Wheellocks
Wheellocks are first shown in Leonardo Da Vinci’s book from about 1508, but they seemed quite common by 1515, when a young Augsburg citizen had invited a handsome whore to a room, while there, he was fooling around with his self igniting pistol when it discharged shooting her in the chin. Ben Vinto Cellini, (in his diary) talks about having to live in the Colosseum in Rome during the plague of 1526, states that he lived off of pigeons, rarely ever missing one at 200 paces with his wheellock rifle. If one studies the inventories of public stores and the archeological sites of the early 1600’s America you will find there were a considerable number of wheellocks over here. Wheellocks are very fast and reliable ignition system, they were made all the way up to the 1820’s.