Lock (firearm)

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This flintlock mechanism is distinct from the metal barrel extending to the right, and the surrounding wooden stock encloses and obscures the trigger mechanism connection to the actuation spring. Musee-historique-lausanne-img 0086.jpg
This flintlock mechanism is distinct from the metal barrel extending to the right, and the surrounding wooden stock encloses and obscures the trigger mechanism connection to the actuation spring.

The lock of a firearm is the mechanism used to initiate firing. It is a historical term, in that it generally refers to such mechanisms used in muzzle-loading and early breech-loading firearms. Side-lock refers to the type of construction, in which the individual components of the mechanism are mounted either side of a single plate. The assembly is then mounted to the stock on the side of the firearm. In modern firearm designs, the mechanism to initiate firing is generally constructed within the frame or receiver of the firearm and is referred to as the firing or trigger mechanism.

Contents

Hand cannon

Hand cannon, the earliest of firearms, had arrived in Europe by c. 1338. [1] These cannons were loaded from the muzzle. The propellent charge is lit through a touch hole. A small priming charge over the touch hole is ignited with a lit piece of slow match or similar. These hand cannons were ungainly: the difficulty being in holding and aiming the weapon while manipulating the slow burning fuse needed to fire it. Improvements to the basic design placed the touch hole and a priming pan (flash pan) to the side of the barrel. A cover to the priming pan allowed this to be filled with priming powder in advance of firing but there was no actual mechanism for firing. [2]

Firelock

A firelock is a firearm in which the priming is ignited by sparks. [3] [4] [5] More specifically, it refers to the mechanism or lock of such firearms. It may also refer to a gun's lock which uses slow match to ignite the powder charge. [6] [7]

The matchlock was a lever mechanism that simplified the ergonomics of firing. Slow match would be held clear of the flash pan in a spring-loaded pivoting arm (the serpentine). Depressing the firing lever would dip the burning match into the flash pan. The snap matchlock latched the serpentine back against spring tension. Actuating the trigger or firing lever would release the serpentine, allowing it to rotate and dip the lit match into the priming pan. This reduced hesitancy at the moment of firing and thereby improved accuracy. However, rather than firing, the match might be snuffed out when it struck the flash pan. [8] [9] [10] [11]

The next advance was a self-igniting firearm that did not require a lit slow match to fire. The first of this type is the wheellock. The wheellock produces a spark in much the same way as a Zippo lighter. Pyrite held against a rotating steel wheel produced a spark directed at the priming charge in the flash pan. The wheel is rotated by a spring under tension. It would be wound up like a clock before each firing, held by a latch and fired by a lever that released the latch. To avert stalling, the pyrite would be lowered onto the rotating wheel rather than being permanently held against it. The mechanism would also remove a cover from the flash pan at the moment of firing, sliding it forward. The cover would retain the priming charge in the flash pan during transit. The mechanism was altogether quite complicated. Consequently it was expensive and found limited use. [12] [2]

The patilla style miquelet lock fully cocked. An extension of the cock is resting on and restrained by the upper of the two horizontal sears protruding through the lock-plate. The movement of the sear is nominally parallel to the axis of rotation of the cock. Depressing the trigger causes the sear to be drawn inward and release the cock. This type of sear was used in firelocks prior to the advent of the true flintlock. Patilla Style Miquelet Lock.jpg
The patilla style miquelet lock fully cocked. An extension of the cock is resting on and restrained by the upper of the two horizontal sears protruding through the lock-plate. The movement of the sear is nominally parallel to the axis of rotation of the cock. Depressing the trigger causes the sear to be drawn inward and release the cock. This type of sear was used in firelocks prior to the advent of the true flintlock.

The next advance in firearm design was the snaplock, which used flint striking steel to generate the spark. The flint is held in a rotating, spring-loaded arm called the cock. This is held cocked by a latch and released by a lever or trigger. The steel is curved and hinged. This accommodates the arc of the flint, maintaining contact with the steel. The spark produced is directed downward into the flash pan. The snaphance incorporates a mechanism to slide the pan cover forward at the moment of firing. The doglock incorporates a second latch (or dog) as a safety mechanism that engages the cock in a halfway or half-cock position. The dog is independent of the trigger. The dog is only released when the lock is bought to the full-cock position. The miquelet lock is the penultimate of the flint-sparking locks. It has an L-shaped frizzen, the base of which, covers the flash pan and is hinged forward of the pan. The flint strikes against the upright of the "L" and flips the frizzen forward to reveal the pan to the sparks created. The miquelet lock also has a half-cock mechanism similar in function but differing in operation from the doglock. [13] [2]

The flintlock is also referred to as the true flintlock to distinguish it from other flint-sparking mechanisms. It is also known as the French lock. [14] It uses a frizzen similar to the miquelet lock and has a half-cock position. The distinction between the two locks is that the flintlock uses a single vertical sear to latch the cock in both the cocked and half-cocked positions. The sear is a lever that pivots in the vertical plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the cock and acts much like a pawl engaging the catch points of a ratchet gear. The tumbler is similar in function to a ratchet gear. It is mounted on the inside of the lock-plate and has two catch-points corresponding to the half-cocked and full-cocked positions. The half-cock catch-point is a V-notch into which the sear fits and cannot be levered away by the trigger to disengage the tumbler. [15] [16]

Firelock firing mechanisms are assembled either side of a mounting plate. The assembly is then mounted to the side of the stock of the firearm. The actual trigger may be separately mounted from the lock-plate. Side lock refers to lock mechanisms of this general construction. [17] It continued to be used in percussion-lock firearms and early firearm designs using metallic cartridges.

Percussion lock

The advent of the percussive ignition eliminated the need for a spark to discharge a firearm. Instead, the discharge is initiated by striking a shock-sensitive explosive material. Initial patents are attributed to the Reverend Alexander John Forsyth, who use a fulminate powder delivered from a charger that was integral to the lock mechanism. The charger contained a firing pin that was struck and in turn, struck the fulminate. The mechanism was otherwise constructed similar to that of the flintlock. The fulminate used in percussive locks was variously packaged as pills, metal tubes and paper patches but the percussion cap soon predominated. [18] [19]

The flintlock mechanism was readily adapted to utilise this new technology. The flash pan was removed. A nipple (a small hollow cone) was fitted to the touchhole. The percussion cap is fitted over the end of the nipple. The cock was modified to strike the cap and redesignated as the hammer. As a safety measure, the face of the hammer was soon hollowed to surround the cap. As an economy, many existing flintlocks (particularly military stocks) were converted to use the percussion cap. Most conversions modified rather than replaced the lock mechanism of the firearm being converted [20] while lock designs in new models of longarms were largely unchanged. Some designs emerged, such as Maynard carbine [21] and the pellet feed system employed by the Sharps carbine, [22] [23] which mechanised the recharging of the primer but such systems were never widely adopted.

Percussion lock refers generally to firearms that use external percussive primers. Cap lock and tube lock refer to percussion-lock firearms that utilised either cap or tube primers respectively. Scent-bottle lock refers to a design by Forsyth. The charger containing the fulminating powder resembles a scent bottle in shape.

Breechloaders

Early breech-loading, cap lock longarms, such as the Sharps carbine [24] and the Wilson carbine [25] used much the same side mounted lock mechanism as muzzle-loading cap-locks.

Revolvers

The commercially practical revolver followed from the advent of the percussion cap. The action of cocking the hammer is used to rotate the cylinder and bring a loaded chamber in-line with the barrel preparatory to firing. The mechanism for cocking, rotating and firing revolvers is contained between side-plates that form the frame of the revolver. This is a significant departure from earlier lock mechanisms that were constructed about a single plate fixed to one side of a firearm.

Metallic cartridges

Metallic cartridges package projectile, propellant and primer together. They are initiated by striking with a firing pin or striker that passes through the breechblock. Early metallic-cartridge, single-shot breechloading rifles, such as the British Snider–Enfield model 1866 and the American Springfield model 1873, continued to use side-mounted hammers and lock mechanisms that differed little from the cap lock and the flintlock in manufacture. [26] The firing pin is angled away from the axis of the barrel and toward the hammer, to accommodate the offset of the hammer. The further development of breech-loading mechanisms and repeating firearms placed the components of the mechanism within the receiver or frame of the firearm. This can be seen in the Martini–Henry, the Remington-Lee Model 1879 [27] [28] and the Winchester rifles. The mechanism employed to open and close the breech is integrated with the firing mechanism to cock the firearm. Improvements in spring technology has also resulted in cheaper helical coil springs in place of leaf and V springs. The term lock is not generally used to refer to the firing or trigger mechanism of metallic cartridge firearms.

Boxlock

Side-by-side shotguns and hunting rifles continued to use side-locks until the advent of the boxlock patented by Anson and Deeley in 1875. Side-lock shotguns have two separate lock plates mounted to the sides of the butt of the gun and not the receiver. In the boxlock, the components of the firing mechanism are contained within the frame of the gun. This simplified manufacture and significantly reduced costs. While the boxlock is referred to as a hammerless gun, the hammers of the mechanism are concealed within the gun's frame. Side-lock shotguns continue to be made for the high-end market. [29] [30]

In culture

Lock, stock and barrel is a figure of speech referring to the totality of a firearm as: the barrel through which the bullet is directed toward a target, the stock which provides a means of gripping the firearm, and the lock as the firing mechanism.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Single-shot</span> Firearm that holds one round of ammunition

In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percussion cap</span> Ignition source in a type of firearm mechanism

The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. Its invention gave rise to the cap lock mechanism or percussion lock system which used percussion caps struck by the hammer to set off the gunpowder charge in rifles and cap and ball firearms. Any firearm using a caplock mechanism is a percussion gun. Any long gun with a cap-lock mechanism and rifled barrel is a percussion rifle. Cap and ball describes cap-lock firearms discharging a single bore-diameter spherical bullet with each shot.

A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the projectile and the propellant charge into the muzzle end of the gun. This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading firearms, in which user loads the ammunition into the breech end of the barrel. The term "muzzleloader" applies to both rifled and smoothbore type muzzleloaders, and may also refer to the marksman who specializes in the shooting of such firearms. The firing methods, paraphernalia and mechanism further divide both categories as do caliber.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action (firearms)</span> Functional mechanism of breech-loading

In firearms terminology, an action is the functional mechanism of a breech-loading firearm that handles the ammunition cartridges, or the method by which that mechanism works. Actions are technically not present on muzzleloaders, as all those are single-shot firearms with a closed off breech with the powder and projectile manually loaded from the muzzle. Instead, the muzzleloader ignition mechanism is referred to as the lock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flintlock</span> Firearm with flint-striking ignition

Flintlock is a general term for any firearm that uses a flint-striking ignition mechanism, the first of which appeared in Western Europe in the early 16th century. The term may also apply to a particular form of the mechanism itself, also known as the true flintlock, that was introduced in the early 17th century, and gradually replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies, such as the matchlock, the wheellock, and the earlier flintlock mechanisms such as the snaplock and snaphaunce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wheellock</span> Firearm action

A wheellock, wheel-lock, or wheel lock is a friction-wheel mechanism which creates a spark that causes a firearm to fire. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock and the first self-igniting firearm. Its name is from its rotating steel wheel to provide ignition. Developed in Europe around 1500, it was used alongside the matchlock and later the snaplock (1540s), the snaphance (1560s), and the flintlock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snaphance</span> Type of firearm mechanism

A snaphance or snaphaunce is a type of firearm lock in which a flint struck against a striker plate above a steel pan ignites the priming powder which fires the gun. It is the mechanical progression of the wheellock firing mechanism, and along with the miquelet lock and doglock are predecessors of the flintlock mechanism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepper-box</span> Multi-barrel firearm

The pepper-box revolver or simply pepperbox is a multiple-barrel firearm, mostly in the form of a handgun, that has three or more gun barrels in a revolving mechanism. Each barrel holds a single shot, and the shooter can manually rotate the whole barrel assembly to sequentially index each barrel into alignment with the lock or hammer, similar to rotation of a revolver's cylinder.

A repeating rifle is a single-barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reload. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine and then fed individually into the chamber by a reciprocating bolt, via either a manual or automatic action mechanism, while the act of chambering the round typically also recocks the hammer/striker for the following shot. In common usage, the term "repeating rifle" most often refers specifically to manual repeating rifles, as opposed to self-loading rifles, which use the recoil, gas, or blowback of the previous shot to cycle the action and load the next round, even though all self-loading firearms are technically a subcategory of repeating firearms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flintlock mechanism</span> Ignition system for early firearms

The flintlock mechanism is a type of lock used on muskets, rifles, and pistols from the early 17th to the mid-19th century. It is commonly referred to as a "flintlock". The term is also used for the weapons themselves as a whole, and not just the lock mechanism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firing pin</span> Part of the firing mechanism in a firearm

A firing pin or striker is a part of the firing mechanism of a firearm that impacts the primer in the base of a cartridge and causes it to fire. In firearms terminology, a striker is a particular type of firing pin where a compressed spring acts directly on the firing pin to provide the impact force rather than it being struck by a hammer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snaplock</span>

A snaplock is a type of lock for firing a gun or is a gun fired by such a lock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hammerless</span> Handgun design lacking a hammer

A hammerless firearm is a firearm that lacks an exposed hammer or hammer spur. Although it may not literally lack a hammer, it lacks a hammer that the user can pull directly. One of the disadvantages of an exposed hammer spur is the tendency to get caught on items such as clothing; covering the hammer by removing the spur reduces this tendency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frizzen</span>

The frizzen, historically called the "hammer" or the steel, is an L-shaped piece of steel hinged at the front used in flintlock firearms. The frizzen is held in one of two positions, opened or closed, by a leaf spring. When closed, it is positioned over the flash pan so as to enclose a small priming charge of black powder next to the flash hole that is drilled through the barrel into which the main charge has been loaded. When the trigger is pulled, the cock, which holds a shaped piece of flint clamped in a set of jaws with a scrap of leather or thin piece of lead, snaps forward causing the flint to scrape downward along the frizzen's face, throwing it forward into the open position and exposing the priming powder. The flint scraping along the steel causes a shower of sparks to be thrown into the pan, thereby igniting the priming powder therein and sending flames through the touch hole, which in turn ignites the main charge of black powder in the breech of the barrel, driving the projectile out of the muzzle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hammer (firearms)</span> Part of a firearm

The hammer is a part of a firearm that is used to strike the percussion cap/primer, or a separate firing pin, to ignite the propellant and fire the projectile. It is so called due to the fact that it resembles a hammer in both form and function. The hammer itself is a metal piece that forcefully rotates about a pivot point.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Handgun</span> Short-barreled firearm designed to be held and used with one hand

A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long gun which needs to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder. Handguns have shorter effective ranges compared to long guns, and are much harder to shoot accurately. While most early handguns are single-shot pistols, the two most common types of handguns used in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, although other handguns such as derringers and machine pistols also see infrequent usage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalthoff repeater</span> Weapon

The Kalthoff repeater was a type of repeating firearm that was designed by members of the Kalthoff family around 1630, and became the first repeating firearm to be brought into military service. At least nineteen gunsmiths are known to have made weapons following the Kalthoff design. Some early Kalthoff guns were wheellocks, but the rest were flintlocks. The capacity varied between 5 and 30 rounds, depending on the style of the magazines. A single forward and back movement of the trigger guard, which could be done in 1–2 seconds, readied the weapon for firing. The caliber of Kalthoff guns generally varied between 0.4–0.8 in (10–20 mm), though 0.3 in (7.6 mm) caliber examples also exist.

Jean Le Page (1779–1822) was a well-known French gunsmith. He worked for Louis XVI, Napoléon and then Louis XVIII. He was the inventor of fulminate percussion systems for firearms, which superseded the flint-lock mechanism and opened the way to modern firearms. This followed the discovery of fulminates by Edward Charles Howard in 1800.

The Cookson flintlock rifle, a lever-action breech-loading repeater, also known as the Cookson gun, is one of many similar designs to make an appearance on the world stage beginning in the 17th century. The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has a Cookson Gun, dating to 1690. According to the museum, John Cookson made several repeating guns based on this system. He signed one 'Fecit Londini', which suggests he was a London maker. Another John Cookson, who was also a gunmaker, is known to have worked in America. He is recorded in Boston, Massachusetts between 1701 and 1762. In 1756 he advertised repeating firearms firing nine shots in the local paper, the Boston Gazette. It is probable that he was related to the John Cookson who worked in London.

In firearms and artillery, the primer is the chemical and/or device responsible for initiating the propellant combustion that will propel the projectiles out of the gun barrel.

References

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  21. The Maynard carbine used a paper tape, much like that used in toy cap guns.
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