Sons of Guns by Will Hayden

Author:Will Hayden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

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FLINTLOCKS

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Credit: Courtesy of the author

If matchlocks are the wedding singers of the gun world, flintlocks were, are, and always will be the rock stars.

Developed and introduced at the turn of the seventeenth century, flintlocks are one of the most successful firearm ignition systems of all time and are still used in virtually every corner of the globe, the basic design unchanged after more than five hundred years.

Prior to the flintlock, there was a ladderlike lineage of mechanisms covering two centuries, with each successive rung receiving improvements—some minor, some major—that deserve to be mentioned, if for no other reason than to give the flintlock the props it deserves.

After the matchlock came the wheel lock, an action that replaced the slow match with a sparking friction wheel. Although significantly better than its predecessor, the mechanism was trickier than a roomful of ninjas and therefore costly to build.

Next came the snap lock, which produced its spark when a spring-loaded cock snapped a flint down onto a piece of hardened steel. Snap locks were the first firearms that allowed a shooter to thumb back the hammer. Had snap locks never been invented, that tension-filled pregnant pause you commonly find in Hollywood action and thriller flicks wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining.

This led to the development of the snaphance, an improvement over the snap lock in that the pan cover remained closed, keeping the priming dry until the moment it was to be fired, when it would pop open automatically as part of the process. Snaphances are credited as being the first firearms to incorporate safety mechanisms to prevent accidental discharges. Supposedly the safeties came about because of an accidental shooting (and subsequent death) during Sir Thomas Cavendish’s late-1580s expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Then again, I wasn’t there. Maybe shooters just got tired of blowing their toes off and decided once and for all to do something about it.

In 1610, French artist and inventor Marin le Bourgeoys built the very first weapon to use a flintlock mechanism for King Louis XIII. That opened the floodgates and soon anyone with the means to commission or purchase one, or the stones to steal one, did exactly that. By 1630, flintlocks could be found all throughout Europe, in the hands of private citizens and soldiers alike. Flemish baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens is the first artist of note to include flintlocks in one of his works, the painting Marie de’ Medici as Bellona, created somewhere between 1622 and 1625, and now hanging in the Louvre.

Like the aforementioned painting, flintlocks were also works of art in that they were KISS simple while still being incredibly reliable. Of course, inclement weather, especially rain and snow, could put a crab in the craw of even the finest flintlock, where moisture would quickly turn the powder pan to slush. During the Civil War, opposing fighters were known to take bad weather breaks. Some, especially siblings aligned on opposite sides, would meet in the middle of the battlefield to

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