What is a breech loading flintlock?

Answer 1

A flintlock is a firearm that is fired when the trigger is pulled, causing the cocked hammer to fly forward and strike a piece of flint. This produces sparks, which ignite loose gunpowder placed in the adjoining "pan" as part of the loading of the weapon. This little fire in the pan flashes through a little hole in the side of the weapon to reach and ignite the main gunpowder charge rammed down into the breech, the back end of the barrel, closest to the shooter's face. There is a bullet rammed down in front of this main powder charge, which causes that rammed powder to remain compressed, and the compressed state of the powder causes it to explode when the fire reaches it, instead of merely catching fire. That explosion drives the bullet out of the end of the barrel (the muzzle) and with any luck into the target. Almost all flintlocks were muzzle loaders. This meant to load the weapon the shooter dumped loose gunpowder down the barrel, then put a bullet at the end of the barrel (usually wrapped in paper or a bit of cloth to make it fight tightly), and used the ramrod to push the bullet down the barrel, and compress the powder behind it when it was all the way in ("seated"). The ramrod was stored under the barrel of the gun, drawn out for the loading, then put back under the barrel in its place. Then the shooter had to "prime the pan" with a little loose gunpowder, and it was ready to fire, so he could pull back the hammer to full cock, and when ready, pull the trigger. This was an involved process, and a well trained person could only fire two to three shots a minute. What's more, it had to be done standing up. A man lying on the ground behind some cover could not get the gunpowder down the barrel to reload. A breechloader is a gun that loads from the back end of the barrel, as all modern weapons do. In the age of flintlocks the problem was that precision machining of parts was almost impossible to achieve, and mostly these weapons were made of iron instead of steel. So if you tried to make a breechloader, you had the problem of the gas produced by the explosion of firing leaking out of an imprecisely fitted part, driving noxious gas and flaming gunpowder particulates into the face and eye of the shooter. So a successful breechloader had to be capable of tightly sealing up the breech, after the powder and bullet were loaded, before firing. Various inventors tried to accomplish this, with more or less success. One of the best was that invented by Major Patrick Ferguson, an Irishman serving as a British officer during the American Revolution, who was killed at Kings Mountain. His Ferguson Rifle could fire seven times a minute, accurately, and be loaded by a man lying down. In an earlier battle, at Brandywine Creek, Ferguson may have passed on a chance to shoot General Washington across the Creek. At any rate he held his fire and did not shoot some obviously high ranking American officer, because to shoot from his hidden place seemed "too much like murder" to Ferguson.