"Political power... grows out of the barrel of a gun...”
Mao Zedong, political leader
The basic mechanism from which the traditional flintlock originated is thought to have first appeared on a firearm made for King Louis XIII of France. The name of the French courtier Marin Le Bourgeoys appears on the flintlock, and it is thought to have been made in about 1612.
The flintlock works as follows. First, the hammer of the gun, which holds a piece of flint, is pulled back or rotated to the half-cock position. Gunpowder is poured into the barrel, followed by ammunition— often a steel ball—and both are pressed into position with a ramrod. A small amount of finely ground gunpowder is then placed in a compartment below the hammer, known as the flashpan. The hammer is then pulled back or rotated to the full-cock position, and the gun is ready to be fired. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer springs forward and its flint hitsthe frizzen, a curving piece of steel. The frizzen moves aside to expose the gunpowder in the flashpan, and sparks from the flint ignite the gunpowder in the flash pan; this, in turn, explodes the main gunpowder charge, which projects the ball out of the barrel.
Anyone wishing to discharge a round of ammunition successfully anytime in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries was obliged to master the sequence of actions required by the flintlock mechanism. Even the fastest experts took about fifteen seconds to load and fire a flintlock weapon.
The flintlock is responsible for a number of phrases in the English language still in use today. "Lock, stock, and barrel" and "going off half-cocked" both have their origins in flintlock operation.
