The gun discharged with a huge belch of fire and smoke the ball shooting out about three hundred paces. The serpentine was swung forward on its pivot to bring the match into contact with the priming powder, and the resulting flame shot through a touch hole above the pan and ignited the main charge in the barrel. To fire these early matchlocks, the musketeer, or arquebusier, squeezed a lever that was clutched upward toward the stock (later models used a trigger). Note the lever underneath instead of a trigger and guard. A glowing match, a wick of loosely braided cord impregnated with saltpeter, was clamped in a serpentine, which had roughly the same function as the modern gunвЂ™s hammer. Next, at the firing end, a small pan fixed to the barrel was filled with fine priming powder. It was fired from the shoulder using a forked rest or stake to steady it.ДЄll were muzzle loaders: a fat charge of loose black powder, a lead ball, and a wad of tow or paper were dropped down the barrel and tamped home with a ramrod. It was huge, weighing twenty pounds or more with an eight to ten gaugeВ barrel (a gauge is the measurement of ball weight to fit the bore of the barrel ie: 10 gauge ball weighs one tenth of a pound). The musket appeared about a hundred years later and was developed in Spain.

It weighed about eleven pounds and was held against the chest when firing. 66 caliber ball (smaller caliber ball allows for powder and patch/cartridge). 72 caliber (approximate internal diameter of the gun barrel) and shot a. The arquebus was first used in the mid 1400вЂ™s. They were smooth-bored and attached to a rough-hewed stock with a massive butt. Both barrels were cumbersome with long heavy iron tubes. There were two types of matchlocks: the arquebus and the musket. This article will explore and illustrate the history, use of, and mechanized lock systems of these early firelocks (period syntax for guns) and their evolution to the true flintlock that prevailed by the late 1700вЂ™s and the American Revolution. It was the true flintlock that emerged around 1610 that commanded military arms right up until the mid to late 19th century. Over the next century, these matchlocks evolved into wheelocks and early flintlocks.

вЂњLockвЂќ meaning the mechanism that fired the gun and вЂњmatchвЂќ for the system of igniting it. The gun of choice, that which paved the way for complete dominance of a native population, was the matchlock. Matchlocks: In the 16th and early 17th centuries,В European nations gained a foothold in the New World.

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