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Firing Mechanisms
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Matchlock |
Deformed
matchlock with
serpentine |
Matchlocks
The simplest and earliest gun-lock
plate used in the colonies was the matchlock. Its main feature is a
split arm, sometimes shaped like a snake head and referred to as a serpentine,
that gripped a burning saltpeter-soaked match. When the lever
(trigger) was pulled, the arm swung down into a pan full of powder. The
pan cover had to be opened manually.
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Matchlock |
Matchlock
Powder Pan
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Snaphaunce |
Snaphaunce
Battery
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Snaphaunce
Cock
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Snaphaunce Locks
The snaphaunce can be considered the direct
ancestor of the 18th-century flintlock. The term is now used to describe
a mechanism where a flint, held in a cock, was struck against a battery that
was separate from the powder pan cover. Excavations of 17th-century
Virginia sites have recovered a surprising number of this type of lock
plate. |
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Mainspring
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Battery Spring
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Cockscrew
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“English”
Lock
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“English” Lock
Another innovation was to combine the
flashpan cover and battery into one L-shaped unit, now referred to as a
frizzen. |
Although these different types of gun firing
mechanism plates may be looked at as a progression of improvements in the design, and
each development did occur at succeeding times —by the 17th
century
in Virginia all of these types may have been in use at the same place,
or in different places at the same time. |
