History
The flintlock was developed in France in the early 17th century. Though its exact origins are not known, credit for the development of the flintlock is usually given to Marin le Bourgeoys, an artist, gunsmith, luthier (maker of stringed musical instruments) and inventor from Normandy, France. Marin le Bourgeoys's basic design became the standard for flintlocks and quickly replaced older firing mechanisms throughout Europe. Flintlock weapons based on this design were used for over two centuries, until they were finally replaced by percussion locks in the 1840s and 1850s. The key element added apparently by Marin le Bourgeoys was the vertically acting sear. The sear is "catch" or "latch" which holds the mechanism in a position ready to fire; the trigger acts upon, or is part of, the sear, releasing it and allowing a strong spring to act on the mechanism to fire the gun. Previously the sear, located within the lock, had acted through a hole in the lockplate to engage the cock on the outside of the plate. The vertically acting sear acted on a piece called the tumbler, on the inside of the lock which was mounted on the same rotating shaft as the cock. This design proved to be the most efficient in terms of cost and reliability.
Read more about this topic: Flintlock Mechanism
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)