I Found a Clue about the Chinese Traditional Muzzleloader | The Chinese External Snap Lock

The video:

Intro

Actually this video/article can be the sequel of my last video/article. Everything is from a video/article on Chinese social media and the link of the original post also is put on the description of this video/article. 【here's the link: http://xhslink.com/a/JvKcjPUn9lB5 】

The Features

According to the words in the post, probably this year his old house needed to be demolished, so he just found this old thing before the project started. Then he continued saying in the post. We can find that this old gadget was made from peach wood and it was a part of a hunting firearm. 

So basically this is the background of this old thing. Unfortunately these parts have seemingly rusted and the spring, barrel and the front part of the stock also have lost so we can’t see how it works in real life. But we still can see some valuable points. So let’s continue talking about what we can get from this thing. Actually this is also a clue of studying the Chinese traditional muzzleloader. 

The very obvious point is that this is a percussion cap lock. But it’s very different from the European percussion cap lock from the shape. Based on the design logic, I think it was similar to the development of the Japanese traditional muzzleloaders. Many Japanese matchlocks were modified into the percussion cap lock based on the original structure of snap matchlock. In China, there were 2 types of matchlocks, the pressure matchlock, which is like the matchlocks in the Islam world and another is the snap matchlock, which is basically in the same firearm family branch with Japanese matchlock. The latter type, also known as the Chinese snap matchlock, was often modified into the percussion cap lock as well in the 19th century. 

My Speculation

So now please allow me to share my speculation.  

This kind of external snap lock was probably developed from this snap matchlock. This Chinese version’s snap matchlock was from the Ming Dynasty of China at the beginning. Even after hundreds of years, although the dynasty had changed into the Qing Dynasty, the original snap matchlock was still existing whose structure was almost the same as the Japanese matchlock, also known as Indo-portuguese matchlock and we still can see the collections nowadays. 

By the way, in the development of hundreds of years, maybe the smart gunsmith or the smart blacksmith who also was able to build firearms started to try to simplify and improve it. But I think probably they were civilian craftsmen. Because I saw the old photos and paintings, most of the matchlocks of the official military and royal family seemingly were the pressure matchlock. But this is still my opinion and now I still don't have enough proof. Ok, back to the snap lock story. 

With the percussion cap lock getting more and more popular in China, many snap matchlocks also were modified into the cap lock. Now according to the post, we can see that the original complex parts which should be in the inside of the gun’s body have been removed and the new trigger replaced them. The top of the trigger has a hook and the tail of the cock has a hook as well. Both hooks can be hooked up together so at the moment the people are all ready to fire. Now this musket in the post has lost half of the body and the spring so now maybe we can’t see the real face of this special trigger system. But I think maybe we still can see it. 

The Other Similar Locks

Do you remember the picture of the last video/article? This picture was also talked about in our Chinese bird hunter story in Wuhu in the 1940s. Although this is a matchlock in the picture, when we put the picture and the percussion cap lock of the post together, it’s seemingly both are very similar in mechanical structure. So according to the picture, I guess we can even make this broken old firearm full again. 

In addition, when I opened the book, I found that there were actually pretty various similar external snap locks, not only the firearm in this picture. According to the shape, we can find that they should have some relationship. Because the trigger also has a hook on the top point and the cock also has hook on the tail point. Besides the typical examples, there are still Chinese snap lock muzzleloader collections which are in the middle between the Portuguese-Japanese snap matchlock and the typical Chinese external snap lock musket. Because the cock has a hook on the tail part but the trigger is still in the inside of the gun’s body. The trigger still exists as part of the features of the original snap matchlock.

Differences from Hmong Musket 

When we talk about the external snap lock muzzleloader, I think the Hmong musket is another typical example. But if we put the typical Chinese external snap lock muzzleloader and the Hmong muzzleloader together, both have similar external snap lock but the main-spring is really different. Although both triggers are almost the same, for the cocks the Chinese version is pushing up and the Hmong version is pushing down. 

So this is today’s video/article and the information that I got recently. If I can get new information, I will also talk about it in the future video/article. Hope you can like this video/article. Have a good day. See you next time. Bye!