The English Snaphance Lock

[ResearchPress]

New free download article via my web site.

The English snaphance is not only one of the most innovative "flint-locks" but is probably one of the rarest gun mechanisms to have survived. Recent research has found that only about 80 English snaphance muskets, pistols and detached locks have survived worldwide, although this does not include excavated, converted or incomplete locks. Modern tests by the author have proved it to be a fast and reliable mechanism and it must have been a serious challenger to the matchlock and wheellock in the 16th century. This article looks at the history of the lock and examines two examples.

See: The English Snaphance Lock and Two In Particular

David

[KenH]

Thanks - I've downloaded the pdf file and will enjoy reading.

[waarp8nt]

Thank you. Downloaded and look forward to reading it.

[ResearchPress]

Thanks for the feedback. There's 10 articles in all, plus a magazine, all for free download. Browse the folders for details: Research Press Publishing

David

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The snaphaunce is one of those firearms which are very limited in numbers, and more valuable to collectors than those which were popular enough and durable enough to exist in large numbers. Its pedigree is interesting, for the horizontal sear, although it protrudes from the lockplate and acts on the hammer rather than a separate sear, derives clearly from the wheel-lock. It did have the advantage of being very safe, without depending on anything as fragile as a half-cock notch. For the flint could be let down onto the pan lid itself, with no question of contacting the frizzen. Another peril with the "French" flintlock was that it was all too easy to bump into the frizzen and lost your priming. With the snaphaunce the hammer could lock the pan lid in place.

The number of them which existed, and for how long they were made, is somewhat obscured by nomenclature. I think it was a lot more common for the term "firelock" to be used of both snaphaunce and flintlock, and perhaps even for wheel-lock firearms. It may have been that a lot were converted to flintlock as we understand it.