Leonardo's snap lock. The missing link ?

[Raf]

Apologies for reviving an old thread

I stumbled across it while researching this drawing from Leonardo’s Madrid MS on the basis that it might be dateable evidence of an early fumbling towards a snapping type self – igniting lock. It has many features of flintlock type locks even though it is evidently simply a snapping matchlock with an automatically opening pan. What seemed interesting is that in theory if a flint replaced the match holding serpentine and the pan cover was made to act as the steel with a bit of adjustment it could be made to function as a flintlock. In investigating the geometry to see if the serpentines could be contrived to strike one another while still being controlled by the link I made what I thought at the time was an interesting, but in retrospect, fairly obvious realization. That the moving point of contact of two arcs traveling at the same speed; one being the flint and the other the hinged steel actually describes a straight line. Hardly surprising since of course this line represents the striking face of the steel common to all snapping type locks.

The geometry of Leonardo’s link illustrates very clearly the correct relationship between flints and steel that forms the theoretical basis of all snapping type locks. Leonardo certainly had the nous to appreciate the possible implications of the geometry but whether he ever applied it in this way is simply conjecture. But it perhaps ought to be recognized that it might be an important stage in the development of the idea.

So would a flintlock type lock with a fixed link like this actually work? The answer would appear to be possibly, but not very well. Mainly because of the practical difficulty in maintaining the correct radius of the flint in order to make good frictional contact with the steel. However experimentation with this idea could have given rise to an understanding of the geometry of snapping type locks and might be tentative evidence that the idea was being experimented with or was already known at this relatively early date (1490- 1498).
Suggesting that we should perhaps not be too confident in assuming that the early references (1507 to 1520) to self firing or little stone guns necessarily referred only to Wheelock’s.

Anybody want to develop this idea?

[Fernando K]

Hello:

This is a topic I've discussed in my first post. Is not a snapahunce, but a key (lock) of wick (matchlock). The first snake is to hold the wick (match) and the second is to hold the cubrecazoleta. The bowl (pan) is integral with the barrel and not the key (lock)

Affectionately. Fernando K

[Fernando K]

See:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=Leonardo

Fernando K

[Raf]

Something seems to have got lost in translation. I wasn’t claiming in my original post that Leonardo’s drawing was a flintlock type mechanism. It is clearly a matchlock with a self-opening pan. All I was suggesting was that it, or something similar could have served as a starting point for the development of flintlock type locks and that these might have developed at dates rather earlier than is usually proposed.

Whereas we have a slightly vague but plausible line for the development for the wheelock; Leonardo’s drawing about 1500, the Loffelholz manuscript remotely operating tinder lighters; 1505, the Palazzo Ducale combined wheelock crossbows etc. we don’t it seems have a similar theory for the evolution of snapping type locks. Blackamore (guns and rifles of the world 1965- p 28) admits that early references to self-igniting guns could apply equally well to flintlocks as to wheelock’s. Reason suggests that the two systems developed independently; possibly at the same, but we don’t it seems see the evidence for this.

The earliest dated wheelock’s (see Matchlocks piece) are certainly not the earliest existing examples. However these prove that by about 1550 the wheelock, at least in Germany, had passed through its development stage and shows most of the recognizable characteristics of this type of lock. Tower armories X11 1765; (Italian; about 1520) shows what I think we might expect to see in a developing idea. ( 1 ) External wheel, massive mainspring; secure wheel release mechanism yet to be resolved and an experimental matchlock type horizontally swinging flash pan cover opened automatically by a pin and a slot in the wheel. Now compare with this detached superimposed lock; also Italian, Museum of artillery, Turin. (2) Look at details of the wheelock. Like the cock screw, the wheel support bracket, the shape of the long chain links, and of course the forward facing mainspring. They could almost have come from the same workshop. Yet the date for this superimposed lock is suggested as being late sixteenth century. I suspect for no other reason than on the same lock plate is a toe lock with an L shaped combined steel and flash pan cover. One can only speculate on why someone should use two completely different types of lock on something as suicidal as a superimposed load firearm. Do you infer that the wheelock was considered the more advanced; therefore more reliable? Or that, the toe lock was experimental therefore not entirely to be trusted? However you can’t argue that both locks are not contemporary so on the evidence of the wheelock alone which date seems most likely? 1520 ish or late sixteenth century? But even if we were inclined to accept the later date it still places it in the period where all snapping type locks are usually assumed to be snaphaunces.

It also probably no coincidence that this early Italian toe lock is very similar to Algerian toe locks. (Authors coll.) (3) And of course to some Baltic locks. Lenk (The flintlock. Its origin, development and use. 1939) Illustrates a primitive (and probably updateable) Norwegian snap lock. (Nordiska Museum 56.592.5) (4) We read this as a snaphaunce but look at the rearward facing projection at the base of the steel. Clearly designed to act as a pan cover when the steel was in the firing position. But here the problem of having to keep the thing cocked once the pan is primed is resolved by having a secondary matchlock type pan cover which keeps powder in the pan when the steel is in the non - firing position. The solution is simple and this is I think as near as we can get to visualize what the first snapping type locks must have looked like. But perhaps significantly it is something that could be (and in this example probably was) knocked up by a competent village blacksmith. The true snaphaunce (separate steel, automatically opening sliding pan cover) has features that borrow from, or contribute to the developed Wheelock but cannot I think be regarded as the necessary pre cursor to the flintlock since as I have argued the combined pan cover and steel; the defining characteristics of the flintlock, may well have been there at the inception of the idea.

If both flintlock and Wheelock did begin their development in the closing years of the fourteenth century then the early fifteenth century prohibitions on the carrying of self firing guns might imply that the lawless had not suddenly equipped themselves with expensive state of the art Wheelock’s but with cheaply made snap locks of the type illustrated by lenk. And that the snapping lock might have got off to a bad start simply because its simplicity, cheapness and availability threatened the status quo.

Only a theory but I thought it was interesting...

[Fernando K]

Hello:

A small contribution. The key (Lock (2) belonging to the Artillery Museum of Turin has been claimed to be Italian, and the principle of XVII century. Morin says it's the end of the century, and has ibericas feature, and compares with a built gun 1570 (circa) to Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza (d. 1580)

View Diana Armi Magazine, February 1976, article by Augusto Capecchi

Fernando K

[Raf]

Thanks for that . I think Im still going to argue that the Turin lock is generically related to a group of early wheelocks usually ascribed to at least the first half of the sixteenth century if not earlier. As evidence I would like to suggest that the use of square headed bolts , as opposed to screws in securing the major components is distinctive . A sensible idea since it means the lock can be stripped using the same spanner but this feature doesnt seem to be found on later locks . Unless of course someone knows otherwise? Image 1 is a detail of the Tower example . 2 is I think in the Germanishes Nationalmuseum, Nurenberg (W2036)