass production, long before Ford staked his claim - was a doubly exciting opportunity.
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| Stock Turning Lathe |
The original machinery for manufacturing stocks & barrels was absolutely fascinating as were the breakdowns of the manufacturing process for things like the Garand rear sight and Colt 1911a1 pistol frame.
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| How the site looked at the time of the ACW. Today it is a college campus |
The small arms collection is unprecedented. They have examples of weapons from matchlocks through to M4 Carbines, with everything in between.
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| Part of the collection from the machine gun room |
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| The "Organ of Muskets" is a double musket rack proudly standing as a showpiece display at Springfield Armory as it has since the museum opened in 1871. |
High-lights included the nickel plated 1,000,000th commemorative Liberator pistol and the value engineered Colt .45" made entirely from stampings.
The volunteer staff couldn't have been more helpful and were extremely knowledgeable. I even got to handle a Garand rifle - which incidentally was much lighter in weight than I'd imagined it would be!
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| US Small arms of WW2 including the Garand rifle |
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| John Garand himself - responsible for so many of the weapons produced here in the 20th Century |
There were examples of weapons that I have only ever seen in a book (i.e. the Pedersen Device) a magical couple of hours, and entirely free to enter.
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| Vietnam era - service weapons and prototypes |
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