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Warmatrix

War Matrix - Flintlock

Age of Reason 1620 CE - 1750 CE, Weapons and technology

French flintlock musket from 1717 CE
French flintlock musket from 1717 CE
A flintlock is a firing mechanism for firearms, a great improvement over its predecessors that made the musket the dominant infantry weapon.
The predecessors of the flintlock where the matchlock and wheellock. Near the mid 16th century CE, the wheellock design was improved to the snaplock. In a snaplock, a flint, tensed by a spring, struck a plate of hardened steel, causing a spark that ignited a small amount of priming powder held in a flash pan. From there, the fire burned to the weapon chamber and ignited the main gunpowder charge. The big advantage of the snaplock over the wheellock was that its construction was simpler and cheaper.
About 20 years later the snaplock was further improved to the snaphance alias snaphaunce. The main improvement was that the pan cover no longer had to be opened and closed manually, but did so automatically, helping to keep the priming powder dry. In addition, extra safeties were built in to prevent accidental firing. Soon after the doglock enhanced the guns even more with an extra half-cock safety, the 'dog'. Finally, in the early 17th century CE, the 'true' flintlock firing mechanism was developed, combining the features of snaplock, snaphaunce and doglock.
After their introduction, flintlocks rapidly gained popularity. Muskets, which up to that point had been fairly long and heavy guns, became lighter and replaced arquebuses. The average flintlock musket weighed about 5 kilograms, as much as the earlier arquebus. The flintlock allowed a gunner to reload his weapon much faster than the earlier matchlock weapons. Still the rate of fire was relatively slow: 3 shots per minute for a skilled gunner. Despite the improvements over earlier firing mechanisms, flintlocks were still prone to misfire, accidental firing and required frequent cleaning to prevent gunpowder and sulphuric acid from fouling the barrel and lock.
Flintlock muskets became the standard weapon of the infantry. Light flintlock muskets came to be called fusils and give rise to the term fusiliers. Both earlier firing mechanisms and older non-gunpowder weapons almost all disappeared during the 17th century CE. The flintlock remained the dominant firing mechanism up the mid 19th century CE, when it was replaced with the caplock.