Pistols and Revolvers E-Book

Martin J Dougherty

• Herausgeber: Amber Books Ltd
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: Collector's Guides
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 289

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Matchlock, wheel lock, flintlock and caplock; .44 or 9mm; revolver and automatic – the history of pistols and revolvers is a fascinating journey through the development of hand-held firearms technology.
From early hand cannon of the late 14th century to the latest automatics and machine pistols, Collector’s Guides: Pistols & Revolvers traces the development of these small arms as they evolved over the centuries. From a Thirty Years’ War wheel lock to today’s Beretta 92, from the Luger to the Colt to the latest Ruger, Collector’s Guides: Pistols & Revolvers offers a narrative history of the classics among these firearms. Throughout the book there are technical specifications for featured firearms.
Illustrated with more than 250 colour and black-and-white artworks and photographs, Collector’s Guides: Pistols & Revolvers is an expertly written account of the history of sporting and military firearms.

Leseprobe

Martin J. Dougherty

Copyright © 2015 Amber Books Ltd

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ISBN 978-1-78274-266-1

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Picture Credits

Amber Books:39; Alamy:9 (Interfoto), 15 (Archive Images), 18 (Prisma Archivo), 25 (Mar Photographics), 28 (Image Asset Management), 30 (North Wind Picture Archives), 41 (Prisma Archivo), 60 (Art Archive), 62 (Image Asset Management), 64 (Interfoto), 74 (Image Asset Management), 82 (Pictorial Press), 94 (Interfoto), 114 (Art Archive), 119 (Art Archive), 167 (Pictorial Press), 174 (Zuma Press), 178 (Glenn Harper), 190 (Zuma Press), 196 (CTK), 198 (Dan Leeth), 201 bottom (Zuma Press), 210 bottom (Sunpix), 212 (Colin Utz), 217 bottom (Sunpix), 218 bottom (Mim Friday); Art-Tech:20, 72/73, 128, 138, 148, 149, 155, 156, 216; Teri Bryant:117 top; Cody Images:23, 91 bottom, 122, 145; Colt:165, 166 bottom, 213; Corbis:10, 11 (Bettmann), 33 (Bettmann), 58 (Tria Giovan), 140 (Hulton), 169 (2/Cocoon/Ocean); Detonics:214 top; Mary Evans Picture Library:8 (Interfoto/A Koch), 16, 86, 100, 105 (Illustrated London News), 108, 112, 133 (Glasshouse Images); Fotolia:135 (Keith Garvelink); Getty Images:12 (Archive Photos), 48 bottom (Underwood Archives), 78 (Hulton), 125 (Picture Post); Heckler & Koch:179 bottom, 185; Kel Tec:214 bottom; Library of Congress:13, 14, 36, 46, 55, 130 bottom; Littlegun.be:79; Bertil Olofsson/Krigsarkivet:103; Photos.com:53 top, 68, 77 top, 90; Public Domain:171; Ronald Grant Archive:205; Smith & Wesson:180, 202, 203 bottom; Taurus:201 top, 211; TopFoto:43 (HIP), 67 (World History Archive), 159, (RIA Novosti), 164 (John Topham); U.S. Coast Guard:182 bottom; U.S. Department of Defense:136, 172, 177, 186; U.S. Marines:6; Walther:173

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Contents

Introduction

Early Handguns

Percussion-cap Pistols

Early Cartridge Pistols

The Great War Era

The World War II Era

The Cold War & the Modern Era

Glossary

Index

New Zealander marines, rifles slung, train with their backup weapons. A handgun is not the weapon of choice for a combat situation, but it does provide the means for emergency self-defence if a situation goes bad.

Introduction

Weapons of any kind can be defined as ‘tools used to break things and hurt people’, but this does not make them intrinsically good or bad. It is the purpose to which a weapon is put that matters, not its inherent capability. A weapon may serve as a badge of office and never be drawn in anger, or it can be a deterrent to aggression or used to defend the lives of innocents. It can, of course, also be used for violence and mayhem.

Certain weapons have acquired a reputation over the years, sometimes by association with law enforcement or military personnel, sometimes due to popularity with criminals. Some weapons have been given an artificial reputation by their portrayal in video games, movies and television shows, or are considered to be somehow ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on their use by one side or another in a war. Not all of these associations are fair, and not all elements of a weapon’s reputation are accurate. Some have become classics or notoriously iconic without really deserving it, while others have somehow evaded the recognition they rightly deserve.

To the user, whose life might depend on a weapon’s ability to stop an assailant, characteristics like accuracy, controllability and wounding power are critically important, but the collector might have a wholly different set of criteria for determining which weapons are interesting and which are not. Combat capability is one factor, of course, but physical beauty, perfection of design or an interesting feature not found on similar weapons might all be equally important.

Users and Collectors

The collector might also rate a given weapon highly due to its historical importance. The first use of a now-standard feature, innovative design or incorporation of new materials and association with historical personalities or events can all spark the interest of the collector or historian. A weapon that offers fairly lousy combat performance, is inaccurate, kicks too hard and is virtually impossible to reload quickly might still be a favourite with the collector, whereas the practical user would probably arm himself with something more effective if given the chance.

And of course some firearms are worth collecting for no better reason than the owner likes them. A cheap little plinking gun, one of thousands mass-produced over the years, might be given pride of place in a collection because the owner’s daughter fired her first shots with it, or simply because of fond memories of recreational shooting with friends. Where the practical gun user has fairly strict rules, the collector’s world is much more subjective and this means that there is much possibility for debate among enthusiasts about which guns are worth collecting and which are considered uninteresting.

Hunting from horseback with black powder pistols would have been quite a challenge. The inherent inaccuracy and unreliability of the weapon, combined with the motion of the target and the firer’s mount, all added up to a great many missed shots.

The author’s experience is that some classic handguns are pretty awful to shoot, fiddly to reload and prone to mechanical issues that can make them utterly maddening… yet they are still wonderful devices that it is a real privilege to shoot with. By way of example, I would not want to bet my life on a Mauser C96, but I did truly enjoy target shooting with one. Just operating the mechanism, opening the action to load the magazine from a stripper clip – even fumbling with the detachable stock was a worthwhile experience. The stock can only be attached two ways, and for some reason both of them seemed to be wrong whenever I tried it… but what a wonderful piece of practical history it was.

Thus there is no single factor that makes a weapon worth collecting or not, or which determines what is interesting and what can be ignored. Today’s under-rated or wildly experimental weapon may be tomorrow’s classic. What is true is that every single weapon has a story and has its own unique character. It is up to the individual to decide whether those characteristics appeal or not.

Flintlock pistols were often presented and sometimes carried as pairs, giving the user two shots before reloading and ensuring that in a duel situation both combatants had identical weapons.

Pistols and Revolvers

Handguns are not battlefield weapons. In other words, someone who was expecting combat would probably want a more potent weapon such as a rifle or submachinegun in the field. However, a handgun is easy to carry and will serve well in an emergency – any firepower is better than no firepower. Sidearms are thus primarily defensive weapons, used to deal with a sudden threat rather than being the weapon of choice when going looking for trouble. There are exceptions, of course, such as when a weapon must be concealed until used and anything larger is thus inappropriate, but for the most part a sidearm is carried in case of emergency rather than as a primary combat weapon.

Samuel Colt is often credited, incorrectly, with inventing the revolver. What he did do was to implement mass-production on an industrial scale, and to create a marketing programme to match the output of his factory.

That said, if a weapon is needed then it should be as effective as possible. In addition to being a visual deterrent to violence, a handgun should offer a good balance of ability to hit a target – or possibly multiple targets – and the capability to ‘stop’ the target when hit. Stopping power is not the same thing as lethality. Any bullet can kill if it hits a vital organ, but many handgun rounds are unlikely to cause the opponent to immediately stop whatever he is intent upon doing – and that is what matters in a splitsecond defensive situation. Thus it could be argued that firing a round with the ability to ‘stop’ an opponent is the paramount requirement in a handgun intended for combat.

However, stopping power is of no real use if the bullet misses the target. In addition, some handguns are too powerful for some users – and some are too powerful for almost any user! These extremely potent guns are impressive in their own right and can be useful for hunting, but for self-defence they are not a good choice. A gun that throws itself off target because the user cannot control its recoil, or causes an involuntary flinch upon firing, is less than ideal. Some handguns will actually injure an unwary shooter.

The Handgun in Combat

Huge cartridges also take up a lot of space in a weapon, making it bulky, heavy and reducing the amount of ammunition that can be carried in the cylinder or magazine. There is a trade-off to be made between potency of the round and the number that can be carried, which is important for several reasons. Most shooters cannot reliably hit a human-sized target with every shot under combat conditions, even at close range, so multi-shot capability is important even with a single target. There is also the possibility that a single shot will not stop a target, so shooting multiple times may be the only way to survive the encounter.

Obviously an exceedingly imprecise weapon is a liability, but accuracy – beyond a certain limit – is not critical to a combat handgun. As already noted, most handguns are acceptably accurate out to ranges far beyond those at which their users can shoot well mid-fight. A hunting weapon, or one used for competition, will need to be highly accurate over much greater distances than a weapon intended for close-range combat.

Handgun design is all about balancing these factors – ammunition capacity, accuracy, controllability and stopping power – as well as other considerations such as reliability, ease of use, comfort of carry, reloading speed, quality of sights and so forth. A good balance will create a fine weapon, but an extreme concentration on one factor might also result in a classic. Some of the most famous and influential guns are not great combat weapons, but instead personify some aspect or ideal of handgun design to the detriment of others or overall capability. As a rule, however, form follows function. Handgun design tends to be concentrated on creating either specialist weapons for hunting or to showcase a single attribute, or (more commonly) solid, general-purpose sidearms. The process began as soon as it became possible to create a firearm that could be held in just one hand.

The imagery in this early Smith & Wesson advertisement is clear: you can bet your life on these guns. To the practical user, nothing is more important – but the collector may have entirely different criteria for what is a ‘good’ or ‘interesting’ weapon and what is not.

Early Pistol Designs

The earliest black powder muzzleloading pistols were less than reliable, and even if they did discharge at all their accurate range was lamentably short. Indeed, some Napoleonic cavalry officers considered that if they were close enough to shoot an opponent with any degree of confidence, they were close enough to use their swords. That said, early pistols saw use from horseback, on foot and aboard ships. Many had a brass butt plate to allow the weapon to be used as a club after firing.

Attempts to increase handgun firepower ranged from the relatively simple measure of carrying a pair of pistols or using double-barrelled weapons to rather more inventive devices designed to self-reload a black powder weapon. Few examples were workable, and the black powder repeater never amounted to more than a technical curiosity. The invention of the percussion cap allowed the creation of more reliable muzzleloaders. The unreliable flintlock firing mechanism was replaced with a percussion cap struck by a hammer, but the main charge was still loaded by pouring gunpowder down the barrel and ramming a ball in on top. Although more reliable and faster, these weapons were fundamentally no different to flintlocks.

Cap-and-ball pistols offered a great leap forward in handgun firepower. Still using loose black powder as the propellant, this new technology allowed the creation of the first repeating firearms. There were two approaches to this: a ‘pepperbox’ pistol used multiple pre-loaded barrels rotated in turn into firing position, or a revolver used a rotating cylinder to align each firing chamber in turn with the barrel and firing mechanism. In both cases loading was a slow process. The firing chamber had to be filled with loose powder and then the ball or conical bullet placed atop it, with a patch to hold it in place if necessary. At the rear of the firing chamber a percussion cap was positioned to ignite the main charge when struck. The barrels or chambers were sealed with grease to prevent one cap igniting all the others in a chain-fire.

The interbar mechanism was a huge leap forward in handgun design, allowing a revolver to be safely carried with all chambers loaded. Once introduced, it became standard in virtually every model manufactured since.

This formal shooting stance was a holdover from the days of oneshot flintlocks and has been replaced with a more natural two-handed position. However, it can be very satisfying to shoot a historic handgun from a traditional stance.

This was a lengthy business but once complete the user of a repeating handgun had far greater firepower than someone armed with a singlebarrelled weapon. Misfires were more common than with modern weapons but far less frequent than with flintlocks, and with the advent of conical bullets and rifled barrels handgun rounds gained far greater muzzle velocity as well as being spun for stability in flight. This increased both accuracy and stopping power.

World War II resulted in an enormous need for weapons of all types. Produced in industrial quantities during the war years, these guns found their way onto the post-war market at knockdown prices.

From the cap-and-ball revolver it was a small step to the all-metal unitary cartridge. The pepperbox pistol fell by the wayside of history but the far less bulky revolving-cylinder pistol remains in use to the present day. Revolver mechanics have not greatly changed since the 1830s, although some improvements have been made along the way.

The main drawbacks to using a revolving cylinder are limited ammunition capacity and bulk. A weapon that can store its ammunition in a holding device and feed rounds one by one into a single firing chamber can be slimmer and lighter than one that needs a separate chamber for each round, plus enough surrounding metal to prevent a rupture. Although earlier attempts were made to create such a weapon, it was not until the late nineteenth century that the self-loading (or semi-automatic) pistol became possible. Unitary cartridges were an essential requirement for such a weapon. By the beginning of the twentieth century, recognizably modern handguns were available. Today’s revolvers and semi-automatics use the same basic principles as their counterparts of a century ago. There has been no huge revolution in handgun design in all that time, despite a few brave efforts. There has, however, been a steady evolution as new ideas and technologies have emerged.

This evolutionary process has led to some impressive ‘firsts’, some intriguing novelties and some highly regarded classics as well as a vast array of workaday handguns that, upon closer inspection, may turn out to be more interesting than first impressions suggested. Some of these guns are fascinating precisely because they are so ordinary – they represent a snapshot of mainstream weapon design at the time of their creation.

Order of Appearance

In the following chapters, some small liberties have been taken regarding which section to place some weapons in. It is impossible to create hard-andfast eras in handgun design, and in some cases a weapon seemed to be better placed in a later section than in the era in which it emerged. Thus it may be possible to find a combat revolver from 1920 found alongside its descendants in the 1935-onward chapter. There are various reasons for this, notably that the first appearance of a weapon may be less important than the era in which it was commonly used or with which it is most closely associated. In other cases it is a simple matter of narrative flow, placing coherent text above absolute breakdown by dates. Since there is so much subjectivity in what constitutes a classic or notable handgun, perhaps there is also some room for manoeuvre about what era a weapon belongs to.

For operations in very tight spaces, handguns are sometimes the only option. These U.S. Army personnel are about to enter a tunnel complex during the Vietnam War, a situation requiring steady nerves and a reliable sidearm.

By the time of the English Civil War (1642–51), black powder pistols were a viable weapon system.

Early Handguns

Projectile weapons offer a number of advantages to the user, not least the ability to strike at an enemy who might not be able to hit back. On the ancient battlefield, projectile weapons could be used to harass an enemy force and wear it down, or to soften it up for an attack by formations equipped with hand weapons such as sword or pike. Ideally these actions could be accomplished without exposing friendly troops to much risk, as lightly equipped missile soldiers could hopefully evade contact with units armed and armoured for hand-to-hand combat.

Thrown weapons such as javelins or rocks lacked range, requiring the men armed with these projectiles to be light on their feet if they wanted to escape retribution. Nevertheless the tactic worked – on one occasion a heavily armed force of Spartan hoplites was sent packing by lightly equipped javelin-throwing peltasts, against whom the Spartans simply could not get close enough to fight.

MEDIEVAL HANDGUN

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Kingdom of Hungary

DATE

c.1400

CALIBRE

18mm (.71in)

WEIGHT

3.6kg (7.9lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

1.2m (48in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

7m (7.67yds)

A musketeer carried 11 pre-measured charges of powder in clay pots and slung on a belt or strap.

Mechanical propulsion offered greater advantages. Bows and crossbows could throw a projectile further and faster than a man’s arm, giving both the accuracy to hit a moving target and the punch to penetrate armour. These types of weapons reached a high peak of efficiency, but ultimately there was only so far that a mechanical device could go. The limits of the technology had been reached by the time the first firearms appeared on the battlefield.

In time, gunpowder weapons came to dominate the arena, driving out first mechanically propelled projectiles and then relegating hand weapons to what was very much a secondary role. This did not happen overnight of course, but it was noted during the ‘pike and shot’ era of European warfare that everyone wanted to be a musketeer. Whether this was to be further from the enemy and thus safer from harm or to have less to carry than the armoured pikemen who protected the musketeers is not clear. Probably it was a bit of both.

However, even though the firearm had come to be a decisive battlefield weapon by the early 1600s, it was still a huge, clumsy thing that was not well suited to personal defence. That role was still the province of the sword, and it remained so for many years. Eventually, though, hand weapons were displaced into an only-in-emergency role and the handgun took its place as the primary weapon for personal defence. It was a long process, and one that did not have a very promising beginning.

The Earliest Handguns

Gunpowder, or black powder, was known in ancient China and was at times used to create ‘fire tubes’ that would throw a gout of flame (and part-burned powder) out of the end when ignited. The discovery that mixing a few small stones in with the powder increased the amount of injury and dismay caused to the enemy allowed the creation of a rather crude shotgun-like weapon. This was a ‘hand gun’ in that it was a hand-held firearm, although not in the modern sense, and the term applies in the same context to the earliest European handguns. The earliest known use of these weapons was in 1364, and it is rather hard to see how anyone could have thought them to be a technological step forward.

At the time, the bow and the crossbow were highly effective, proven battlefield weapons. The ‘handgonne’, on the other hand, was a crude and unreliable device that threw its projectile less distance and with inferior accuracy than either the bow or crossbow. Consisting of a pot on a stick, which was aimed in the general direction of the target by holding the stick over one shoulder while a comrade ignited the gunpowder within the pot, this was hardly a weapon that showed great promise.

Accurate fire with a hand gonne was impossible. One man pointed the weapon while another fired it using a hot coal or a length of slow match, resulting in a shot that could go almost anywhere.

True, at this time cannon were proving effective at battering through fortifications, but hand-held firearms were singularly ineffective. It is possible that only by association with cannon did hand guns avoid being tossed aside as a dead-end technology. They did find a place, however, and could be useful in a siege situation where a gun muzzle could be poked through a fortress breach or loophole that could not accommodate the arms of a bow or crossbow.

By the late fourteenth century, hand guns were in use across Europe although they were hardly an effective weapon system. Weapons like wall-guns, which were somewhere between personal firearms and light cannon and used to defend fortified places, became an effective addition to the arsenal of a castle or fortress. Despite this the impact of gunpowder on the open battlefield remained trivial. The main obstacle to the creation of an effective battlefield firearm was initiating the weapon’s propellant in a reliable manner. ‘Reliable’ is of course a relative term but the matchlock, which appeared in the 1500s, allowed the creation of something recognizable as a workable personal weapon. The matchlock system used a length of burning slow match to ignite priming powder that would in turn initiate the main charge and fire the weapon.

MATCHLOCK

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Germany

DATE

c.1450

CALIBRE

10.9mm (.42in)

WEIGHT

4.1kg (9lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

1.2m (48in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

45m (49.2yds)

Loading a matchlock weapon was a slow and complex process, and the weapon itself was of necessity a large and heavy piece of equipment. A stand was normally required to support it, and musketeers were vulnerable to attack while reloading. To counter this, they deployed on the battlefield in large formations protected by pikemen, and fired in volleys while others were reloading.

SERPENTINE MECHANISM

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Germany

DATE

c.1450

CALIBRE

10.9mm (.42in)

WEIGHT

4.1kg (9lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

1.2m (48in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

45m (49.2yds)

The matchlock musket was a useful battlefield weapon for firing at masses of enemy troops, but was not in any way accurate. This was partially because the weapon was a smoothbore, with no rifling to spin the projectile, and partly because the projectile itself was a ball that might be quite irregular and in any case was significantly smaller than the barrel diameter so that it tended to rattle around on its passage towards the muzzle. Another reason for inaccuracy was the delay between the decision or command to shoot and the weapon discharging. Known as ‘lock time’, this delay exists with all firearms but was quite lengthy in a matchlock. Most matchlocks used an ‘S’-shaped lever called a Serpentine to move the slow match from its holding position to contact with the priming powder, which hopefully would ignite quite quickly and in turn fire the main charge. A target could move quite a long way during this delay, and of course the user’s aim might be disturbed.

All of this mechanical activity was acceptable in a weapon to be used en masse by troops protected by a wall of pikes, but was hardly suited to self-defence or individual combat. Matchlock pistols were produced, many for use by cavalrymen, but they were clumsy and awkward, and did not find much favour. What they did achieve was to make firearms an essential part of warfare, and thus ensure that they had a future in which to develop. There is a persistent belief that muskets blasted the armoured knight from the battlefield, but this is nothing more than a myth. In fact, advanced plate armour was quite capable of deflecting a musket ball, and those buying armour would check it had a dent to show that it had been ‘proven’ by shooting it. Early guns were also less accurate than bows, shot more slowly and possessed a shorter effective range. There was little chance that guns would do what bows had not already achieved.

The Advantages of Firepower

The advent of firearms made it possible to raise an army in a short time and to disband it when no longer needed, therefore reducing costs. It took little time to train a man in the mechanical evolutions of loading and levelling a musket in the general direction of a block of troops, whereas a good archer capable of handling a bow powerful enough for the battlefield required a lifetime of practice. There were also social advantages to switching to the use of firearms. Gunpowder supplies were relatively easy to control, making any weapons retained by ‘unofficial’ users potentially useless. Former soldiers might take their shooting skills back to the farm, but if they rebelled at some later date they would lack the weapons to use them whereas archers could make their own highly effective weapons.

Soon after the invention of the wheel-lock pistol (around 1500), manuals of arms began to appear that gave instruction in its correct use. Similar manuals already existed for the sword, lance and other traditional weapons.

Firearms therefore came to be the standard battlefield weapon not because they were more effective than what was already available, but because they were convenient and cost-effective. The matchlock remained in use long after it had become obsolete, largely because it permitted the acquisition of an acceptable level of firepower for a small outlay. For a military or pseudomilitary force this trade-off was entirely acceptable, but for the individual user something better was required.

Wheel-lock Pistols

The problem of creating a firearm that could be conveniently carried yet quickly readied for firing, and held ready for some time if necessary, was solved around 1509 by the invention of the wheel-lock. The soldier of that era could tell it was time to load his weapon from the approach of enemy troops within range, or more likely his commander would order him to make ready when he judged this was about to happen.

WHEEL-LOCK

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Italy

DATE

c.1550

CALIBRE

10.9mm (.42in)

WEIGHT

1kg (2.25lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

400mm (15.75in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

9m (9.84yds)

ENGLISH DOGLOCK

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

England

DATE

c.1650

CALIBRE

10.9mm (.42in)

WEIGHT

1kg (2.25lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

400mm (15.75in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

9m (9.84yds)

That commander would of course not shoot at the enemy with a musket of his own, but if a battle came to close quarters he might have to fight in self-defence. His sword was the only option for a long period, but the idea of having a pistol or two to discourage anyone from coming too close was certainly attractive. A wheel-lock, which could be readied just in case and held until needed, was perhaps the first gunpowder weapon really suited to the role of a sidearm.

The wheel-lock replaced the clumsy length of slow match with a spring-loaded rotating wheel that struck sparks from a striker. Once the weapon was loaded and priming powder ready in the pan, a cover protected it from damp and held it in place until moved out of the way by the action of pulling the trigger. This allowed the wheel-lock to be carried in a ready condition and operated with one hand – the other perhaps holding another pistol, the reins of a horse or a sword – when needed.

The term ‘dog lock pistol’ is sometimes used for certain wheel-locks, referring to the ‘dog’, the arm that held the spark-creating material (iron pyrite) and brought it into contact with the wheel when the weapon was to be fired. The dog could be carried in a safe position where it could not create sparks, but once moved into the ready position it would engage the spinning wheel and create a shower of sparks when the trigger was pulled. The term dog lock also sometimes applies to weapons of this type that had a catch (also known as a dog) to hold the lock safely at half-cock.

The ability to shoot one-handed was extremely useful to horsemen, and the pistol became a favourite weapon of cavalry. A manoeuvre called the Caracole was invented, in which successive lines of cavalry would ride close to the enemy, fire their pistols then retire to reload. This rather stately evolution had less shock value than charging home with swords, but it also offered far less risk to the horsemen, especially if they wore armour that was proof against musket balls.

The wheel-lock was expensive and complex to produce, and was only deployed in small numbers. Cavalry, already an expensive force to raise, were worth the expense. Many officers of infantry forces armed with matchlocks carried a wheel-lock pistol for personal defence. Private individuals also armed themselves with wheel-locks for self-protection. Some wheel-lock weapons were deliberately aimed at extremely wealthy or powerful users, and were richly decorated as prestige items that combined cutting-edge weapon technology with practicality and artistic beauty. Others were simply functional, and a few experimental designs did emerge. Attempts were made to create multi-shot pistols and other exotic devices, but these were not successful enough to enter the general marketplace.

Flintlock Pistols

The search for more reliable and cost-effective personal weaponry resulted in the development of the snaplock, which replaced the iron pyrites striker with a piece of flint and did away with the rotating wheel. Instead, the flint was scraped along a steel striker plate by the action of a spring-loaded arm, creating a shower of sparks in the same manner as the earlier wheel-lock. Snaplock weapons appeared around 1540. Like similar weapons, a snaplock could be loaded and carried with the ‘cock’ (the lever holding the flint) in a safe position and the priming-pan cover closed. When danger threatened, the user pulled the lever back to its firing position. This action gave rise to the term ‘cocking’ a weapon that is still used today. Pulling the trigger removed the catch that prevented the spring-loaded cock from snapping back to its natural position, causing the flint to strike sparks and – usually – igniting the priming powder and then the main charge.

With a flintlock pistol there is a noticeable delay between the powder in the priming pan firing and the main charge igniting – assuming that it ignites at all!

DUTCH SNAPHANCE

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Netherlands

DATE

c.1650

CALIBRE

17mm (.675in)

WEIGHT

1.67kg (3.7lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

400mm (15.75in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

15m (16.4yds)

The snaplock was much cheaper to make than a wheel-lock, permitting the mass-production of pistols. However, by the 1550s a more advanced version termed the snaphance was emerging. A snaphance weapon was broadly similar to a snaplock, but incorporated a device to open the flash-pan cover as part of the action of firing. This removed one action that the user had to carry out when readying his weapon, making deployment quicker in a crisis, and also protected the priming powder from wind and damp until the instant of firing.

POCKET PISTOL

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

United States

DATE

1795

CALIBRE

12.7mm (.5in)

WEIGHT

0.34kg (0.75lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

76mm (6.6in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

1.5m (1.64yds)

The snaphance became a standard personal firearm in the latter half of the sixteenth century, but from about 1620 to 1630 onwards it was gradually replaced by the next evolution in lock technology – the flintlock. This continued to use the elements of the snaphance but incorporated a combined pan cover/striker plate called the frizzen. The frizzen is the hallmark of a ‘true’ flintlock as opposed to a snaphance or snaplock. Around the same time, a variant known as the English lock appeared. This was a transitional stage between the snaphance and the true flintlock. The relative simplicity of the flintlock and English lock mechanisms made them easy to mass-produce, and as well as countless flintlock muskets for infantry use, pistols found favour with many private and military users.

QUEEN ANNE PISTOL

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

United Kingdom

DATE

c.1750

CALIBRE

16.5mm (.65in)

WEIGHT

0.79kg (1.75lb)

OVERALL LENGTH

235mm (9.25in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

6m (6.5.36yds)

Longevity of the Flintlock

Once a reliable flintlock pistol design appeared, it remained in existence for many years. The flintlock was not displaced by percussion-cap weapons for over two centuries, and in that time a great many designs using the principle appeared, many of them tailored to a specific application.

IMPROVED FLINTLOCK

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

United Kingdom

DATE

1770

CALIBRE

15.9mm (.62in)

WEIGHT

1.39kg (3b)

OVERALL LENGTH

540mm (21.25in)

FEED/MAGAZINE

Single shot, muzzleloader

RANGE

15m (16.4yds)

Pistols were only effective at extremely close quarters, such as amid the chaos of a naval boarding action. A discharged pistol was still useful as a club.

Small flintlock pistols that could be carried in a pocket were primarily intended for self-defence by gentlefolk. A pistol was a great deterrent – produced from a pocket and cocked it was a broad hint that further aggression might result in serious injury. Of course there was always the possibility that the weapon was not primed or even loaded, or that the user might miss, but a cocked pistol could create sufficient doubt in the mind of an aggressor that he might decide to withdraw.

A pistol was also much easier to carry than a sword, and usually quicker to deploy due to its shorter length. A robber or similar assailant might decide to take his chances against a sword, reasoning that in close combat his own fighting ability might be greater than that of his intended victim, but a pistol offered the chance of being shot down without even getting close enough to strike a blow, and that could be a profound deterrent. Indeed, the same principle still works today.

LONG-BARRELLED PISTOL

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

United States

DATE

1805

CALIBRE

15.9mm (.62in)