Wheellock Pistol Design

[bioprof]

I've finally decided to stock my Brescian wheellock lock that I built from Blackley and Sons parts. I've narrowed it down to three different designs, but can't decide which one to use. I like the first one below, but can't figure out how you would hold it to shoot. Does anyone have any experience in shooting such pistols?

 

[Lostrifle]

I've finally decided to stock my Brescian wheellock lock that I built from Blackley and Sons parts. I've narrowed it down to three different designs, but can't decide which one to use. I like the first one below, but can't figure out how you would hold it to shoot. Does anyone have any experience in shooting such pistols?

My opinion: think of it as holding a rifle with a very short buttstock. :thumbsup: :hmm:

 

[bingo1952]

The first and third would be fired in the same manner as a Japanese matchlock. They are cheek stocks.

 

[ChrisPer]

They are made for holding at arm's length on horseback, pointed instinctively and fired into a mass of soldiery OR at almost touching range into another cavalryman. They evolved fairly soon to have a droop butt.

We have to get OVER the idea that these things were aimed like we would a 1911. You droop the wrist and fire from below shoulder high.

But pistol butts evolved to saw handles eventually... after people started target shooting to practice for duelling, say about 1810.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

They are made for holding at arm's length on horseback, pointed instinctively and fired into a mass of soldiery OR at almost touching range into another cavalryman. They evolved fairly soon to have a droop butt.

We have to get OVER the idea that these things were aimed like we would a 1911. You droop the wrist and fire from below shoulder high.

But pistol butts evolved to saw handles eventually... after people started target shooting to practice for duelling, say about 1810.

I've never fired one of these, but I've handled and aimed one. You fire it as explained above. You can aim down the barrel at closer ranges, but the pistol is always at arms length. They are NEVER fired as if they were carbines, by mounting them to your cheek. They are not as awkward to hold as you might think.

 

[Leonredbeard]

Yeah, Bioprof,
My wheellock book says the ideal for a cavalry man was to actually touch the enemy with the muzzle before pulling the trigger. You have to remember, they were inventing the gonne at the time. Wheellocks were the first pistols and they didn't know how they should be designed.
My final word: If you like it - Go for it!
:grin: :hmm: :v :bow: :thumbsup:
volatpluvia

 

[Leonredbeard]

Did you ever notice, that during the time when gonnes were the most difficult to make fire reliably, the fancier they were?

Don't forget to put that fancy turned trigger on it!!! :rotf: :rotf: :blah: :v

volatpluvia

 

[wulf]

In my rusty opinion they were "thrust" weapons.
They were used to swords,lance and things of that
sort. So it would be most natural for the pistol
to be used in that manor. I was also led to believe they fired it with their thumb on the trigger to hold the gun as far away as possible, atleast till they got used to the flash, bang and smoke...I really wasn't there so I admit this being opinion only. I like all of your choices.

 

[Tinker2]

I've finally decided to stock my Brescian wheellock lock that I built from Blackley and Sons parts. I've narrowed it down to three different designs, but can't decide which one to use. I like the first one below

I like the first one too.
I am with Wulf in thinking that you point them like you would a sword or dagger.


Tinker2

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

I kind of like the middle one with a little drop.
I like the movie stills someone posted last year
with the wheellock pistol pointed at the Queen I believe, its stock has a round ball at the bottom of the stock. Of course this may not be in the time frame or even country you are thinking of
I just thought they looked neat!

:thumbsup:

 

[robinghewitt]

Price Rupert was amazingly accurate with a wheely in 1642.

IMHO it is always a bad idea to underestimate them just because they lived a few hundred years ago before our science and stuff. They seemed to do pretty well without it.

You shouldn't make a repro, assume Goex? Patch? Ball? Green pyrite? Cylindrical? Wad? Lead even? Then take half a dozen shots and go write a book saying they were no durned good.

We probably don't know how to load and shoot them because the real experts, who could have told us, didn't write the books. We get everything second hand and the fine detail is usually missing.

If it was a cavalry weapon you probably learned it the same as the sabre... Practice, practice, practice until you can do it as a reflex and get it right without thinking too much :thumbsup:

 

[ChrisPer]

Those stills were of a German-made ball-butted Puffer such as I am making myself. Brescia is famous for chiselled decoration on all-steel mounts and their styles are quite different.

My suggestion is to design one like the first but with a bit more grip angle so you can use it betterer.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

One thing you might try is shaping a length of two by four into the shape of the top pistol. Doesn't have to be perfect and you don't need to inlet any parts into it. It'll give you a feel for how these pistols handle. I've never forgotten how surprised I was at how nice the one I handled aimed.

 

[ChrisPer]

The ball butt style is also called a Puffer (I learned that here thanks guys!). It is typical of Southern Germany in the second half of the 1500's, say 1550-1590 from the dated ones I have seen. They were sold from there far and wide, often as pairs. At least one English-made example exists, and no doubt others imitated them.

The reason so many have survived is that the deluxe decoration marks them out for valuable display pieces after they became obsolete. There seem to be few 'trooper-grade' puffers surviving! They are significantly more complex locks (and attractive) than the 1630s-1640s styles exported from Dutch arms makers eg for the English Civil War, which the Lauber plans replicate.

The ball butt is an ergonomic feature, to help retention in battle or on horseback. Not for donging heads; at that period helmets and upper body armour were the fashion.

 

[ChrisPer]

IMHO it is always a bad idea to underestimate them just because they lived a few hundred years ago before our science and stuff. They seemed to do pretty well without it.

Quite right, but at the same time we see experienced people on these forums reporting high precision with modern versions - eg demonstrating smoothbore Brown Bess shooting precise groups at relatively long ranges. Our estimates of Bess performance should not be based on that, even though it was possible to do the same back then because the culture of usage was based on very different thinking to ours.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The big difference between shooting a Bess today and shooting one back in the day is that we patch the ball and tend to use a tighter fitting ball. If they'd done the same their shooting would have improved noticeably. But their rate of fire would have suffered. Hitting what they pointed at was less important than throwing balls as fast as they could.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

The Zeughauswaffen web site listed below has a couple of "Puffers" on it.

Radschlosspuffer Nurnburg 1575
Radschlosspuffer Sashen 1564

I kind of like the simpler one ( 1564 ) the other one looked like the one in the movie clip. It's too fancy to take out of the house!

:bow:

 

[benvenuto]

Well, the rank and file would have been doing fairly ordinary shooting with undersized balls and tow wading, but there have always been picked men from the ECW onwards who acted as snipers with smooth bores and they must have taken the same care in loading them that us modern shooters do. Well most of us :wink:

In continental armies they of course had the professional gamekeepers and hunters (Jaegers) to do sniping work.

As far as the pistols in discussion, I think its a matter of practise, practise, practise. Keen shooters back then could do some interesting tricks. I remember a story about Prince Rupert hitting a weather cock a couple of hundred yards away twice in a row when showing off to the King. At the same time in europe they were trying copper and eliptical lead bullets in rifled pistols...

 

[hakujin]

Hand one of these pistols to a fencer and pay close attention to how they grasp it. Old French epee handles match the curves of these pistols exactly. I admit I wasn't there, but years of using WSRFO (Wheellock Shaped Rubberband Flinging Objects) in my historical fencing practice makes holding these old guns second nature.

Arms length at shoulder height in a classic fencing pose, palm facing down first finger through the trigger guard, thumb extended forward along the left side, remaining fingers grasping the stock. Locking the pinky finger against the bulb, if it's a puffer, or into the butt swell if it's not.

My favorite replica was a straight stocked rubber-band pistol, very easy to hold, but recoil on the original must have been hard on the fingers. Based on my flint pistols, I understand why curved pistol grips became the norm.

 

[Jasseji]

1. According to Ars Bella Gerendi (About the 30-Year war in XVII Century Europe - the book contains scans from an original XVII Century German "Manual") a puffer was used as a club after the shot has been fired - therefore the ball was useful

2. Ornamented Puffers were only for the elite noble around 1580-1610, the Soldier used a weapon like the one in the first picture.

It is much more comfortable to hold as it it designed to be a one-hand weapon.

It could be used in 2 ways:

1. Cavalry Line with gun outstretched, marching towards the enemy (marching, not galloping) as if they were holding a longsword (long, pointed, evolution of the lance, no sharp edges, only used for thrusting). In this way they were used by the "Cuirassier's"

2. As a sort of left-handed melee weapon (usually done in Poland in the XVII Century):
A soldier fights with a sabre, mounted or on foot. He would fight with the sabre and use the loaded gun as an additional weapon when surrounden by more than 2 enemies.
After the shot is fired, he turns it around and uses the butt as a club - the officers usually had small clubs with them, they were ornamented and used as rank insignia but during a battle were also drawn for a fight. The soldier just used his handgun.

If you wanna go for the second stock, i'd rather say it's a later gun with a wheellock fitted, not a period army-wheellock.

Here are some pictures of a replica Polish Wheellock Carbine:
http://allegro.pl/item857270642_strzelba_mysliwska_cieszynka_xvi_w.html

They were manufactured from around 1590 (that's when the factory was officially established in the town of Cieszyn=Polish/Czech Republic Border town - back then it was 100% a Polish town.)

I'd buy that part if it werent a non-functional wall-hanger (well, it's functional but the barrel isnt made for shooting and no vent drilled - also the wheel turns but doesnt spark) - the auction start price for this deco-part is 2000$

I'd really love to have one but fully functional - anyone eager to build it ?

Even without the ornaments