A 1548 Nuremberg Dagger-grip Over-and-Under Double Wheellock Pistol

[Raf]

Thanks Michael for a reflective and informative response. I think I agree with you. Individual areas or centers of production have to be viewed as having their own histories and its probably unsound to read to much into comparisons. Therefore I agree that ' primitive ' italian locks are probably in reality no earlier , or not much earlier than their more sophisticated German counterparts . But they do illustrate the conceptual stages in the development of the idea. I am familiar with the Palallazo Ducale crosbow / wheelocks but not their German counterparts . Any pictures ?

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,


Here are all the images that the Bavarian National Museum Munich allowed me to take of their famous wheellock/crossbow combination of ca. 1521-6, the barrel signed in etching FERDINANDUS, over a span of more than 30 years (!). Some of them were taken using flashlight, which of course is illegal ... Who cares anyway? The crossbow won't mind, either, and I needed the information !

I remember posting some of them here on the forum but the search button cannot find a single one! GRRRRRRRRR !!!!



Do you have any photos of the Venice pieces?




Best,
m

[Matchlock]

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[Matchlock]

m

[Matchlock]

A few details of decoration:

the Cross of Burgundy and the Chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Kette des Ordens vom Goldenen Vlies).


m

[Raf]

Thanks for the picks .Did our posts cross somewhere? Compared to the Venice crossbow / wheelocks ( c 1510 ) the german version looks like its from another planet. Rather makes my point . With the exception of the hooked pancovers these early locks have all the classic features of later locks and one is left wondering where the development took place, how it was so rapid and why we don't see in German locks the same kind of 'primitive' features we see elsewhere. Please reasure me that the B and W pictures of Royal Armouries X11 1566 is a modern copy. Not the orrigional lock attacked by the Conservator from Hell...

[Matchlock]

I'm not sure what picture you mean but this ca. 1530 Augsburg/Munich lock is in the Dresden Armory and is preserved in the same perfectly original condition as the gun with the same makers mark (a dolphin??) on both lock and barrel of a long arquebus in Leeds, the stock all veneered in natural staghorn (bought via Fischer, Lucerne, in 1932).

In the 1870's, Moritz Thierbach had a line drawing of it made for his work Entwickelung der Handfeuerwaffen ...


Just because they are almost 500 years old these items do not necessarily have to look like pieces of dirt or as if they were excavated.
E.g., take the famous Monk's gun ...



I do keep many extremely early items in my collection that still are in perfect overall as-new condition (plus patina). I bought them because they were in such a good condition!



m

[Matchlock]

Back to the roots for a moment, meaning the short double-barreled arquebus from post #1.
A very similar small arquebus (nowadays commonly called a pistol), the iron parts ca. 1545-50, of similar dimensions (overall length 46.5 cm) but sadly newly stocked in 1560's style, was sold at a German auction: Hermann Historica, Munich, 33rd sale, 22nd March 1996, lot 966. The almost identical lock, the prite dogs and pierced wheel covers were characteristic of the mid-16th c. Nuremberg style.


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,

I was beginning to like our discussions a lot - would you still care to respond?
Do you know what the tiny wing nut to the left of the wheel of the BNM (Bavarian National Museum) was meant for? And the vertical push button? I do ...

Best,
Michael

[Raf]

Hullo Michael. No I dont know and since this is not a conventional set up it would have to be a guess. I assumed the button was the trigger release for the secondary link . In view of the early date assume sear pushed into wheel slot by spring and disengaged by front end of the secondary link pushing down on the tail of the sear arm when button is pressed. In which case the wing nut is threaded into the lockplate and when fully screwed in pushes the tail of the primary sear out meaning the sear is locked into wheel so it cant fire. But ; has the secondary effect of making sure the sear always fully enters the wheel slot. So its a sort of compromise between the single piece locking bar and the later locking bar with prop. If this is right then it implies that at this early date the deficiencies of the single locking bar were known but the problem had yet to be fully resolved . Did I pass ?

[Marcus den toom]

Don't mean to interupt your personal discussion but am i right to assume that the developement of butstocks was gradually? From the dagger grip of the early 1510-30 the fishtale butstock of 1530ish to 1560ish and the pommel variation like those on the trabanter leibgart (like those of Augustus I, earliest know of those is 1586, last year of Augustus his reign)

I also found a few pictures like this (presumably) Dutch wheel lock with Spanish barrel.


The detached lock as discribed by Michael


A pistol with first signs of a rounded nob/pommel (?), gilded and decorated with plaques of ivory




I will look up the books etc later

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,



You are really good, I must say!
Although I was a teacher, and some members called teaching what I am trying to achieve here, this was of course not a test. You would have passed brilliantly though!


From my practical experience testing early wheellocks and matchlocks, some of the latter being in my own collection, I can tell that once it has been screwed in, that wing nut will block the sear from working on a mid-16th c. Nuremberg detached tinderlock mechanism, as well as on another Nuremberg ca. 1550 combined match- and tinderlock mechanism.

As these two tinderlocks are both so remarkable, I decided to dedicate to them a thread of their own.


As you correctly said, the lateral push button on early Germanic wheellocks after ca. 1525 worked as a reinforcing means of pressing the nose of the sear into the respective recess in the wheel; so it's more or less a sort of safety mechanism to amend the contact between the sear (nose) and the wheel when the latter is spanned. In other words, this safety mechanism acted opposed to a set trigger system.

I recall when the sear on those wheellocks was disengaged/released, you had to press really hard and the sear would be released making an astonishingly loud and hard-clicking sound! Wheellocks of that construction were favoured especially in Styria, where they were made from ca. 1530 to 1550 but in the Landeszeughaus Graz many wheellock guns of the 1580's and well after 1600 still employed the same archaic safety mechanism.



Best,
Michael