A Brief History of Muzzleloaders By Ethan Yazel
Sometime around 900 BC, the Chinese invented black powder. Presumably, it was the kind of technological advancement no one had ever seen but it did not take long for it to ignite a series of changes that would impact the next 2000 years in ways no one ever thought possible. Black powder was first used for and is still used today in many fireworks. Black powder enthusiasts always recognize the smell in some form or another at fireworks display or backyard cookout. While celebratory at first, it didn’t take long for humanity’s wheels of ingenuity to start turning. The Chinese quickly figured out that they could develop strong tubes with a solid end and turn the black powder into propellent for a cannon or a mortar like we would think of today. Unlike the rest of muzzleloading, which would change radically over time, you can find hundreds of these same cannon and mortar designs dotted around the US at capital buildings, museum and monuments, a testament to their use well into early American history. Early Chinese mortars were cast tubes, made of brass or iron and then just loaded him through the muzzle just like you would see American Revolutionary War era mortars, and that was really the first of the muzzleloading industry. Soon, these mortars were shrunk down to about 12” long and placed on the end of a staff. Called “Handgonnes” or “hand cannons” became common in China in the 13th century and made their way through Asia and Europe by the 14th Century. Handgonnes were the parent of the earlier “Firelance”, essentially a small fireworks holder on the end of a spear, used to surprise an opponent before or during melee combat. The Handgonne attempted to improve on this, taking the shooter out of melee combat by increasing range and accuracy, all made possible by improvements to the blackpowder of the time. Despite the improvements, the handgonne was reliant on its fuse to fire, making it slow and cumbersome. In the fourteen hundreds, you start to see the development of the matchlock in Europe. This created a mechanical element to go with the fuse, The match lock holds a fuse in kind of a little arm on the side of your gun and when you pull the trigger it drops that fuse into a pan primed with a little bit of black powder and that priming pan. That spark travels into the barrel through a hole in the side of the barrel, and we call that a touch hole and that lights off the main charge in your barrel. This is where we started to see the first concepts of the muzzle loading rifle in use in the manner that will eventually be carried by an individual in the late eighteen hundreds. Matchlocks were also some of the first firearms to incorporate a trigger, a dynamic shift
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from the early handgonnes. The matchlocks started to change a little bit in Germany. In the mid-1400s, a group of German gunsmiths figured out how to rifle a barrel. Every barrel, until the mid-late fourteen hundreds was smooth, like a modern shotgun. These early German gunsmiths figured out how to rifle these barrels and start getting a twist in the barrel, allowing for the projectile to be more accurate over greater distances, and this is where we start to see German engineering start to change the world. In the fifteen hundreds, gunsmiths and shooters grew tired of this fuse concept and began looking for something more reliable. The Wheellock is developed and is the first muzzleloading lock to use metal and iron to create a spark like you want to light a fire with your flit in your striker. While the ignition is different, the wheel lock is mechanically similar to the matchlock. A spring-loaded arm, or “Dog” that holds a piece of pyrite is cocked by rotating it towards the muzzle (the opposite of a flintlock’s cock). Then, a wrench is used to cock a coil spring attached to a rough steel wheel. When the trigger is pulled, the arm retracts, placing the pyrite on the t rough edged steel wheel, the coil spring unwinds, rotating the wheel to create sparks that ignite the priming pan and then the main charge. This is arguably one of the most complicated muzzleloading locks ever in history. Muzzleloaders are loved for their simplicity, but when you consider the engineering and design skills needed to build these locks by sun and candlelight without any modern machining technologies it becomes a fascinating point in history for anyone interested in making things with their hands. While not nearly as popular in the United States as the flint and percussion locks, there are a few builders keeping the wheellock and matchlocks alive, especially in Europe. A man by the name of Bolek Maciaszczyk manages an online course where students build their own wheellock muzzleloaders, and there is a large Facebook group called “Matchlock and Wheellock guns” keeping the tradition alive. After another 100 years or so, we begin to see the development of the Flintlock, which is one of the things that people really think about when they see a muzzle loader, where you have the cock holding a flint that strikes against a hardened piece of iron or steel called the “frizzen” to create a spark that drops it into your priming pan and then ignites your charge. When we think about the early United States, the American Revolution and the American long rifle, this is the ignition system that was used during that time, and Skirmish Line Fall 2021 93
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