This is a comprehensive reference featuring over 800 colour photographs - never before published in a single volume - including a well-researched history of the Armoury, as well as each of the shoulder weapons made there. Descriptions include conversion processes and the advent of new technologies, along with each weapon's operating characteristics, specification, and marks. This is the first book to comprehensively cover nearly two centuries of an American institution that saw the nation through its most trying moments on the battlefield, beginning with the American revolution and continuing through the Civil War, two World Wars, and conflict in Korea and Vietnam.