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A touch hole, also known as a cannon vent, is a small hole at the rear (breech) portion of the barrel of a muzzleloading gun or cannon. The hole provides external access of an ignition spark into the breech chamber of the barrel (where the combustion of the propellant occurs), either with a slow match , a linstock or a flash pan ignited by some ...
Flintlock mechanism The frizzen , historically called the "hammer" or the steel , [ 1 ] [ 2 ] is an L-shaped piece of steel hinged at the front used in flintlock firearms . The frizzen is held in one of two positions, opened or closed, by a leaf spring .
The flash pan was at first attached to the gun barrel, but was later moved to the lock plate of the gun. A small amount of finely ground gunpowder is placed in the flash pan and ignited. The flash of flame travels through the touch hole igniting the main charge of propellant inside the barrel. Unlike the cannon, it was not necessary (or ...
It is not known if multiple magazines were issued per gun, though this was possible (see here for a similar scenario with percussion revolvers). The lock slides from front to rear, with a second trigger provided that slides the lock from touch hole to touch hole, allowing each successive charge to be ignited. The lock did require cocking and ...
Metallic cartridges package projectile, propellant and primer together. They are initiated by striking with a firing pin or striker that passes through the breechblock.Early metallic-cartridge, single-shot breechloading rifles, such as the British Snider–Enfield model 1866 and the American Springfield model 1873, continued to use side-mounted hammers and lock mechanisms that differed little ...
Like the earlier snaplock and later flintlock, the snaphance drives flint onto steel to create a shower of sparks to ignite the priming powder in the pan, the flash partly passing through the touch hole into the barrel where it ignites the main charge (propellant). The flint is held in a clamp at the end of a bent lever called the cock.
Rifles existed long before the 17th century, but were rarely used by military forces. In order to be effective, the round in a rifle had to fit snugly into the barrel. This would allow the round to grip the barrel's rifling as the weapon was fired, and the rifling would impart a spin onto the round which would make it more stable and accurate.
In early black powder guns such as muzzleloaders, the primer was essentially the same chemical as the main propellant (albeit usually in a finer-powdered form), but poured into an external flash pan, where it could be ignited by an ignition source such as a slow match or a flintlock, though some muzzleloaders have primers like cap gun caps ...