Wardlaw's Dragoones

[Gruff]

Being a bloke, and therefore a borderline-autistic anorak, I've been looking at diagrams of matchlock mechanisms and thinking "How did that work?"

I've seen examples of mechanisms with a lever trigger (presumably these were used on early matchlocks/calivers?) but when it comes to locks with a separate trigger mechanism I can't find anything to show how the trigger actually moved the sear bar. was the trigger on an off-centre pivot which then put upward pressure on the bar? Or was it still technically part of the bar itself but angled and shortened to look like a trigger? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Rob Jones]

If you can wait until Easter I'll get Pete Fisher to explain it to you...

[bigmartin]

The top part of the trigger (the bit that's hidden in the stock) is triangular and pivots by its very top and pushes against a lug on the sear (the central pivoted bit of the lock). This means the more you press it in the more it pushes the rear end of the sear up. This drops the front end of the sear (obviously) which has a lug fitting into a cam on the bar the serpent's swivelling by, which drops it towards the pan. All this is balanced by a simple spring holding the sear in place.
This sounds a lot more complicated than it really is - it's just hard to put into words. If you look at one you'll see what a simple bit of kit it really is.
On the older types of gun, the lever trigger is just an external extension of the sear that lifts it directly.

Martin