You are obviously aware that the principal of ignition in flint as opposed to pyrites ignition firearms is different but the myth persists that they are somehow interchangeable. It probably needs re stating that with flint the steel or frizen is the sacrificial element and that sparks result from tiny particles of steel stripped from the hardened steel . With pyrites it is the pyrites itself that is responsible for creating the sparks . The pyrites is heated by frictional contact with the steel . Tiny fragments of pyrites are detached and ignite through exothermic reaction with oxygen in the air. Substituting pyrites for flint in a wheelock will obviously produce a spark , after a fashion, but the serrations of the wheel are quickly destroyed . For this reason flint should never ever be used in a wheelock.
Your point about the antiquity of the snaplock is I think a valid one. In the past I have tried to argue, not always successfully that experiments with snapping locks probably occurred at the same time as the evolution of the wheelock and that the idea of a chronological evolution from matchlock to , wheelock , snaphaunce to flintlock is an over simplification. The point about the Dresden gun isnt I think about whether it sort of works but whether it worked well enough and reliably enough to be considered a viable firearm. If it did then this would support Blairs point that linear friction bar ignition systems were the logical antecedent of the wheelock and could have been developed in the fifteenth century.
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