Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 .
Upon the pull of a lever (or in later models a trigger) protruding from the bottom of the gun and connected to the serpentine, the clamp dropped down, lowering the smoldering match into the flash pan and igniting the priming powder. The flash from the primer traveled through the touch hole, igniting the main charge of propellant in the gun ...
A four-shot superposed load pistol, with the lock positioned to ignite the rear-most charge. The covers for the forward touchholes are open. A superposed load or stacked charge or superimposed load is a method used by various muzzle-loading firearms, from matchlocks to caplocks, including a few modern weapons, such as Metal Storm, to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without reloading. [1]
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 ...
The term flintlock was, and still is, often applied to any form of friction (flint) lock other than the wheellock with the various forms sub-categorized as snaphaunce, miquelet, English doglock, Baltic lock, and French or "true" flintlock ("true" being the final, widely used form). Strictly speaking, all are flintlocks.