Expo number 375

 

Lock

Of so-called miquelet type, with flat chamfered plate and external mainspring, cock with baluster neck, jaw-screw with loop; a spring-loaded door at the front of the plate gives access to an oblique internal tube of rectangular section; from the latter, the powder is directly fed into the breech-block when the powder container is brought forward.

 

Barrel

Of circular section throughout and rifled with six grooves, brass bead front-sight, notched iron back-sight, breech comprising a housing containing a separate rectangular block with three chambers; this block moves sideways when the trigger-guard is rotated 180 degrees towards the front (see Remarks [TECHN.]), the same motion cocking the lock and lowering the frizzle onto the pan.

 

Stock

With rounded surfaces and with French butt (cf. Blackmore).

 

Mounts

Brass fore-end cap and two cylindrical ramrod-pipes, iron trigger-guard and flattened S-shaped sideplate, the latter held by two lock-screws and carrying in the middle a suspension-ring; the ring can be unscrewed to reveal the powder magazine; short, brass tipped ramrod fitted with a spring wedging it in the foremost ramrod-pipe, its actual purpose being to close off the tubular magazine which can contain about 30 bullets, concealed in the fore-end.

 

Remarks

(MAKER) Hendrick Baertmans applied for a patent on a magazine rifle fitting the above description at the States of Holland and West-Frisia in 1641, receiving the official patent on 19 December of that year (cf. Hoff). Investigations by the former owner, who bought the rifle in Germany prior to 1974, and by Mr J.B. Kist of the Rijksmuseum, indicate that it was actually made by Baertmans (cf. Slijkerman), who signed a very similar rifle now in the Tøjhusmuseum in Copenhagen (Inv. B 646).

(STYLE) The butt shape is called `French' according to the typology suggested by Blackmore.

(TECHNOLOGICAL) Cf. Hoff's elaborate explanation, supported by drawings, reproduced below, on the working of this system: `The Kalthoff system is certainly a complicated mechanism. The central elements in the construction are the ball magazine in the fore-stock, the powder magazine in the hollow butt, and, probably of most significance, a triggerguard on which is mounted a square transporter of powder. When the triggerguard is turned around its foremost point, it carries a proper amount of powder from the butt to the front part of the lock whence it may be poured into the breech-block. The turning of the triggerguard also moves the breech-block at right angles to the barrel axis. In the breech-block three - or in some cases two - holes or chambers are drilled from the front. In the left chamber from the front a bullet is received from the bullet magazine (see fig. 1 below), which is a narrow tube placed in the ramrod-groove and closed by a false ramrod. When the breech-block is moved, its central chamber passes to the right where it stops opposite the powder channel from the front of the lock (see fig. 2). By raising the muzzle the chamber will be filled with powder. Meanwhile the left chamber with the bullet in place stops opposite the breech-end of the barrel, and by means of a special device the ball is propelled forward into the barrel. In one load of the triggerguard there will be more powder than the central chamber can hold; when the triggerguard is rotated back, moving the breech-block to the left, the surplus powder enters the third chamber (the one most to the right) and through this into the pan where it acts as the priming powder (see fig. 3). In models in which the breech-block has only two chambers, the surplus powder will run directly into the pan. Having returned to its resting position, the breech-block has its central chamber now filled with powder, now situated just behind the bullet; when the powder is ignited from the pan it will explode and drive out the bullet. Another action is accomplished by the turning of the triggerguard: a cogwheel on its axle moves a rack which lifs the cock to the full-cock position, and the gun is ready for discharge.

All but one of the known weapons of this `snaplock' group, have the powder magazine in the hollow butt filled through an aperture in the butt-plate, covered by a sliding lid. The exception is the Visser gun where the entrance to the magazine is a hole in the sideplate closed by a screw which also holds the ring by which the carbine is carried in a bandolier.

(CF.) Other very similar weapons in the Tøjhusmuseum are Inv. B 181-183, which are assumed to have been made by Baertmans as well (cf. Hoff, 1978, 3p. 232), although they are, like the Visser rifle, unsigned. B 183 is dated 1642 on the barrel. In the same collection are two pistols working on the same principle and fitted with similar miquelet-type locks (Inv. B 471 and 472). The little evidence there is on B 182 suggests that it is an early development in the series because the oblique rectangular tube for the powder is brazed to the exterior side of the lockplate. B 646 could be an intermediary development as this tube is mounted separately in the stock immediately forward of the lockplate. Since B 183 is dated 1642, the Visser rifle with its tube magazine mounted against the interior side of the plate, might be slightly later. See drawings.

 

Literature

-Slijkerman (1974) p. 3-6;

-Hoff (1978) p. 233-234 & fig. 3-5

-Van der Sloot (1978) No. 36

-Puype / Van der Hoeven (1993) No. 148 p. 136

-Blackmore (1965) No. 918

-Hoff (Vol. I, 1969) p. 203, (Vol. II, 1969) p. 284

-Kist et al. (1974) Nos.24-25

-Hoff (1978) p. 230 ff

 

Exhibited at

Stedelijk Museum `De Lakenhal', Leiden, July-Sept. 1978

Legermuseum, Delft, Dec. 1993-June 1994

 

1          Snaplock (or snap-lock), a term used by some scholars and collectors for all flint-striking locks, including snaphaunces, flintlocks and Mediterranean-type locks (including the so-called miquelet lock). Others, for instance Howard Blackmore, use the term flintlock in this generic sense. In any case, the term snaplock should not be confused with the lock type known as `Scandinavian snaplock', which was in use in the 16th Century.