The rifle is inextricably woven into American myth, symbolizing the independence and self-reliance of the frontiersman taming the wilderness, and the colonist winning liberty in the Revolution. In both cases the rifle's role can be overstated. The lowly fowling piece certainly helped meet the wants of settlers, and in the war the British, with a thousand pattern 1776 army rifles, a hundred Ferguson rifles, and numerous rifle-armed German jaeger auxiliaries, may have had more riflemen in service at any given moment than the patriot forces. But the rifle has become the quintessential American weapon of legend and romance, and it continues to lure the collector. Rifles had been in use in America at least since the early 18th century when German immigrants brought over their short hunting rifles.
Military rifles appear here as early as the French and Indian War.
Some few of these may have been available to American forces at the outbreak of the revolution. A few more may have been contracted for by Continental or Colonial committees. Most, however, were civilian rifles brought into military service. These guns were used by rifle companies and regiments in the US regular army, issued, loaned, or sold to state militias, and also used at sea by marksmen on fighting ships. A clear line of development in the different models is difficult to make out, but one key to understanding is to distinguish between guns produced at government manufacturing facilities, and those produced under government contact by private gun makers.