Snaphance A Snaphance or Snaphaunce is a particular type of mechanism for firing a gun or a gun using that mechanism . The name is Dutch in origin but the mechanism can not be attributed to the Netherlands with certainty . It is the mechanical progression of the wheel - lock firing mechanism and the predecessor of the flintlock firing mechanism . It fires from a flint struck against a striker plate above a steel pan to ignite the priming powder which fires the gun . Examples of this firearm can be found through Europe , North Africa , and the Middle East . Design . Like the earlier snaplock and later flintlock , the snaphance drives a flint onto a steel to create a shower of sparks to ignite the main charge ( propellant ) . The flint is held in a clamp at the end of a bent lever called the cock . Upon pulling the trigger , this moves forward under the pressure of a strong spring and strikes a curved plate of hardened steel ( called simply the steel , or in 17th century English dialect the frizzen ) to produce a shower of sparks ( actually white - hot steel shavings ) . These fall into a flash pan holding priming powder . The flash from the pan travels through the touch hole to cause the main charge of gunpowder to explode . The steel is at the end of an arm that can be moved independently of the pan cover . The snaphance first appeared in the late 1550s as an improvement of the earlier snaplock in one or more of the following countries : Spain , Holland , Germany , Scotland , or Sweden . The main improvement was that the pan - cover opened automatically ( to keep the priming dry until the exact moment of firing ) , as in the wheel - lock . ( The snaplock had a manually operated pan cover similar to that of the matchlock . Some definitions class the snaphaunce as a sub - type of snaplock . ) Also like the wheel - lock , the snaphance used a lateral sear mechanism to connect trigger to cock . Later models had a variety of safety mechanisms to prevent accidental discharge of the gun . Without these the weapons , like any firearm , could be highly dangerous : Hakluyt ' s " Voyages " records the death of one of the men on Cavendish ' s circumnavigation in the 1580s due to an accidental discharge during a hurried re - embarkation on the coast of Ecuador , specifically mentioning the weapon was a snaphance . The snaphaunce has a form of safety built into its design , since the steel ( frizzen ) could be manually moved forward so that if the cock should be released accidentally it would not strike sparks . This led to an inherent disadvantage : in the flintlock when at half - cock and the frizzen is closed , the flint is in close proximity to the steel and can easily be adjusted to strike square to and in the center of the steel ; in the snaphaunce the cock can only be at full - cock or down , where it prevents the steel from being brought back to the firing position , so the flint is more difficult to align . The development of the snaphance occurred separately but at the same time as the creation of the miquelet . Use . The snaphance was used from the late 1550s until modern times ( in North African guns ) , but by about 1680 it was out of fashion everywhere except Northern Italy where it persisted until the 1750s . In Europe , and especially France , the snaphance was replaced by the flintlock with its combined steel / pan cover starting from about 1620 . In England , a hybrid mechanism called the English Lock replaced the snaphance from the same date . Both the flintlock and the English lock were cheaper and less complex than the snaphance . The snaphance dominated the New England gun market until it fell out of favor in the middle of the 17th Century . Virginia , Massachusetts , and Connecticut outlawed the outdated mechanism by the late 17th Century . Name . The origin of the name " snaphance " is thought to come from the Dutch language " Snap Haan " or German language " Schnapphahn " — both of which roughly mean " cock peck " or " snapping lever " , and could relate to the shape of the mechanism and its downward - darting action ( and would also explain the name " cock " for the beak - shaped mechanism which holds the flint ) . A more fanciful explanation relates to the use of this type of gun by chicken thieves , who would be given away by the sight and smell of a burning match if they had used the earlier matchlock gun in their nocturnal depredations . The German word " Schnapphahn " had however since moved away from the earlier definitions and has traditionally referred to a mounted highwayman , who would have been likely to use a firearm of that nature . The French " chenapan " also changed its meaning in the seventeenth century to define a rogue or scoundrel . During the Second Northern and Scanian War s , a " Snapphane " was a pro - Danish Guerilla - man in Scania , which had just been annexed by Sweden , as they wanted to belong to Denmark instead . In Swedish the word " Snapphane " is first recorded 1558 in a letter from King Gustav I to his son Duke John of Finland " reffvelske snaphaner " ( Snapphanar from Tallinn - Reval ) , earlier correspondence were discussing Estonian privateers and problems created by them in Russian commerce . In the inventories of the Royal Armoury in Stockholm the term " snapphanelås " ( " snaphance lock " ) appears first in 1730 , after the conquest of the former Danish provinces of Skåne , Halland and Blekinge in 1670s . The local peasant warriors were then called snapphanar and their typical smallbore rifles ( see picture ) were described as having " snapphanelås " : locks or rifles used by the Snapphanar . In the earlier inventories the term used is always " snapplås " ( " snaplock " ) . In K . J . Parker ' s novel " The Hammer " which takes place in a fictional universe , the pistols are referred to explicitly as " snapping - hens " .