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@stevep - well, I hope I remembered the bit about fouling correctly and that it is not an urban legend. So, the Ferguson Rifle is too expensive (and possibly innapropriate if lack of bayonet true) for mass use, narrowing down application to skirmishing sharpshooters. Now the question is how...

Not possible to mount bayonet? I'm curious - why? Going back to barrel fouling - I've remembered reading somewhere (in the very, very dim past) that the Baker Rifle during combat had its grooves so fouled up that from a certain point onward the riflemen switched from their tight-fitting...

Not to mentioned not being fired at :) And if fired by a formation the shooters would be engulfed a by a cloud of their own smoke any, thus making the rifle lose its benefits - range and accuracy. The extra cost is not worth it, IMO. Also - fouling - after how many shots will the tight fit...

Plus not enough tax money to raise an army of 100K in a country of 10M. Barely managed c.60K. Also - beat back Russia, get backstabbed by the Prussian vulture. Having 50K Ferguson rifles would not save the PLC. Sorry for derail ...

My layman asspull opinion is that it was a weapon 50 years too early for any sort of widespread use. And gave too few benefits for the bother of being a breech-loader - still a flintlock. IMO we saw the first percussion breechloaders c.1840 - which were far from "perfect" - for a reason.