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

[Matchlock]

And a close-up of the marks and the date 1539 - cf. the way the cyphers on the Nuremberg barrel '1537' (now in Graz) are struck!

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...lock+harquebus



m

[Raf]

On lateral push buttons...
In case anyones confused by this esoteric conversation. With a 'normal ' 2 part sear and prop system two relatively light springs are used to push the release prop under the tail of the primary sear and push the primary sear into the wheel slot .Which is fine except that strength of the primary sear spring is a bit of a compromise . Two weak and it may not push the primary sear in far enough so the secondary prop wont engage . Two strong and it creates extra drag on the internal face of the wheel creating unnecessary friction and wear to the end of the primary sear. The push button allows the spring to be omitted since pressing the button while the wheel is being spanned ensures the sear is always going to fully enter the wheel slot so that the secondary prop will always engage. But will not drag on the face of the wheel when released. In some locks it looks as if the role of the sear spring may actually be reversed and is used to help the sear disengage from the wheel . But if i'm wrong I am sure Michael will correct me. Everybody clear ?
And Michael ; thanks for the brilliant photographs of locks one doesn,t normally get to see. However ; on another thread I suggested that the use of square bolts , (as on these locks ) rather than screws on the major components of some early locks was a distinctive feature that might be indicative of a geographic link or a guide to dateing . Do you have a view on this ?

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,


I am afraid we have been stating some things completely wrong here as lateral push buttons on early wheellocks are concerned.

I have had a long talk with a friend of mine. His name is Armin König, and be builds the best firing gun replicas by far, the best I ever saw!!! He builds them so exactly after the best originals in big museums and from my own collection that they are exactly identical to the originals - down to the last milllimeter and to one or two grams in weight!!! We have often examined guns together, be it in famous museums or at the viewings of big auction sales houses; it usually takes him four to five hours to completely dismantle a gun, draw a plan and take all the single measurements and weights of each tiny part!!! Nobody is allowed to get near him during that time of utmost concentration. He builds everything with his own hands, not with the help of an engine-lathe. He is as devoted to his work as I am to mine - mine basically is the forum. He is a walking phenomenon and what he builds is pure perfection. Our minds think alike. And he, just like me, loves cats.

He categorically does not do any restorations to antique objects. When some tiny part is missing from a pistol in a museum or in some private collection he calls it a pity but would never touch and replace any part of an original piece. The reason being that he builds everything strictly after an original piece; never would he change the slightest detail or/and build what he and I both call 'fantasy pieces'. As nobody can tell for sure how exactly a missing piece looked he leaves damaged weapons alone. When a ramrod on a piece he has set his mind on rebuilding seems to be a replacement or is missing, he will build the piece with a ramrod that anybody would call 'replaced'.




As some people have presented the 'works' of their favorite gun constructors here, please let me show a few things of the best of them all.

Please allow me to link him here, he is an absolute idealist and a great person:
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/.../Firearms.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...ockmusket.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...s/Caliver.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...ockmusket.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...ockpistol.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...ockpuffer.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...lehackbut.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...Bandolier.html
http://www.engerisser.de/Bewaffnung/...Wheellock.html


Well, Armin read our discussion on the forum. At first he was d'accord, but a few hours later he got back with me and told me the truth. I used to teach him many of the things he knows today and I still am his sole 'authority' as to dating objects. But I am proud as a peacock and thankful that he taught me in this aspect. What more can a dedicated teacher expect than his best-ever student surpassing him?!


Now here are the mere facts, and I stated them as short and precise as I could:

Most of the earliest Germanic wheellock mechanisms had only a sear spring that acted so that it prevented the nose of the sear from resting in the notch of the wheel. 'Earliest' meaning from the beginning, which certainly must have happened during the second half of the 15th century, until at least the mid-16th c., in many cases well after 1600, though.
In order to force that nose to safely rest in the notch of the wheel when the wheel chain was spanned, all locks of such an early Germanic type of construction - this neutral formulation helps avoiding regional or dating problems - needed a lateral push button outside the lock plate that had to be pressed. When you press that button you can feel the force of the sear spring counteracting. Only when that push button 'clicks' into its assigned position the nose of the sear has safe contact with the depth of the wheel notch.

So that's all there really is to that push button discussion. May I advise you to closely study Robert Brooker, Landeszeughaus Graz, Austria: Radschloss-Sammlung/Wheellock Collection, Hong Kong 2007, ISBN 978-0-9795532-0-2.

On p. 77, four views of the North-Italian type of lock (Robert thinks that the lock is ca. 1520, but actually it should be correctly dated 'ca. 1540') of RG 3 are represented; in the bottom view you will see the tiny sear spring, cf. also the second view on the following page.
Let's go to p. 80, RG 4: the barrel dated 1558 and the lock contemporary. In view 4 of the Germanic-type lock, you can see the same spring principle, this time combined with a lateral push button to force the nose of the sear into the notch of the wheel.
As the 16th c. proceeded, Styria contiuned holding on to the archaic type of push button as it promised maximum safety. On p. 92ff, there are images of a heavy wall gun, FRG 285: the barrel and lock are Styria, ca. 1560, the stock was renewed in ca. 1700! Views 3 and 4 on p. 93 clearly demonstrate that the push button on this lock now has its own spring on which it acts.

Robert's book is basically very good work and worth buying; you literally get thousands of images although the Chinese printing greatly quality varies from page to page. When Robert attended me and my collection a few years ago, I explained to him my criticism as to dating many guns and pieces of accouterment, and he accepted it.

I wish to tell the following in no uncertain terms: even for museum standard people (!), the competency of the present Graz staff is horribly low!

E.g., they misread the date struck on the Nuremberg barrel of the arquebus RG 2 as '1527' though it really is 1537. They did not even know the mere facts that the barrel was of Nuremberg make and that complete arquebuses existed with barrels bearing the same characteristic type of arrow marks and dated of 1537 and 1539; they are preserved in the Bavarian Army Museum Ingolstadt, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg, and in my collection. Please see post 23f. in this thread above.
Misled by that wrong type and the archaic impact of the North Italian type of lock, Robert misdated the lock and barrel as '1527'; what he correctly remarked though is that the gun was restocked at the end of the 16th c.



Now finally here are some impressions of earliest firearms that my friend Armin König rebuilt - enjoy!


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

More for your enjoyment!

m

[Raf]

Hullo Michael . Do we have a translation/ communication problem ? I thought this was exactly what I was describing very clearly in my last post. What I was also trying to do was explain how the earlier push button sear locking system conferred some advantages over the later, for the sake of argument , post 1550, two part locking system which uses a small spring to engage the sear with the wheel slot and relies on the camming effect of the of the wheel driving the sear out of engagement once the secondary prop is released by the trigger. The advantage being that in the push button system their is no drag on the inside face of the wheel caused by the primary sear spring continuing to push the sear onto the inside face of the wheel after it has disengaged. And as you say pressing the button while the lock is being spanned means you can ' feel ' that the sear has properly engaged with its slot. Presumably , with time and better construction it was found that the disadvantages of the primary sear dragging on the face of the wheel didn't have a significant effect on the efficiency of the mechanism and this system was abandoned so the wheel could now be spanned without having an additional button to press. But one can also see how this 'failsafe' system might have persisted longer on simpler and more primitive locks which is what we see.
Its confusing to imply that the push button sear is a feature of all early German locks , since the earliest locks dateable German locks ( the combined wheelock / crossbow which you illustrated ) show a sear arrangement where the primary sear is positively engaged with the wheel by a spring and disengaged by a secondary bar operated by the trigger . In principal exactly the same as we see on Italian locks with a single locking bar which is positively engaged with the wheel by a spring and released by the trigger acting directly on the tail of the sear.
Not I would have thought that controversial and I don't think we need to call in expert witnesses.

[Matchlock]

Hi Raf,


I must admit that we might have a communication problem. Obviously I did not quite get the essence of your argumentation, especially as it was without any illustrations, in which case I am completely 'Lost in Translation', and you put 'two weak' and 'two strong' where I had expected to read 'too'. I'm also not sure what you meant by 'secondary sear prop.'

Please forgive a bloody German who has just been trying to improve his English ... . I am sure that you can explain your point so that I can grasp it.


Best,
Michael

[Marcus den toom]

For a German your English writing skills are well within the Dutch standards
(every dutch person gets schooled in at least 4 languages so i think we can set a certain standard ).

On topic than, i think my earlier post has been overlooked?
If there is any room for such a study i would be more than happy to go trough my books to compile a photografical time scale on the early pistol butstock/handgrips. The earlier ones will be trick since i have limited information on them, but with some help we might be able to create something decent