The short answer: a matchlock fires when a lever lowers a burning cord, the match, into a small pan of priming powder. A flintlock fires when a flint strikes a steel plate, the frizzen, and throws sparks into the pan. Getting rid of the burning match meant no glow at night, no fire next to the powder, fewer failures in wind and rain, and simpler, faster reloading. The flintlock was invented in France around 1610 and replaced the matchlock as Europe's standard infantry weapon in the second half of the 17th century.
Side by side
-—————————————————————————————————————————-- Matchlock Wheellock Flintlock -—————— — -————————- — ————————-- — ——————————————- Ignition Burning cord Steel wheel on pyrite Flint on steel
In wind and rain Poor Better Better, but still misfires when damp
At night Gives you away Hidden Hidden
Cost Cheap Expensive More than a matchlock, less than a wheellock
Who carried it Infantry, c. 1470s–1700 Cavalry, officers, the rich Infantry, c. 1640s–1840s -—————————————————————————————————————————--
How a matchlock works
You are on a wall at night with a loaded musket. To fire it you need a lit cord, so you keep one smoldering in your hand until morning. The enemy can see its glow and smell its smoke, a shower can put it out, and you are holding it a few inches from your powder. That was the matchlock.
A length of cord soaked to burn slowly, the match, sits in the jaws of a curved lever called the serpentine. Pull the trigger and the serpentine dips. The glowing tip touches the priming powder in a small pan beside the barrel, and the flash runs through the touch hole to fire the main charge.
From the late 15th to the late 17th century, the matchlock was the battle-winning weapon of Europe's infantry. But its drawbacks were obvious, and gunsmiths spent the 16th century looking for a way to do without the match.
The wheellock: the expensive answer
The first answer, around 1500, was the wheellock. The shooter wound a spring with a key called a spanner. Pulling the trigger let the spring spin a steel wheel against a lump of pyrite held in a clamp called the dog. The sparks ignited the powder in the pan, much like a modern cigarette lighter. There was no glowing match and no smell, the pan cover stayed shut until the shot, and the gun coped far better with wet weather. It could be carried loaded and fired with one hand, which made the cavalry pistol possible.
It was also expensive and delicate. A wheellock needed a skilled gunsmith to make it and a careful owner to keep it working, and most infantry never got one. Cavalry and officers did: wheellock pistols were common on both sides in the Thirty Years' War.
From snaphance to flintlock
Flint offered a cheaper alternative. The snaphance, in use from the middle of the 16th century, struck a flint against a steel above the pan. Its name probably comes from the Dutch snaphaan, a pecking rooster. It worked, but its steel and pan cover were still separate parts. Joining them was the last step to the flintlock.
The flintlock made one part do two jobs. Its steel, the frizzen, is also the lid of the pan. The cock holds a flint, and when it falls the flint scrapes the frizzen, knocks it open and throws sparks onto the priming powder in the same movement. Marin le Bourgeoys, a French court gunsmith, made one for Louis XIII shortly after the king came to the throne in 1610. At half-cock, a catch inside the lock, the sear, rests in a safety notch, and the gun can't go off by accident.
What it meant for the musketeer
For the man carrying it, the flintlock meant no match to keep alight, no glow at night and no fire in his hand next to the powder. It also made reloading simpler: there was no burning match to take off, tend and clamp back in place. A well-trained soldier with a flintlock musket could fire about three shots a minute, sometimes four, though keeping that pace in battle was another matter.
The wheellock had most of these advantages, but armies still kept their matchlocks. Armies bought guns by the thousand, and a lock that needed a skilled gunsmith to make and a careful owner to maintain was difficult to supply on that scale. The matchlock held on because it was cheap. The flintlock took over because it did most of what the wheellock did at a price an army could pay.
The end of the flintlock
The flintlock lasted more than two centuries. Alexander Forsyth patented a percussion lock in 1807, but armies only began to switch in the 1830s. Britain started converting its Brown Bess muskets to percussion in 1839 and introduced a new percussion musket, the Pattern 1842. The US Model 1840 was the last American military flintlock.
Lock, stock and barrel
The musket also left phrases in the language. "Lock, stock and barrel" names its three main parts; the story about a shopkeeper's whole stock is invented. The phrase turns up literally in 1752, describing pistols, and figuratively in 1803, in a Fourth of July toast printed in the Connecticut Sentinel. "A flash in the pan" is priming that flares without firing the charge, and it was used figuratively by 1674. "Going off half-cocked" comes from the same lock.
What fantasy gets right, and what it skips
Most flintlock fantasy is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, after the changes described here. Brian McClellan has said Powder Mage began when he watched Sharpe's Rifles and decided he wanted mages with muskets in a Napoleonic setting. Django Wexler drew on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign for The Thousand Names. The century before, when musketeers still needed pikemen, a burning match and a fair amount of luck, hardly appears in fiction. If that's the war you want to read about, my shortlist is on the Pike-and-Shot Fantasy page. For everything with flintlocks, start with my Flintlock Fantasy guide.
Fantasy rarely asks which lock its soldiers carry, though the answer changes what can happen. A matchlock company can't make a quiet night attack, because every match glows and smells. Rain can put a whole firing line out of action. Troops with plug bayonets have to stop shooting to fix them: at Killiecrankie in 1689 the Highland charge reached the government line before most men had fixed theirs, and Mackay's army broke. For a writer, the lock makes darkness, weather and even the supply of rope matter.
Sources
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Bailey, D. W., British Military Longarms 1715–1865, London 1986.
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Blair, Claude, European & American Arms, c. 1100–1850, London 1962.
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Chandler, David, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough, London 1976.
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The Connecticut Sentinel, July 1803 (Fourth of July toasts at Stratford).
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Dryden, John/Crowne, John/Shadwell, Thomas, Notes and Observations on the Empress of Morocco, London 1674.
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Flayderman, Norm, Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms and Their Values, 9th ed., Iola 2007.
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Hall, Bert S., Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics, Baltimore 1997.
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Hill, James Michael, Celtic Warfare 1595–1763, Edinburgh 1986.
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Hughes, B. P., Firepower: Weapons Effectiveness on the Battlefield, 1630–1850, London 1974.
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Lenk, Torsten, The Flintlock: Its Origin and Development, ed. by J. F. Hayward, trans. by G. A. Urquhart, London 1965.
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Lynn, John A., Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610–1715, Cambridge 1997.
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Mackay, Hugh, Memoirs of the War Carried on in Scotland and Ireland, 1689–1691, Edinburgh 1833.
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Neal, W. Keith/Back, D. H. L., Forsyth & Co.: Patent Gunmakers, London 1969.
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Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. "snaphance", "half-cock".
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Ray, James, A Compleat History of the Rebellion, 1752.
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McClellan, Brian, interview: "Mages with Muskets: A Conversation with Brian McClellan", Dragonsteel, 22 November 2024.
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Wexler, Django, interview, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), 12 September 2013.