![]() If it was lost, the weapon was rendered useless. The greatest drawback was the need to wind the wheel with a key or spanner wrench that fit over the lug end of the wheel spindle. It was expensive and relatively delicate and needed a trained gunsmith-not the local blacksmith-when repairs were in order. Like any relatively complex mechanism, the wheel lock had inherent drawbacks. For the first time a gun could be loaded and cocked at the ready to use when needed. Trigger release, wheel spin, and priming and charge ignition were nearly simultaneous. ![]() The wheel lock mechanism was much more responsive to trigger pull than the slow matchlock. ![]() The pyrite resting upon the spinning wheel threw off sparks that ignited the priming powder and-through the touchhole-the main charge. When the trigger was pulled, the rear of the primary sear pivoted inward, swinging the other end outward to disengage the wheel, which spun in the course of relaxing the mainspring tension. The priming pan welded to the barrel touchhole, connecting the priming to the main charge, was pierced at the bottom by the top edge of the wheel. It was held in position by a small feather spring below it. The dog head was tightly pivoted with a screw and swung down by hand to press against the wheel. Where the matchlock employed an active match clamp or serpentine which came down into the priming pan as the sear bar trigger was pulled, the wheel lock clamp, known as the “dog head” because of its shape, used a passive clamp for the pyrite. Front and rear section diagrams of the wheel lock’s firing mechanism showcase the weapon’s ingenious design. ![]() The trigger mechanism was similar to the matchlock sear bar (adapted from the crossbow) or a finger trigger that was engaged by a tiny perpendicular arm on the opposite side of the sear arm. The chain was kept wound by the tension of a V-shaped flat spring. The chain provided the means of cocking the wheel when it was wound far enough for a protruding nub at the front of a pivoted sear arm to slip into a recess at the back of the wheel. On the inside of the plate, the spindle attached to a mount containing a short piece of chain (much like that for a bicycle sprocket) wrapped around the spindle. The basic mechanism entailed a serrated steel wheel mounted on a spindle through the lockplate. An English term, “dag,” from “demi” or “half arquebus,” caught on and was used all over Europe. The earliest wheel lock pistols date from about 1534, and were known originally as pistolets. They were easily handled with two hands, but the idea of an even shorter stock made the potential of one-handed manipulation possible-the first pistol. The first surviving dedicated wheel locks were shorter versions of the longarm arquebus. It was called a firelock, or as it was technically known, a wheel lock. Sometime around 1500 ad, in the early firearm centers at Brescia, Bologna, Genoa, Milan, and Venice, and the south German centers of Augsburg and Nuremberg, a new firearm with a gunlock based on a similar mechanism appeared. ![]() The design originated nearly simultaneously in northern Italy and southern Germany. The sparks were activated by a metal wheel wound on a spindle grating against the stone. It was more difficult to handle than the arquebus, but ignition was made possible without a matchcord.Ī more practical design for a semi-automatic gunlock came with the development of a metal wheel to generate sparks from friction. It was a step back from the arquebus-but the so-called “monk’s gun” used a ring-held rasp pulled across a static clamp with flint or pyrite. This modified hand cannon used sparks from friction to ignite the charge instead of a match. Shortly after the middle of the century, an alternative friction-ignition system was applied to the simple hand cannon, which had evolved first the century before. It was simple, economical, and reliable-just the traits for useful military applications-but it required two hands and a smoldering, slow matchcord with telltale smoke and glow. The matchlock had been the first mechanism to make a shoulder-aimed firearm, the arquebus, possible. By the late 15th Century, early firearm designers were already looking at ideas for semi-automatic weapons. ![]()
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