History of early firearms: Handgonnes and Matchlocks

This essay takes a look at early firearm development up till the 1500’s. It is a fascinating read.

Certainly, the first uses of gunpowder are psychological – loud bangs and sausage-shaped rockets snaking across the battlefield to terrify men and horses. This is the role we can see for the fire lances of 1132. It is a short step from here to the early handgonne. I believe that while the bamboo pellet throwers of 1259 did not use true gunpowder, they certainly were a first application of the principle of using burning gases to throw a projectile…

~Dispater North 1411
Serpentine lock firearm, 1411


More here.

Related Posts

Steve Jan 24th 2008 blackpowder, misc, weapons Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

2 Responses to “History of early firearms: Handgonnes and Matchlocks”

  1. Smallest blackpowder artillery ever made | The Firearm Blogon 22 Mar 2008 at 7:01 pm link comment

    [...] C. built the the very first micro-gonne. A hand gonne is a hand held cannon. It fires #4 [...]

  2. dispateron 01 May 2008 at 12:58 am link comment

    glad you enjoyed my site! must update one of these days…

Leave a Comment

Comment Policy: I reserve the right to remove comments at my discretion. Think of comment threads like a dinner party at someone's house. If you make the party unpleasant for others or me, you won't be invited back. I am happy to tolerate a wide range of viewpoints, even extreme ones, but I'm not going to tolerate nastiness, rudeness, trolling, vitriol, or excessive snarkiness toward the author(s) or other commenters. You may make your case passionately, but civility is expected. Please stay on topic and respect the technical nature of this blog.
Spam Filtering: To avoid spam, comments are filtered using Akismet and then manually approved. Do not be alarmed if you comment does not appear instantly. I do not check the spam folder more than once per day.