Early 16th Century Arquebus info (Luntenschnappschloss) -- myArmoury.com

Kayla G · Last edited by Kayla G on Mon 24 Jun, 2019 9:06 am; edited 1 time in total

I'm looking for more examples like this one from the Hermitage Museum. I want to recreate a German arquebus with a button release similar to this one.

Here's an image I found. The second down looks very similar to the example I found. Does anyone have any idea what book this is from or knows what the caption says in English?

Some rough info I've been able to estimate from the images:
Overall lengths for these are around 31 in/78.2cm
There is about 11 in/28.2cm of stock behind the barrel
The stocks drop about 6.25cm/2.5 inches
Barrel length is around 20 inches/50.8cm
The one at the Hermitage is about .44 caliber

I found a book which has a picture of how the side button mechanism works: Howard L Blackmore, Guns and Rifles of the World, Chancellor press, 1965.

Unfortunately I don't have the book at the moment, but the description I found online seems to match:
Snapping Matchlock, 16th century, German, in the Bern Historical Museum. Interior mainspring A works on tumbler. A spring, B lying inside the lock has stud C in the middle which protrudes through the lockplate and acts as a sear by holding down the tail of the match holder in the cocked position. This is released by pressure on the button trigger D which is fastened through the lock plate to the end of the sear spring.
I will post pictures of the lock from the book when it arrives.

I really doubt I can find anything more detailed online, but that's what I have so far in case anyone is interested in arms of this particular time period Happy

Craig Peters · Posted: Fri 14 Jun, 2019 12:31 am Post subject:

Hi Kayla,

The text for the second firearm says "Rifle with snap lock from 1510, Switzerland".

I don't know if this helps, but the following diagram comments a little more on the various forms of arquebus that existed. It comes from this website which no longer exists (save in archived form): https://www.oocities.org/yosemite/campground/8551/firearms.html

Kayla G · Posted: Mon 24 Jun, 2019 8:41 am Post subject:

Here are the images I mentioned. Apologies for the poor image quality, click the images to get the full size.

First, a diagram of the mechanism. The first is a button release, the second is similar but uses a sort of trigger instead of a button. The first corresponds more with this particular type of early 16th century arquebus. Though it's from a wall gun, it looks like the mechanism is the same other than the cock facing forwards instead of backwards.

From "Guns and Rifles of the World" by Howard L. Blackmore

The profile of the cheek stocks of snapping matchlocks (from the same book). Again, the first is early 16th century and the latter is from a later time period.

Some observations: all the examples of Luntenschnappschloss appear to have a front sight and a rear sight (some of them might be of an aperture type?). Many of the later examples were rifled, but the book does not say whether they usually were in the early 16th century. Some have cast bronze barrels. Some have actual lock plates and some just have an external mainspring with the mechanism built into the wood stock.

Here's another one from "Guns and Rifles of the World", missing the snap matchlock mechanism.

An image of two arquebuses of this type from "Encyclopedia of Firearms" by Harold L. Peterson. I'm not sure what the metal pieces/strips on the top and bottom of the cheek stock are for.

Kayla G · Posted: Mon 24 Jun, 2019 8:53 am Post subject:

Here's a good description from the first book: So I guess what I'm looking for info on is actually a tinder lock and not a matchlock! However, it appears the same snapping mechanism with a side button serving as a trigger was also used on matchlocks.

John W. Leach · Posted: Tue 25 Jun, 2019 5:07 am Post subject:

OP, here also is a GREAT thread on early arquebuses.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?...t+arquebus

Jean Henri Chandler · Posted: Thu 27 Jun, 2019 2:17 pm Post subject:

That first arquebus is quite nice!

Some of the 'kriegbucher' and Italian equivalent (like Taccola and Lorenzo Ghiberti) from the late 15th and early 16th Centuries show some of these kinds of details.

I'd recommend looking through the Kriegbuch of Maximilian I (aka "The Book of Armaments of Maximilian I") and the Ludwig von Eyb Kriegbuch

This is from the former

This is breachloader from the latter:

these are matchlock or touch-hole arquebuses with their ammunition

You can see the Von Eyb book here:

https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Eyb_Kriegsbuch_(MS_B.26)

Jean Henri Chandler · Posted: Thu 27 Jun, 2019 2:22 pm Post subject:

It's beyond my area of expertise, but weren't the Japanese making arquebuses of that snapping / 'button' type for a long time?

I second the recommendation of the "ethnographic arms and armor" thread and others on that site - some of the deepest dives into this kind of thing I have ever seen were on that site.