EVOLUTION OF GUNS AND RIFLES 
serve for a deliberate shot at a quiescent mark, but could hardly have 
repaid the labour of taking it out to shoot in wild places. At moving game 
it was quite ineffective. The crossbow therefore held its own as the con- 
venient missile hunting weapon until the invention of the wheel lock. 
This was the first system for striking fresh fire for each shot instead of 
keeping alight a fire to be applied to the touch-hole when the right moment 
Matchlock gunner shooting at sitting bird, from Lucar’s translation of Tartaglia’s Commentaries, 1546. 
“Schioppetiero. ‘You fhall underftand that Ihaue in my time killed with my Peece 2000 little birdes, 
and my long experience hath taught mee to know that which now you haue told mee : therefore when 
I haue occaGon to fhoote at any little birde fitting on a heigth upon a tree within a conuenient 
diftance, I take my marke alwayes at the feete of the bird, but when the birde Gttes on a place lying 
leuell with my Peece, then I take my mark precifely at the body of the birde, and by so doing I doe 
feldomtimes miffe with my fhoote.’” 
came. The wheel lock is said to date from 1515, and to have originated 
in Nuremberg. The lock contained a steel wheel with a roughened edge; 
a spring, which could be wound up by a key, caused the wheel to revolve. 
At the top of the lock was an opening into the pan, through which the wheel 
projected, thus being in direct contact with the priming powder. The cock 
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