Sánta Ákos: Vadászfegyverek - A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum tárgykatalógusai 4. (Budapest, 2018)
Archduke Friedrich of Austria and the Archduchess Isabella on a car with their game bag, Kőriserdő, 1896. The flintlock was invented in the first third of the 17th century and remained in use until the mid-19th. It had several versions. The most advanced type is the socalled French flintlock, which had become widespread in the second half of the 17th century. With the flintlock mechanism the charge was ignited by the spark that was created by the friction between the flintstone and the steel, directed by the priming powder to the main powder charge. The barrel was loaded in the same way as with the wheellock. Then, the hammer or cock was pulled by hand in a half-cocked position, the lid of the flash pan was opened and the pan was filled with finely ground black powder. The lid was closed, the hammer was completely cocked, which stretched the mainspring. When the trigger was pulled, the hammer, with the flint in its jaws, hit the steel frizzen (an elongated plate attached to the pan lid) and the sparks created by the impact lit the black powder in the pan. The resulting flame imploded the main charge wadded in the barrel through the touchhole, and the force of the expanding gunpowder gases forced the projectile out of the barrel. The shape of the flint was formed by chipping. Before the flint was attached to the hammer it was sharpened so that the friction created by the impact of the flint on the frizzen would result in a more dependable spark striking mechanism. To ensure a firmer grip, the flint was often wrapped in tin foil or a piece of cloth before it was forced in the jaws of the hammer.5 During the 18th century the quality of flintlock firearms gradually increased. In this century there was already a clear difference between guns with a rifled barrel that projected bullets, used for the hunting of big game, and smoothbore or straight rifled shotguns used for the hunting of small game. Rifling is the creation of grooves machined in the inner surface of the barrel. The pattern created by rifling directed the projectile within the barrel, which increased the muzzle velocity of the bullet, and the range of the firearm also improved. The dispersion of the aim decreased, because the projectile is forced to spin around itself by the rifling, making its trajectory more stable and the aim more accurate. The performance of the weapon was also greatly improved by the fact that rifling impeded the forward flow of gunpowder gases around the projectile in motion, as the bullet had to be literally squeezed into the barrel and the surrounding grooves with the ramrod. Consequently the loading of these firearms was rather cumbersome. A further disadvantage was that such weapons had to be either discharged or left loaded. A further difficulty was its low rate of fire, as a flintlock took at least a minute to reload. 5 Tivadar Farkas, Lőfegyverek rendszertana I. (Budapest, 2000), pp. 22-23.
