Building one

[mikelange]

I thought flintlocks were as "primitive" as I was going to get. However, looking over posts and pictures in this forum, I started sketching lock designs, using what I saw here and drawings from an ancient copy of "Small Arms Of The World" as the basis for my doodling. Then I spent my lunch breaks and what free time I have at home, over the course of three or four days, fabricating a matchlock action ("matchlock lock" sounds redundant to me, and just saying "matchlock" might give the impression I'd built the whole gun. Not by a long shot! -- yet.). What I've come up with is of the style shown in section 4 of the Albion Arms website -- where the serpentine is drawn back and down by trigger action. So now I have to build the gun to go with it.

Allow me to explain that I'm not a PC fanatic, but at the same time I do my best to keep my work as historically accurate as is practical. I will be using a modern shotgun barrel, properly breeched and with a ring (cannon-style) added to the muzzle; "practical" in this case means not being able to justify the expense of a new, PC barrel for a gun that's being built solely to satisfy my curiosity about matchlocks (and to give me an excuse to build, of course). I've fitted a manually-opening pan that I modelled on various similar devices shown in photos on this post. My guard is similar to the style that Dixie used on their English matchlock, a few years back, and I'm using a conventional type of trigger, hung in such a way as to provide the best leverage for swinging the serpentine down.

However, it's one thing to look at, for instance, the inner workings of a lock, or the shape of a guard, then replicate those. It's something else to study stock design and know, from having built numerous 18th and 19th century-style muzzleloaders, that the two-dimensional nature of photographs makes it difficult to translate the picture of a correctly-built stock into a real firearm. The profile of my stock could be said to combine features of, or maybe be midway between, the stock design of gun #2-03 and the late 16th or early 17th century arms shown in section 4 of Albion's website. Mid-1500's, perhaps?

How wide, in general terms, were 16th century matchlocks in the butt (in the sense that a Revolutionary War flintlock rifle should be about 2" wide at the buttplate)? Did they get somewhat slimmer up toward the wrist area, or stay a more-or-less constant width? I've noticed that some stocks seem to be faceted, or angled, in cross-section -- somewhat like squared-off diamonds -- while others are rounded, more like "modern" guns. Would one style or another tend to indicate an earlier or later period?

I'll stop at this. I'm sure I'll have other questions, as I get into this project, but that'll do to get me started. Thanks in advance for whatever input is offered.

 

[Teleoceras]

Mongrel:

I thought flintlocks were as "primitive" as I was going to get......

Welcome to the wild and woolly world of the Matchlock! :grin:

How wide, in general terms, were 16th century matchlocks in the butt (in the sense that a Revolutionary War flintlock rifle should be about 2" wide at the buttplate)? Did they get somewhat slimmer up toward the wrist area, or stay a more-or-less constant width? I've noticed that some stocks seem to be faceted, or angled, in cross-section -- somewhat like squared-off diamonds -- while others are rounded, more like "modern" guns. Would one style or another tend to indicate an earlier or later period?

The 16th Century Matchlocks could be generally classified under three main groups.

The Arquebus - Short barrel, smaller caliber

The Caliver - Longer barrel, caliber ranging from .62 to .72

The Musket - Long barrel, very heavy, and calibers up to .95, must use a forked rest for firing.

The guns of this time had very wide butts compared to Flintlocks 200 years later. The fishtail stocks on the largest muskets can easily have a butt of 3". These guns would fit the time period from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century.

The Matchlock muskets of the 17th Century shrank down to Caliver size once armor fell into disuse. To reduce weigh, the stock designs became more toward the style found with the later Flintlocks.

The stock design you do choose will pretty much tell you what time period you are recreating. You can check out the stocks of the Matchlocks found at The Swedish Army Museum site to see who the Matchlock stocks evolved during the 17th Century. Oh the site is in Swedish, but it is still informative!

Good luck with your project!

Slowmatch Forever!
Teleoceras

 

[arilar]

Hi,
I have a replica of the Swedish matchlock-musket model 1620-30. ( Musköt 1620-30).
Was build by Magnus Wiberg (member of MLF). Check his site www.musketandrifle.nu.
ARILAR :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[robinghewitt]

Early 16th century would have to be a snapper, mid 16th the military would have bar triggers and wheel locks, fowling pieces persisted as snappers. Late 15th the snaphance appears but the military persist with matchlocks for nearly another century. The tricker lock that dipped the serpentine is more 17th century.

OTOH I could be completely wrong.

 

[Landsknecht]

I think you have your centuries wrong. Serpentines were common in the 1400s, which is the fifteenth century. The snaphaunce may have appeared as early as 1525 and was almost certainly around before 1550 (although not common). These dates are the 16th century.

Wheelocks may have been invented prior to 1508 (when Leonardo DaVinci drew one in his notebook--or did he invent it?). But wheelocks were never common--they were expensive and delicate.

Even in the 17th century (the 1600s) matchlocks were very common, especially in the early part of the century (think Jamestown). Flint ignition (snaphaunce, snaplock, miquelet, and ultimately the true flintlock) became more common as the 17th century wore on. And wear on it did--the 17th century is celebrated in art and music as the early baroque era, but it was a time of devastating war and economic depression.

 

[mikelange]

Landsknecht, you're right about the timeline so far as the wheellock, snaphance (or snaphaunce), and the continued use of the matchlock goes. That part of the story I'm quite familiar with -- I've built and researched flintlocks for years, and you can't do any in-depth reading on that subject without encountering the previous mechanisms. The snaphance and miquelet are more-or-less contemporaries, appearing around, roughly, 1525 or so. The wheellock is maybe a couple of decades older (and, yes, it would appear that Leonardo was the inventor of the mechanism, at least in his neck of the woods -- his drawings depict a lock that, had it already been in existence, would have been found to be almost unworkable, if not completely so. The mainspring alone would have been almost immediately improved upon). It would appear that it didn't take any time at all for those concerned with firearms to realize that, as has been said, the wheellock was a wonderful improvement over the matchlock but too expensive and delicate for common use -- hence the relatively quick development of the two earliest forms of flintlock, and the continued use of the matchlock even after better systems were available.

I will be checking out the links suggested in previous posts, as I am concerned with details that would make my gun at least fairly correct to a specific period -- like within a decade or so.

For what it's worth, I've also sketched out the rough design of a wheellock, thus reinforcing what has been said in every reference work I own or have read -- that, while simple in concept, the design and construction of a wheellock is a project more for a skilled clockmaker than even the sort of gunsmith I am. I can build, from a few castings and scratch-crafted parts, a wickedly efficient and historically correct flintlock. I intend to tackle the spring-driven cigarette lighter at some future point, but I haven't worked up the nerve, yet. I also intend to build a snaphance rifle and a miquelet of some sort -- the idea being to have, eventually, at least one of every major design up through and including percussion guns. Hey, if my wife's going to have me committed, I might as well have all the fun I can stand, getting there.

 

[robinghewitt]

I think you have your centuries wrong.

Oops, typo, meant 16th not 15th. I have the 'flu, brain not working. Apart from that I think I'm right.

 

[mikelange]

I just checked out the Swedish Army Museum and Magnus Wilberg websites. Very cool. It would appear that the stock design I've decided on might be slightly earlier than the c. 1610-1620 examples shown, but not by much -- particularly not using a rudimentary form of conventional trigger (yes, I know it was properly called a tricker, all the way through the end of the 18th century, but more than one term for the same item tends to confuse me, and my more modern guns have triggers), as I've decided to do. The locks shown are precisely what I've built, though I wouldn't presume to compare my quality to what Mr. Wilberg is obviously able to do.

So, again -- what are we talking, here? A minimum of 2" in the width of the butt, upwards of 3" in many cases, with no appreciable thinning of the stock in the wrist area, that I could tell from the pictures? I'm trying to get a handle on the mindset of someone building this as a state-of-the-art weapon, rather than with the benefit (or handicap) of some four hundred years of hindsight and improved design to obscure the issue. In other words, to do it as it would have been done, rather than as a more modern gunmaker might think it should have been done.

 

[robinghewitt]

The tricker is certainly not compatable with any modern mindset :thumbsup:

Without precision engineering, anything that prevents the long arm moving backwards will jam when the serpentine reaches halfway, the tricker has to pull back hard to keep things moving which is why it pivots above the lock plate.

 

[mikelange]

I figured that out. The way the drawings seemed to indicate a lock of this type works, the rear portion of the activating lever -- the sear, for lack of a better term -- is raised, causing the longer forward portion to drop, drawing the serpentine (is that the right term for this type of cock?) down by means of a small, sliding pivot. There's no way to create a workable degree of leverage without the trigger pivot being up high.

Like the vast majority of "primitive" methods and devices, once one actually builds/tries/uses this particular mechanism, it becomes perfectly clear why it was done the way it was. Our forefathers on both sides of the pond weren't backward yokels with no clue as to how things ought to work (well, for the most part) -- what they had worked quite well, within the limits of their experience and technology.

Which is why, though I won't break the bank or my brain (both are usually on shaky ground) over every PC detail, I try to stick to doing things the way the original builders did them. I might actually learn something that way.

 

[Landsknecht]

Is the miquelet really that early? I reenact 1555 at the Greater St. Louis Rennaisance Faire and would love to be able to demo a miquelet, but I have not been able to document any that early. Even the documentation for the snaphaunce before 1547 appears to be shaky (but 1547 makes it OK for the Faire, so I haven't pursued it that vigorously).

 

[mikelange]

I was more-or-less echoing various sources, which in turn were based on documentation that may or may not be correct. If I had to make a guess -- and that's all it would be -- I would agree with you, that roughly 1550 might be more correct for the snaphance. Maybe earlier. I also get the impression that the miquelet is contemporary to the snaphance, if not a bit earlier, but an impression doth not documentation imply.

Some time back I wrote a series of what you might call dark fantasy or horror stories that dealt with a mercenary in late 16th-century Europe, and I researched the weaponry as thoroughly as the various gun books I own and the public library would permit (this was pre-internet for me). I would imagine -- in fact I'm sure -- that some of the information I committed to memory was either dated or based on faulty research and/or sources. Long story short, I wouldn't dispute the dates you've established.

 

[benvenuto]

I think squire robin meant a snapping matchlock, not a snaphaunce
Snapping Matchlock tutorial

 

[benvenuto]

Snaphaunces and Miguelets developed a bit later than 1550...
But there WERE very early types of snaplock available with manual pan covers and no half-cock or dog safety. These were mass produced in Ausburg and Nuremburg and became popular in scandenavia where they mutated into the Baltic Snaplock.

 

[robinghewitt]

I think squire robin meant a snapping matchlock, not a snaphaunce

I did wonder why we were suddenly talking flint, didn't realise it was my fault :rotf:

Ooops! :thumbsup: