Rifled Matchlocks

[CrufflerSteve]

I'd like to thank Squirrelsaurus for his list of suggested books. I just finished reading "Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics" by
Bert Hall. It's a good read. I just wish it had more pictures.

I understood a fair amount about the ballistics of rifled projectiles before this but his discussion of the behavior of round ball shot out of smooth bores was very illuminating. It helped me understand why waiting until you saw "the whites of their eyes" was a good idea.

I also learned that there had been rifled guns as early as the end of the 15th century. They weren't general issue weapons like the smooth bore arquebus. They took longer to reload and I assume they were much more expensive. They were made for specialized troops such as snipers and skirmishers.

He mentions the siege of Rijnberg in 1633 where they were a very useful defensive weapon, "Let but the topp of an old hatt appeare betweene the basketts and you shall presently have 3 or 4 bulletts shott into it."

I wondered if any pictures or illustrations of these are available. I'm sure they were very looked down upon in their day so it might depend on any surviving. I wondered if they were just rifled barrels that looked like an arquebus or if they had a different look. Since I assume they cost more they might have had other features.

This would be an interesting matchlock and would go well with the current thread on hunting with matchlocks.

Steve

 

[Light Dragoon]

Hall's book is indeed great! Probably the single best book on the development of firearms and warfare up to the 18th Century available, and I recommend it highly to anyone who will listen to me, LOL!

Here are a couple of pictures from Robin's Matchlock Page ( http://www.matchlock.net/ )

First is the earliest known rifle, perhaps owned by the Emperor Maximillian I:

Second, from the same source, is a German target rifle, also a matchlock:

Other than target guns though, I believe that most of the rifles made in the 16th and 17th Centuries were wheellocks. I think that matchlock rifles were, if not an aberation, at least rare by comparison.

I hope this is of some help.

Cheers,

Gordon

 

[Gary]

In my own research on riflemen and sharpshooting, they seem to come into their own during sieges. For most soldiers, it appears that fixed positional warfare brings out the best in marksmanship. Check out the Bedtime Stories thread in our Civil War forum if you want to read sharpshooting stories.

 

[Light Dragoon]

There are also descriptions from earlier sieges, such as that of Malta in 1566 (I think it was) where certain areas of the walls were made untenable for the Christians by Turkish sharpshooters who had gained some high ground. It was considered a death-sentance to even go out to that part of the wall during the day time. And the Turks were using smooth-bores exclusively.

Gordon

 

[CrufflerSteve]

This thread is going interesting places. If rifling was originally developed in the late 15th century, I'm not sure what lock mechanism would have been used in the first rifles. Wheellocks were first developed around that time. I assume the complexity and expense of them allowed matchlocks to co-exist with them since nobody was going the equip an army with wheellocks. A rifle, being more expensive, might have justified a wheellock. Darn! I'd sure like to see a matchlock original.

Hall's book is very interesting. He certainly isn't shy about expressing opinions. He feels that the only real change to general issue shoulder weapons from the serpentine arquebus up until the Minie ball rifle was the bayonet. Adopting the bayonet allowed the arqubusiers, musketeers or whatever, to replace the pikemen. Tactics evolved but he points out that a soldier trained to the first arquebus could have easily adapted to the drill for a flint lock.

The only wheellocks he mentions are pistols since they changed warfare by ending the days of heavily armored knights. Light horsemen could take 2 or 3 pistols up to the almost point blank range needed to punch lethal holes in armor.

I'm not sure how any sharpshooter with a smoothbore could be sharp unless he could control the axis of rotation of the bullet as it left the bore. It wouldn't even be necessary to have it rotating like a rifled bullet. It would just have to be repeatable.

I assume that the early use of rifles in battle might not have been well documented. The aristocrats had some heartburn about all missle weapons since they allowed a commoner to slay a noble. At least with the arquebus, it was only effective at very close range. Something reliably effective at 100 to 200 yards would have really upset them. A commander that used these might not want to brag about it.

Steve

 

[Chuck Thom]

Steve the book "The Great Guns" by Harold L. Peterson & Robert Elman has a great picture of a target rifled matchlock, I even thought of building one, still might, I have a 28" Sharon barrel in 50 cal. check out the book.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Another intereting rifled matchlock is shown on page 36 of Philip Haythornthwaite's "The English Civil War 1642-1651 An Illustated Military History". The gun appears to be a normal military type matchlock of that era. It's dated 1619 and has a vertical trigger with no guard. The forked rest has a match holder fixed in to make it a back-up linstock. An interesting piece, to say the least.

Philipp J.C. Elliot-Wright's book "English Civil War", one of the "Brassey's 'History of Uniforms'" series, makes several references to sniping enemy officers using "birding pieces" and "fowling pieces". By their definition, these guns were probably smooth bored but long barrels do make distant hits easier, assiming this is the accurate interpretation.

 

[benvenuto]

Another intereting rifled matchlock is shown on page 36 of Philip Haythornthwaite's "The English Civil War 1642-1651 An Illustated Military History". The gun appears to be a normal military type matchlock of that era. It's dated 1619 and has a vertical trigger with no guard. The forked rest has a match holder fixed in to make it a back-up linstock. An interesting piece, to say the least.

Philipp J.C. Elliot-Wright's book "English Civil War", one of the "Brassey's 'History of Uniforms'" series, makes several references to sniping enemy officers using "birding pieces" and "fowling pieces". By their definition, these guns were probably smooth bored but long barrels do make distant hits easier, assiming this is the accurate interpretation.

Thats interesting, I had heard of sharpshooters in the ECW using more or less standard matchlocks, but of finer quality and rifled. I can't remember what book I read it in but it wasn't yours so thats sort of confirmation.

"Birding piece" is not necessarily the same as "Fowler".

The Silesian Tschinke rifles were made for shooting birds with (perched as opposed to flying). There were similar styles of rifle in use in Southern Germany as well.

Small calibre smoothbores were used for the same purpose in Spain and Italy. My namesake Benvenuto Cellini mentions shooting pigeons at 100 yards with a roundball during the plague of 1525 (?) in Rome. Unfortunately he doesn't mention in it was a rifle or smoothbore, only that he made the gun himself and it was "as bright as a mirror inside and out"

 

[3 stinky dogs]

This may be a stupid question but does powder quality back then have any thing to do with accuracy in thees guns ?I have read that powder quality differd from batch to batch in the 17-1800's how bad would it have been in the 1600's and would rifleing have matterd ?

 

[benvenuto]

sportsmen tested powder from batch to batch and made allowances for quality - basically, they had to work up a new load every different batch that came through.

if you were in the military, In guess you just had to have faith in your quartermasters
but theres lots of early gunners manuals that have instructions on how to tell good powder from bad etc etc.

 

[CrufflerSteve]

Thanks for the book suggestions. If you collect anythig, the more reference material the better. As my interests moved from early 20th century to cannon and further back, my book collection has grown. Speaking of reference material - how's the handgonne book coming Claypipe?

Steve

 

The rifled gun of Maximillian I (which lacks the lock) seems to be an exception. It is definitly rifled, but the rifling could have been added later. The next oldest rifles are dated to the middle of the 16th century and from then on there evidently was a contiguous manufacturing of rifled guns.

I think it is interresting how long high quality matchlock rifles were produced. The central european style with hair trigger until end of the 17th century, and the dutch style with the heavy block rest far into the 18th century. Probably, if you have best shooting conditions and only need a fast, simple lock for the shooting range, the snapping matchlock is hard to beat.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Another quote from the same sources I mentioned said that musketeers during one part of the ECW were issued one pound of lead balls and one-half pound of powder for use in their matchlocks. Since they were working with guns using 10 balls to the pound but shot balls 12 to the pound, the powder charge per shot ran about 192 grains each. Now that's NOT the same effectiveness as our FFg, Fg though possibly Cannon granulation. Still, I'm not going to try it.

 

[benvenuto]

"The only data for performance comes from the Danish researcher, Tage Lasson, who experimented in the 1930s with a replica of the Vedelspang gun. The 23mm round lead ball weighed 52 grammes, the charge of ungrained flour powder, from a recipe of 1380 (8:1:1 saltpeter:sulphur:charcoal), weighed 39 grammes (600 grains). Around 1400, a weight equal to the ball in powder would have been used, but Lasson reduced the charge to compensate for the purity of modern chemicals. "

1 gram - 15.43 grains
23mm = .90 cal
the original charge would have been 800 grains
the reduced charge was the reduced charge was about 600 grains
25% reduction for purity of modern components

if we apply that to your data thats 144 grain charge of FG in your .75 cal matchlock - BIG MEDECINE!

Now you could argue that old CORNED powder wasn't THAT impure, but it was definately more hygroscopic, being for the most part unglazed. It was not as accurately sorted for grain size or as well mixed either so 25% less power may well be plausible.
:m2c:

 

[Light Dragoon]

Speaking of "Sharpshooting" with smoothbores, it is good to note that Hall (who I think has done a magnificent job with his research and writing, BTW: his book had to be one of my all-time favorites!) was forced to rely upon 18th and 19th Century experimentation for his results with smoothbores. In discussions with Taylor Anderson of Granbury, TX (who fired his 6-pounder at the Army Testing Range in Yuma for the History Channel recently) he notes that the higher your velocities in a smoothbore, the more accurate they are. His own results have been rather impressive in fact.

Another thing to consider is that at least EARLY on in the 16th Century, the arquebusiers seem to have used a tighter fitting ball than was the case by the end of that century, and it only got worse until the early years of the 19th Century. For example, some of the authorities suggested for a 20-bore weapon using a 28-bore ball, rather than a 24-bore. And of course we certainly know that by the ECW using a 12-bore ball in a 10-bore was the norm, but with the adoption of paper cartridges the British went to a 14-bore ball, as I recall. And the Prussians (as Hall notes as well) were worse, believing that speed was more important than accuracy. Several French generals commented upon this fact and are quoted by Hall, in fact.

At any rate, with some of the horrendous powder charges involved (as noted above) and a fairly tightly fitting ball (which experiments by such as Kit Ravenshear showed are more accurate in a smoothbore than patching a smaller ball) a fair accuracy out to be attainable.

Cheers!

Gordon

 

[robinghewitt]

There's a lovely story from the English Civil War, not a matchlock I will admit but definitely 17th century involving a brace of rifled holster pistols.

King Charles, Prince Rupert and army arrive at Stamford. Rupert, an expert shot, announces their arrival by shooting the weather cock atop the Church of St Mary, a distance of 60 yards and up hill.

Charles is amazed and says something like, "Do that again", Rupert draws his other pistol and does it again.

They had the technology.

There was an even more impressive rifle shot, the royalists are besieged in a cathedral, their leader climbs the tower and shoots dead the attacking General at 200 yards. Got him in the eye, although we might presume he aimed dead centre ::

 

[bezoar]

Well it matters on the barrel length with a smoothbore. Seen the rifle shoppe english Wall gun "garunteed" to hit a sheet of modern typing paper at 600 feet +?

And alot of the history channel shows on pirates normally tell how the buccaneers were using 6 foot smoothbore barrels to selective through the running rigging of ships they wanted to capture at anchor.

 

Practice, Practice, Practice! Its how well a shooter knows his gun that counts. The sights can be off, but to a shooter who knows his gun, it doesn't matter. I use to shoot soda cans with a daisy Red Ryder, at ranges people swore that I couldn't do it, using a rainbow trajectory. How many thousands of bb's I put through that gun. But I knew it. Granpa Parker, my first step father's dad said, "if you want to shoot well, then you need to know your gun as well as the finger you pull the trigger with. When you point that muzzle, it should be as if you are pointing with your own finger." And I found he was right. Practice makes perfect, and the smaller the target, the smaller the misses.

Just :m2c:

 

[benvenuto]

damn straight claypipe!
I remember spending obscene amounts of small change as a boy trying to defeat the intentionally crooked sights on carnival BB guns - and in the end I always did it!
if you know your gun, know your powder and take account for changing conditions you can work what seems like miracles to the untrained eye

 

[benvenuto]

great story Robin...
The pair of pistols he used are still supposedly around, a set with turn off barrels by Harman Barne(?) I think