Whhellock Cannon Lock?

[tarawa1943]

i know that this isn’t the cannon forum, but the whhellock experts are here. Has anyone seen a wheellock made for a cannon?

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

I've not, but I have seen flintlock locks on cannons (ships usually, where lit matches, wooden ships and cramped gun decks have somewhat of a problem co-mingling together, LOL!

I would opine that a wheellock lock was far too expensive and even too unreliable* to be used on a huge cannon, when a match or punk would easily (and cheaply!) suffice.

*Historically speaking from actual writings of the day, wheellocks were judged to be only 75% reliable! That is why you see many with either 2 wheels and dogs on them, or even a matchlock serpentine added, just hung from the other direction than the wheellock dog.

 

[tarawa1943]

The reason for me asking this is that I was offered some cannon locks. At the time I was discussing wheellocks with my friend and mistakenly thought that the cannon locks were wheellocks. They are indeed, flintlocks. I will post pictures of of the locks when I receive them.

 

[tarawa1943]

Here are pics

 

[tarawa1943]

I have no idea what I am going to do with them

 

[PhDBrewer]

Just get a cannon to mount them on.

 

[tarawa1943]

I guess I need to see a cannon with a flintlock mounted to it

 

[PhDBrewer]

Here is a great writeup...
https://americansocietyofarmscollec...-cannon-ignitors-SALZER-AND-SEARS-vol-123.pdf

Have fun!
William

 

[TobJohn]

The heyday of the wheellock is a “no bad ideas in brainstorming”/“there is a prototype for everything” period of weapon design, so anything is possible. Sovereigns loved to show off their artillery in this period and their personal wheellock collections, so someone may have thought to combine the two. I am not aware of any, however.