Firing My Wheel Lock

Bookie

Bookie

Joined
Mar 25, 2014
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I made a Dutch wheellock carbine, circa 1642, a few years back. A Swedish movie company asked for a video of me firing it. The sound was to be used for the sound effects for all the wheel locks being fired in their film "Forlorn Hope". I complied and you can see the entire flick on You Tube in 7 installments. Here's the video I made. The wheel lock is primed. Then it is spanned with a spanner or wrench. Thus, a wheel lock can not be cocked to be fired. Only "spanned". The lock does not use flint, but iron pyrite--better known as Fool's Gold. The pyrite is placed on the closed pan lid. This keeps it approx. 1/8" or less from the powder. When it goes off, you will notice that it is very fast. Much faster than a flinter and even some cap locks. Listen carefully throughout the film and you can hear the lock internals going through their paces. Click on der link.
[video]http://vid10.photobucket.com/albums/a109/sbooko/Wheellock%20Firing%202%20.mp4[/video]
 
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The link doesn't work. I'd really like to see it though, I've fired flintlocks and caplocks, but never even seen a wheellock in person.
 
Very nice. The wheellock is a lot different from what I imagined. Very smooth and definitely faster than flints. Cool stuff.
 
Thanks for the kind comments and thanks for looking out for me liamstrain.
 
You done a beautiful job on that thing. Incredible in all respects. Saw it in phases on another forum, unbelievable.
 
Any thinking on why the flintlock became predominant? From your film (thanks!), the wheel lock is so much faster.
 
It's like the difference between mechanical and quartz watches. The wheel lock was a relatively complex and sensitive mechanism compared to a flint lock.
 
Excellent. I love front stuffers. A flintlock has been on my list for awhile, but a wheel lock would be a hoot to shoot. I've always been amazed at how precise they had to be to function correctly.

Congrats on a piece of art, and thanks for sharing.:)
 
Ask Bookie how complicated the lock set up is on that wheellock. The Flintlock is caveman compared to it on the difficulty level.

On a related note we had some friends we haven't seen in many years over last night. He brought along his flintlock that I have heard so much about but never seen. It's 62 caliber, got near a 4' barrel on it and drop dead gorgeous Tiger maple stock clear to the muzzle.

Also built left hand for him. I guess his ex son in law built it for him many years ago. It was super sweet. Took some effort to hold that bad boy out to aim, a bit on the nose heavy side. I should have took some pictures of it.

I'm sure unlike Bookie he used mostly factory produced parts but I can't say for sure. It was beautiful I do know that.
 
Bookie, I am SO happy you shared that. As clean and beautiful as that gun is to see it shoot is even more of a thrill. I love that you make them to be used not just stuck behind glass and looked at even though they are works of art. To see it actually fire is quite a revelation, as the others have posted it isn't anything like what I expected. Much faster, from trigger to shot than my impressions.

Bawanna, I am betting he uses a firing stick for shooting something that long. Musta looked really funny trying to balance that and aim at anything at all. :D Sounds like another awesome looking rifle though. Bet you would remember to take pictures these days.
 
I wanted to but I was so busy drooling and I wasn't sure etiquette was proper to take pictures. It was sweet. Not quite as sweet as this wheel lock but damn sweet.
 
hehe, I figure if I spend the proper amount of time at the beginning telling them (completely truthfully) how much I admire the workmanship then they practically expect me to take pictures, etiquette or not :D
 
Shav, I have made all brass hand gonnes a few times and use either cannon fuse or slow match on a stick to fire them. The hand gonnes mount on a 4-5 foot closet rod, shot from the hip and at 25 yards, you be dead! Amazing how accurate they are. There is quite a had gonne following on another website and there are even shooting competitions.
 
Bookie, I can not imagine the weight of something like that stuck out that far. Even holding it at the hip it would take a lot of bracing for me to be able to keep it straight. now shooting from the hip with my .45? Dead accurate. But keeping something out that far steady waiting for a cannon fuse to go off... WOW!!
Also do you sand cast them? I bet they are fluted and heavily decorated? LOL, now I am going to have to google the competitions and see what it is all about.
 
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