Unusual Firearms: Key Guns

In our last article about unusual firearms, we looked at the Greener police shotgun. In today's post, we will look at a very unusual class of firearms, a combination of a key and a gun, the so-called Key Gun.

Key guns were apparently used in the 17th and 18th century, but they are pretty rare. They were apparently intended to be used by jailers for self-defense purposes, when they were making their daily inspections of the prison cells. The idea being that the jailer could use the same object to open the cell door and also defend himself, in case the prisoner inside tried to escape.

Key guns were initially incredibly primitive devices. The example above is merely a tube sealed on one end, with a touch-hole on top. Note the lack of any firing mechanism. The jailer would have carried a lit cigarette or cigar in his mouth. To discharge this weapon, the jailer would touch his cigar on the touch-hole and light the powder within the key.

Some other examples had actual firing mechanisms. For instance, we have a model that uses a matchlock firing mechanism, one using a flintlock and another one using percussion cap technology.

Click on images to enlarge.

Whether these weapons were actually practical or not is a completely different matter. These are all small-caliber and short range firearms with low stopping-power and it isn't quite clear how usable one of these is once the jailer has started turning the key, because the gun can no longer point at the prisoner and the jailer can't put his finger on the trigger while turning the key. No wonder then that these weren't very popular.

Matchlock Technology: The Caliver

The caliver or the culiver was an improved arquebus (i.e.) a light matchlock weapon. One of its main improvements over the arquebus was that it was built to a standard size, which meant that soldiers could load bullets much easier. With the earlier arquebus, no two of them had the same caliber, which meant that soldiers would either have to deform or cut bullets to fit into their barrels, or they would have to cast bullets individually for their weapons. With the caliver, this step was unnecessary as their barrels were built to a standard diameter or caliber. In fact, the name of the weapon, "caliver", owes its name to "caliber", since these weapons were originally called as "arquebuses of caliber", which is to say, "arquebuses of a specific barrel diameter". This was later shortened and corrupted to "caliver".

Matchlock Technology: The Arquebus

The Arquebus was a type of firearm that was commonly used between the 14th and 17th century. It was a type of matchlock, the barrel was generally a smoothbore (i.e. it had no rifling) and it was loaded from the muzzle end (i.e. a muzzle-loader). The user was called an Arquebusier or a Harquebusier. The word is derived from Dutch Harkbuss which means a Hook-gun.

The Arquebus was first employed by the Chinese towards the middle of the 14th century and by early 1500, they had spread to Europe and were being used by Hungarian troops. Images of arquebusiers can be found in Rembrandt's famous painting titled The Night Watch.

Most early arquebusiers were usually knowledgeable about the construction of their weapon. Quite a few of them were the actual makers of their own weapons as well. The weapons weren't known for their accuracy, given the smoothbore barrel and primitive sights. A crossbowman or longbowman could fire with greater accuracy and range. However, firing a crossbow or longbow took literally years of practice to become proficient with the weapon, whereas an arquebus could be mastered by anyone in a lot less time. Once people had mastered the art of producing gunpowder and shot, it was easier to mass produce ammunition for an arquebus as well, whereas fletching (the art of making arrows) was still a craft that needed highly skilled labor to produce.

On the other hand, an arquebus was vulnerable to heavy fog and rain, since the user needed to keep his slow match lit. This is a problem with all matchlocks, as the article on matchlocks indicates. There was also a danger that the sparks from one person's arquebus could set fire to the powder supply of the person next to him. Unlike a longbowman, an arquebusier was generally helpless after his shot was fired and his weapon was heavier to carry, so it was not surprising that the bow was considered a superior weapon for many years.

To compensate for the arquebus's weaknesses, some strategies were evolved. For one, an arquebusier was sometimes accompanied by an assistant called a varlet, whose job was to help the arquebusier carry all his gear and keep a fire going. Since reloading took some time, tactics involved placing the arquebusiers in lines of three, so that when one line was done shooting, they could move to the back and reload, while the next two lines fired a volley each. Arquebusiers were also equipped with a sword as a second line of defence, if they couldn't reload in time. In order to compensate for inaccuracies of the weapon, commanders would line up several men next to each other and order them to shoot at the same time, in the hopes that at least some of them would hit the enemy troops.

Matchlocks

In our previous discussion that covered some early portable firearms, we've seen how the early firearms were used by soldiers. To recap, they would hold the weapon with both arms and try to manipulate a lit rope (a slow match) with the tips of their fingers towards a touch hole on the side of the barrel, while still holding the weapon with their hands. Needless to say, the technique was extremely cumbersome and prone to inaccuracy. Hence, one of the first major developments in small arms history was the invention of the matchlock.

As far as firing mechanisms go, the idea of using a trigger to activate a weapon was not a new invention, as they had been used by crossbows in centuries before. So it was only logical that the idea would be borrowed for firearms as well.

Part List:

• A - Flash pan cover
• B - Flash pan (with touch hole)
• C - Serpentine (or cock)
• D - Trigger
• E - Slow match (i.e. a lit rope)
• F - Sear
• G - Pivot
• H - Flat spring
• I - Tumbler link
• J - Barrel
• K - Lock plate
  

The soldier would load the barrel with gunpowder and a bullet. Then, they would pour a little extra powder into a flash pan (part B in the picture). The flash pan has a tiny touch hole leading into the main gunpowder charge inside the barrel. Many rifles featured a cover on top of the flash pan, so that they could keep the powder in the flash pan safe from the elements, until the moment of use. A slow match (E) would be attached to a curved lever called a Serpentine or a Cock (because it resembled a rooster's head in some early weapons). You can see the serpentine labelled as C in the above figure. The trigger D is connected to a sear lever F, which is connected to a tumbler link I. When the trigger is pulled, the serpentine C is pulled towards the flash pan B and lights the gunpowder charge in the flash pan. This in turn burns through the touch hole and ignites the main charge inside the barrel. A flat spring H is used to return the sear lever back to its normal position.

You can see an animation of the mechanism working below (if you cannot see the animation running below, click on the image and it will open into a larger window that shows an animated image):

This was the first real firing mechanism used in small arms. It wasn't always reliable though - many a time, the gunpowder in the flash pan could be blown off or become wet in the rain, or the slow match could go out. As a precaution against the rain, the slow match rope would be lit on both ends, so that if one end went out, it could be re-lit from the other end. Sometimes when the trigger was pulled, the contents of the flash pan would ignite, but it wouldn't burn through the touch hole and therefore fail to ignite the main gunpowder charge inside the barrel. Such a phenomenon was called a flash in the pan. This phrase is still part of the English language and now means "something which starts off initially very bright and showy, but soon fails to deliver anything of value."

Disadvantages

1. It was difficult to use in wet weather because of the problems of the powder in the pan getting damp and the slow match going out in heavy rains.
2. It was quite dangerous to have around large quantities of gunpowder. For instance, when a group of soldiers were loading their weapons from their powder horns (i.e. a large container that hangs from the waist and carries extra gunpowder), there was always a chance that the open flame from one person's matchlock could set off another person's supply.
3. Since the slow match was always lit, the glow could give away a person's position at night time. The slow match also had a pretty distinct smell that could let people know that a person carrying a matchlock was nearby.
   

Nevertheless, matchlock technology stayed alive for a very long time. The Janissary troops of the Ottoman empire were using these weapons in the mid 1400s. By 1526, they were introduced into India by the invasion of Babur, the first Moghul ruler of India. In 1543, a Portuguese vessel was wrecked off Tanegashima island in Japan and some of its crew showed the local Shogun their matchlock weapons, which the Japanese were very quick to clone and use for their own local wars. Well into the 19th century, matchlock weapons were still being used in India, China and Japan. There were even some records of rebels using matchlocks in East Timor well into the 20th century.