Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Springfield Model 1795 Musket: America's First Military Production" video.

You could still buy the 1795 musket that was "sporterized" and mostly converted to shotguns from the Sears catalog in the 1920's. They were a cheap hunting gun and were apparently pretty popular at $5.00 to $8.00 each. If nothing else, using a 130 year old converted musket as a shotgun in 1928 shows the durability of the musket.
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@erikdingman9806 Why? What exactly was a poor display of our appreciation of history? 80,000 of these muskets were produced, and many of them were converted to percussion long before they were declared surplus. All the ones that were converted to shotguns were these previous percussion conversions. There are over 100 of the originals flintlocks still around and thousands of the percussion guns. What do you think should have been done with them?
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@MFGordon Indeed, I remember these converted flintlocks still going for less than $50 from mail order houses like Kleins up to the late 70's. They were neither scarce nor collector's items. To some degree, unconverted flintlocks were even less desirable than the converted muskets since they were so difficult to use in modern times. There were plenty that were bought for the collector value though, but prices and supply don't stand still until a person who wants one shows up today and still wants to pay the prices we did 50 years ago.
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@erikdingman9806 There are tons of them in museums. It would be difficult to go to any museum that covers early US history. and not see at least one example of the 1795 or its many variants. There are also a fair few of them available on the collector's market, just not at prices you probably want to pay. Gun collecting is like that, and the market is higher today in relative terms than in any time of my 55 years as a collector. If you want one, scare up the cash from somewhere and buy one. 50 years from now, you'll have a tidy profit.
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