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

[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]

Originally Posted by 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

Yes, Marcus,


Like any other development, that of buttstocks also went gradually. It would take more than one comprehensive thread to go into details, though.

Do you think that the first pistol you illustrated, ca. 1555-60, is of Dutch origin? Possibly. It is kept in the Royal Armouries Leeds after it was found by an elderly lady in her house and handed over in sheer panic (!) to the London Metropolitan police ... The Royal Armouries and I think it is of English make.

The highly decorated pistol, ca. 1550, its full stock completely veneered with real ivory, indeed marks the first stage of that special thickened buttstock that, in the course of the 1570's, led to the late-16th(early 17th c. ball-butted puffers. This fine piece belonged to a certain Freiherr Teufel von Gunderdorf, and is preserved in the Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin; sadly both your images are mirror-inverted, so this was not the pistol of a left-handed gentleman, as one might get misled to think.



Best,
Michael

[Marcus den toom]

Hi Michael,

yes i imagine it would take some pages to get a conclusive report on this matter, but a worthy cause i presume.

The pistol is said to be of possible Dutch origin, but i have my doubts. Like a true proud Dutchy i know some historical dates, like the start of the Golden age in 1585 after Antwerp was defeated by the Spanish.

After this many of the important southern Dutch people immigrated to the free north. Before this date, most skilled weapon makers did live in the southern part like Antwerp. Also the fact that the barrel was made by a Spanish maker, Diego de Caias, would sugest a different origin on this piece (since most trading routes between countries at war are al but gone).

The book i got this picture from is Wheellock Firearms of the Royal armouries by Graeme Rimer, page 37.
The pistol used to be decorated in a far superior way than the current state would sugest.

My best guess would be that the whole pistole was made in Spain. The lock has similair decoration like those on the barrel. Also one of the surviving bone plaques has a man in Tudor costume, with spanish beard and all.
I will make some better pictures of the decorations.


The gilded and ivory covered pistol is indeed inverted, i got it like this from the internet but forgot to invert it back.

[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

[Raf]

Hullo Michael . Yes , I always thought it was interesting the way the deficiencies of a single locking bar ; a tendency not to engage fully with the wheel slot and drop out formed the idea behind the two part sear and prop. Having said that in practice its often quite difficult to get the primary sear to disengage from the wheel unless the sear nose and slot are exactly the right shape. Too sloppy and the wheel doesn't lock off in the right place and you get problems with the pan cover link not keeping the pan shut properly . I don't think people always appreciate how tricky it was to get these all these things right.
And yes ; single locking bars do need a lot of effort to get them to disengage , hence a long or very hard trigger pull . So the cam or wedge type release system illustrated by Leonardo but seen on other locks does have something to recommend it .

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,



Enclosed please find photos from early wheellocks in the Landeszeughaus Graz, Styria, all employing the lateral push button.

Please note that the first, all aspects considered, is ca. 1540, while the lock and barrel (dated 1537, not 1527 as erroneously read by the Graz curators!) are Nuremberg, the stock was renewed in about 1580, and both the lock and barrel have undergone considerable later alterations ...!

For comparison, I attached images of a fine Nuremberg Landsknecht matchlock arquebus, the barrel featuring the same crossed arrows mark and dated 1539; the counterpart to m gun is preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, but in much worse condition than mine!

The last in row is dated 1568 on the Nuremberg barrel that was almost certainly made by Hans Mörl, whose hourglass mark we know from matchlock mechanisms.



Best,
Michael