I was having a discussion with a friend about muzzleloaders. He had mentioned that when the old debate about modern inlines not being authentic pops up, his response is that inlines actually came first. Everything I have ever seen says that first came touch hole fired weapons, followed by serpentine matchlocks then flintlocks, and weren't the first paper cartridge breechloaders sidelocks?

So, what is the earliest documented inline muzzleloader? Did it actually preceed sidelocks?

quote:

Originally posted by Nedrick:
I was having a discussion with a friend about muzzleloaders. He had mentioned that when the old debate about modern inlines not being authentic pops up, his response is that inlines actually came first. Everything I have ever seen says that first came touch hole fired weapons, followed by serpentine matchlocks then flintlocks, and weren't the first paper cartridge breechloaders sidelocks?

So, what is the earliest documented inline muzzleloader? Did it actually preceed sidelocks?

It seems to me that the paper-cartridge breechloaders were indeed "sidelocks".

If you consider the "hand-cannon", which had no lock at all, and was fired by sticking a "match" into the touch-hole to be an "inline", I suppose one could claim that "inlines" came first!

However, the first weapons incorporating a firing mechanism of any kind that I am aware of weren't "inlines", they were sidelocks, as you have described. Yet, I have seen a type of "inlines" which were made at least as early as the early part of the 18th century which were flintlocks, the firing mechanism being placed in the rear section of the barrel extension right behind the breechplug, with a priming pan made as part of the breechplug and the touch-hole bored through the breechplug into the chamber face of the plug. These designs were indeed "inlines".

Here's an early 19th Century percussion inline.



In addition, interestingly enough, a great number of early English sporting guns (mostly fowling pieces) were breechloaders! These used the rising/falling breech screw-block mechanism, similar to that on the Ferguson rifle of the American Revolution.

The English then seemed to have changed over from these screw-block breechloaders to muzzleloaders, considering the muzzleloader to be an IMPROVEMENT!!

Amazing, what??

Nedrick,

Some years ago Gun Digest carried a detailed study of inline flintlocks of the Paczelt type as made by Stanislaus Paczelt in what is now Czechoslovakia. Apparently there were many such guns made until the Forsyth invention of the percussion cap made them obsolete. You might want to check out old Gun Digest issues from the late 90s for the article.

My personal archives are in India and I do not have access to them or I would scan and e-mail the article to you.

Best wishes and good hunting!

Even the Handgon was not an inline. The "match" or fuse was hld to the hole which was in the top of the barrel. Aiming was problematic. It would not have taken long for someone to figure they did not want to be behind the touch hole when those hot gases started spewing forth.

Following the handgon came the integration of a firing mechanism and a stock. This was the matchlock which was definately a side lock.

Reverand Alexander Forsyth patented a percussion device, call the scent bottle percussion device, in England on July 4th, 1807. It was a sidelock mechanism. It was a bottle of fulmonate that was rotated to deposit a small amount of fulmonate under a peg that was hit by the hammer.
The oldest known handgun was made in the 1300's and was a matchlock. The wheellock came about in 1525. Flintlock by 1600.
British-American Joshua Shaw invented the percussion cap and nipple setup sometime prior to 1816.
A plethora of designs for use with the new percussion principle appeared in the early 1800's. The

Swiss genius Pauley invented the paper cap, then invented a percussion muzzleloader in 1808 and

breech-loader in 1812. His 1808 patent was the first to design and patent a muzzleloading in-line action

in which the cock of the sidelock was replaced by a cylindrical hammer driven by a coil spring.

His in-line invention was capitalized on by Dreyse, who worked for Pauly between 1808-14 and

who used it as the basis for his 1838 turnbolt design which became the Prussian Needlegun of 1848.

Paul Mauser later used the Dreyse needlegun design as a basis for his tumbolt cartridge rifle of 1868,

first patented in the U.S., but adopted by the German military in 1871.

Even if the claim were true - I've yet to see any evidence that it is - it's not like any of the modern inlines are replicas of the old designs. Why are inliners always apologizing?

Google is good. The White Muzzleloading website has a picture of the Paczelt (1738) in-line flintlock (neat!):

http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/What%20Is%20A%20Muzzleloader.htm

And several pictures of Pauley-style (1812) in-line caplocks:

http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/prod04.htm
http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/custom_traditional.htm
http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/archives.htm

So, in-line actions did not precede sidelocks. There were matchlock, wheelock, snaphaunces, doglocks, and flintlocks - all of them sidelocks - long before 1738. The Pauley action may have preceded percussion cap sidelocks, but not in a commercially successful form. [We make too much of the percussion cap in any case. It was a state of the art ignition system for only 40 years or so and was technologically obsolete before the War Between The States.] I still think inliners who apologize at all apologize too much. The fellas carrying stainless synthetics loaded with 209s, pellets of BP substitute, and jacketed pistol bullets wrapped in polymer sabots claim ancient provenance but only two or three hunt with examples of the guns they use to prove their case. Good hunting!

Shotgun primer, plastic stock, stainless steel.... why not just get a .308?

quote:

Originally posted by Sixgun Symphony:
Shotgun primer, plastic stock, stainless steel.... why not just get a .308?

Good point. But I suspect that the reason has something to do with the fact that many jurisdictions will permit those stainless-steel, plastic, 209-primed, scope-sighted wonders to be used in a special season!