In the 1830s and 1840s, arms production in Izhevsk was actively expanding. Gunsmiths mastered the production of individual components and worked on accurate assembly according to French templets.

In May 1837, the Crown Prince and future emperor Alexander II, accompanied by his tutor Vasily Zhukovsky, visited the Izhevsk plant. An unusual performance was organized at the Arsenal to demonstrate the interchangeability of components to the inspectors. Eleven guns were selected and completely disassembled, after which their parts were mixed and reassembled in front of the distinguished guests. Zhukovsky wrote in his diary,

From 1837 to 1844, the Izhevsk plant increased its annual output by five thousand barrels, and by the end of this period, it reached 21,887 guns. However, in the late 1830s, the authorities were looking for ways to adopt guns with a percussion cap lock.

Until that time, the Russian army used guns with a flintlock mechanism. These guns often misfired because of a worn flint, a worn-out steel, a clogged priming hole, or wet gunpowder. Cap percussion locks were not affected by the weather. The hammer strikes a cap made of soft brass and detonates the mercury fulminate inside, which releases flames that travel through the hollow nipple to ignite the powder charge. Later, the cap became a part of a single-piece cartridge.

In 1844, Nicholas I issued a decree to convert all old guns to the percussion type. The next year, the new infantry gun was put into service and became one of the best guns in the Russian army.

This well-preserved infantry gun with a percussion cap lock entered the museum’s collection in 2019. The gun’s blue steel barrel is mounted on a stock to which it is attached by a screw in the shank, double-barrelled clips, and a muzzle cover. The cap lock containing a hammer, a firing spring, a tripper, a firing pin, a trigger, and a feathering cap is mounted on a board, or oblong plate, which is attached to the stock by a screw and bolt.

According to the markings on the individual parts and the barrel, the gun in the museum collection was assembled in 1848 from parts that had been manufactured the year before. The prototype itself was made at the Izhevsk plant, and the ramrod was made at the Tula plant.