In the 16th century heavy lancers were widely replaced by reiters carrying two pistols to be fired at close range. Eventually the caracole tactic fell out of use in favor of charging in with swords after the initial volley, but pistols remained an important weapon for delivering the initial charge and being used to shoot enemies just out of reach while in melee. During the Napoleonic wars flintlock pistols were presumably lighter and more reliable than the wheellocks used in earlier periods yet cavalry is generally shown as charging and fighting with swords only. Why is that?

My guess would be the lack of accuracy of pistols compared with muskets and the fact that it'd be very hard to reload them while riding a horse.

More importantly, is there really a tactical advantage of a horseman firing a pistol over a frontal charge? Horses are scary (and big!) and so are pointy metal things. If your infantry can bring all the fire power you want to bear, the cavalry can do the thing it's best at: shock and cold steel.

A final random thought is of course that we're talking about the heavy cavalry here, the cuirassiers etc. other horsemen like the Fench Grenadiers au Cheval and other dragoon regiments did use gunpowder weapons.

So I'd say there are 3 reasons: practical concerns (the caracole was creative but not very practical it seems), tactical (infantry offers better firepower, cavalry more shock power) and Napoleonic cavalry seems to have been more specialised than early Renaissance cavalry.

a few points (from someone with a bit of experience doing these things..) 1. You don't need to re-load a sword 2. Its damn near impossible to load a pistol at anything other than a complete stop or a slow walk over decent ground, 3 swords don't fail in the wet.

In the reiter era, both the reiters and their (cavalry)opponents were usually heavily armored. The reiters used their pistols as a (very)close-range one-shot armor-piercing weapon. In the napoleonic-era, very few combatants used armor, max breastplate and open-faced helmet (cuirassiers), but even their legs, arms, and faces were unprotected against edged weapons, so the need for pistols was low.

Against infantry, the pistol only useful when the (more numerous) enemy cant reach you with ranged weapons ( pikemen/halberdiers/swordsmen etc.) . In the napoleonic era, against the musket-armed infantry with their better range and numerical advantage, the effects of pistols were negligible ( mostly).

And visually, a closing cavalry armed with sort batons(pistols) is less frightening, compared to one with long, shiny, sharp or pointy metallic things.