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Warmatrix

War Matrix - Wheellock

Age of Discovery 1480 CE - 1620 CE, Weapons and technology

Double barreled wheellock pistol by Peter Peck
Double barreled wheellock pistol by Peter Peck
A wheellock, sometimes called rose lock, is a firing mechanism for hand-held firearms like arquebuses and muskets, an improvement over its predecessor, the matchlock.
In a wheellock, a steel wheel was rotated against a piece of pyrite. The friction caused sparks that ignited the gunpowder.
Unlike the matchlock, a wheellock gun could be fired instantly after being loaded. This increased the rate of fire to about 3 shots per minute for a skilled gunner and allowed him to time his shots accurately. It also reduced the vulnerability of the gun to dampness and made it more secretive because it dispensed with the light and smell of the slow burning match. The disadvantages of a wheellock were that it was relatively complex and costly.
The wheellock was invented in the first decade of the 16th century CE. Almost immediately the first pistols, single-handed guns, appeared. Several assassinations were conducted with wheellock pistols, which led to laws banning them in several countries. Because of their cost, they were never produced in large numbers for armies. Wheellocks were superseded by snaplocks, snaphances, doglocks and eventually flintlocks.