Flintlock

A firearm ignition system in which a piece of flint strikes steel to shower sparks onto priming powder. It replaced slower ignition systems and remained widely used from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century.

Cock (firearm): The pivoting hammer assembly that holds flint and falls against the steel frizzen in a flintlock. Its fall begins the ignition sequence and drives the flint against the frizzen.
Wheellock: A firearm ignition system that spins a toothed steel wheel against pyrite to create sparks. It was an earlier spark-producing system, but its complex mechanism differed from the flintlock's.
Brown Bess: The common name for a family of British smoothbore flintlock military muskets used from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. It became one of the best-known military applications of the flintlock.
Matchlock: A firearm ignition system that lowers a burning match to ignite priming powder. It preceded the flintlock and required a continuously burning cord.
Frizzen: A hinged steel plate that the flint strikes, producing sparks and uncovering the priming pan. One impact both creates sparks and opens the pan holding priming powder.
Snaphaunce: A seventeenth-century firearm lock in which flint struck a separate steel battery to produce sparks. It was a close predecessor whose separate cover and steel helped shape flintlock development.
Charleville musket: A French military flintlock musket adopted in the eighteenth century and used in several later models. Its standardization shows how flintlocks equipped large national armies.
Caplock: A firearm ignition system in which a hammer strikes a percussion cap to ignite the charge. It superseded the flintlock with ignition less vulnerable to rain and wind.
Flash pan: A small metal pan holding priming powder beside a flintlock's touchhole. Sparks from the frizzen ignite its powder, sending flame through the touchhole.
Snaplock: An early flint-and-steel firearm lock with a simpler, exposed ignition arrangement. It illustrates an early step toward the integrated flintlock mechanism.

Linked from 17 pages