Peter Peck, Des Kaisers Büchsenmacher, and early pistol designs.

Abstract

The first pistols we were made somewhere in southern Germany or Northern Italy in the first two decades of the 16th century. Of the two surviving ones that I know of, one is in the Royal Armouries in Leeds, UK this one being tentatively dated to 1520. The other one is in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg, Germany and is also tentatively dated to about 1525. Of the two, the one in the GNM is of better construction and seems to be of somewhat superior design (this assessment being subject to change on my part in the light of new data). Both of these pistols are fairly primitive wheel locks but they still represent a quantum leap over the hand cannon of the 1480s, no 30-40 years earlier. What is remarkable about pistol development is how quickly the sophistication of the designs progressed both in terms of the design of the wheellock itself and the design sophistication of the pistol it self. By the 1540s wooden stocked wheellock pistols with one and two barrels, a three shot hand rotated wheellock pepperbox and a steel cartridge fed single shot pistol-carbine with a side hinged breech block and a self spanning wheellock had seen the light of day. This breechloading system developed in the 1530s was later copied and put into military service with some refinements by various countries in the mid 19th century to convert muzzle loading percussion rifles into single shot cartridge firing breechloaders. This, to me at least, is quite remarkable and so I've decided to conduct a little research into one of the innovators at the root of this technological explosion, Munich gunsmith Peter Peck (sometime written Peter Pech).

The earliest pistols

I do not intent to dive into a detailed analysis of when the first self igniting firearm might have been invented or whether Leonard Da Vinchi, Martin Löffelholz or others should be credited with inventing self igniting firearms. Suffice it to say that early records of self igniting firearms come from Germany and Italy. The earliest reference to a self igniting firearm seems date to 1507 when Cardinal, Ippolito d'Este I, commissioned a "gun of a type that is kindled by stone". Eight years later in 1515, an Augsburg chronicler reports an incident where a prostitute was accidentally shot by her customer who was playing around with his "self-igniting gun". By 1517, Emperor Maximilian I had issued an imperial decree banning civilian use of such weapons (which was widely ignored). Thus it would seem that the self igniting firearm was invented at some time between c.a. 1500, give or take a few years, and 1507.

As I mentioned above there are two surviving pistols from this era, one in the Royal Armouries in Leeds and one in the Germanisches National Museum in Nürnberg. What follows is a short description of the latter since that is the one I'm most familiar with.

The pistol is entirely made of metal which probably included the ramrod which unfortunately seems to have been lost. The wheel lock lock is attached to the barrel of the gun and is mostly open to the elements. The gun has a large curved protruding trigger that looks like an accidental discharge waiting to happen since there is no trigger guard and no immediately visible attempt at at providing a mechanical safety. The grip is made of sheet metal and is almost in line with the barrel. In fact, both these pistols look very similar to combination war hammer/make and pistol weapons of the first half of the 16th century that have had their hammer/mace heads sawn off although both weapons are clearly built from the ground up as pure pistols. Thus, like the very similar pistol in the the Royal Armouries, the GNM pistol is very much optimised for the point and shoot, the 'instinctive', school of aiming that remained popular right into the 19th century. 

While it is some 40 cm long this pistol is surprisingly gracile by virtue of the fact that it has no wooden stock and the relatively small calibre of only 10-11 mm. This compares favourably with the the later 16th century 'puffers' which could be around 50-60 cm long and very bulky and certainly  the enormously long holster pistols of the 17th century which are routinely between 70-80 cm long.

The GNM pistol. Note the enormous ignition wheel spring and the scary exposed trigger. Note also the slot in the ignition wheel just in front of the chain link. The ignition pan cover has a little tail underneath it that fits into this slot. When the wheel rotates it kicks the tail which rotates the pan cover open.

Source: Me, via Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg

The exposed lock work of the GNM pistol. The wheel is held in place by the the L-shaped end of a flat spring that slots into a hole in the ignition wheel visible peeking out of the gun's grip. The mechanism is activated when the wedge on the trigger lever (located just before the trigger lever) bends downward slips under this spring and lifts it up. This is a feature this lock has in common with snapping matchlocks of the time. This causes the end of the L-shaped flat spring to slip out of the retention hole in the ignition wheel thus releasing the ignition wheel, kicking the pan out of the way and dropping the pyrite held in the dog's jaws onto the ignition wheel. Visible here also is the slot in the wheel that the pan cover opening arm fits into when the gun is spanned. Along with the absent trigger guard this is enough to give safety conscious modern shooters frightening visions of accidental foot shooting.

Source: Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg

The pan cover rotates on this gun rather than slide backwards as became the norm later. Attached to the rotational axis of the pan cover that goes through the pan is a small arm which fits into a slot in the ignition wheel when the wheel is under tension and the gun is ready to fire. When the wheel is released the arm is kicked out of the slot in the ingiton wheel, the pan cover is rotates out of the way and the pyrite held in the dog's jaws falls onto the already rotating ignition wheel.

Source: Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg

For more detailed information on the Royal Armouries Pistol (1520) see here.

For more detailed  information on the  GNM pistol (1525) see here

Improvements to the wheellock mechanism by 1550

The period from 1510 when the mechanism of the GNM pistol was developed and up until 1550 was a formative time for the wheellock mechanism. The first improvement along with a general miniaturisation of the mechanism was the replacement with the combination spring and ignition wheel retention pin with a sprung sear and trigger lever. This was more secure and easier to fit with a safety catch that allowed the gun to be carried spanned, primed and loaded with little risk of accidental discharge. The rotating pan cover of the GNM gun also went away and was replaced with a sliding pan cover. One final refinement was the development of a self spanning wheel lock where the action of pushing the dog forward also spanned the ignition wheel. This simplified and shortened the procedure required to ready the gun for a second shot.

Apart from being smaller and more compact than the mechanism of the GNM pistol the mechanism has been upgraded with a sear and trigger lever. This arrangement was safer than the one on the GNM pistol and could be secured with a better safety than the earlier mechanisms.

Source: Unfortunately Unknown

Question: So what the hell does all this have to do with our friend Peter Peck? 

Answer: Nothing really, but the title of the article does say "... and early pistol design". For that reason I felt it necessary to set up a comparative baseline for further discussion to fully illustrate the extent of technological development over the following quarter of a century after the invention of the wheellock mechanism.

Enter Peter Peck, Des Kaisers Büchsenmacher

I don't want to play Mr. Peck up as some sort of Wunderkind. He was an innovative designer of firearms and he certainly stood out to the point where Holy Roman Emperor Karl V, a noted firearms enthusiast seems to have been a regular customer of Peck's workshop. Peck seems to have begun his career as a clock maker which perhaps explains the degree to which he seems to have contributed to an increase in wheellock design improvements during the early years of his long career. Imperial patronage has also led to a good selection of Peck's work surviving in collections in Germany, Italy, the US and particularly in the Real Armería de Madrid in Spain. I picked Peck out because I like his designs and they are a good representative example of what was going on in terms of cutting edge firearms design in the first half of the 16th century. However it should be noted that there were many other gun makers in Germany, Italy and France who also did very innovative work during the formative years of the wheellock mechanism between 1530-1540. What follows are a few picked examples of Pecks work during this period accompanied by a short discussion of each weapon.

A matched pair of single shot pistols

This is one of a matched pair of surprisingly plain single shot pistols made by Peck for His Most Catholic Holy Roman Imperial Majesty Karl V around 1535. The most remarkable feature of this pistol are technical. Firstly note the compactness of the wheel lock compared to the GNM pistol described above. The ignition wheel spring is now internal and much smaller and the pan cover is now sliding rather than rotating. The internals of this lock are probably also much improved over the GNM pistol and highly probably of the sear and trigger lever type which is much more safe than the combination spring and retention tab arrangement of the GNM pistol, even when not fitted with a safety. The sear and trigger lever arrangement can also be fitted with a much more reliable safety than the GNM pistol could be fitted with. Note the fishtailed 'saw handle' grip which is quite characteristic of many pistols of this period. The saw-handle grip looks awkward to the modern shooter who is used to obsessing about sights but these pistols were intended for rapid deployment at a practical range of no greater than 10 meters, they were instinctively aimed and users were happy if they could hit a torso sized target at perhaps 6-7 meters consistently.  For the point-and-shoot school of aiming this is a pretty practical shape. The wooden post behind the trigger is something of a constant in Peck's early designs (though not necessarily a feature limited to Pecks guns). It is intended to give the shooter an improved grip. Some contemporary guns have this wooden post but no trigger guard so on those weapons the wooden post probably also served as a kind of limited trigger protection for customers who felt a trigger guard got in the way. One such example is a fine and well preserved breechloading pistol made by Simon Arnold of Augsburg around 1540 (now in the Hofjagd und Rüstkammer in Vienna). This is a design philosophy too very dissimilar to that of a FitzGerald special. However, to continue the discussion of the pistol depicted below, it looks smaller than it actually is. According to the Real Armeria it is 48 cm long. For comparison, a Mauser C96 'broomhandle' is only about 27 cm long and yet it is very clunky by modern standards while the Desert Eagle which even by US American standards qualifies as light light artillery is just under 27 cm long. Typically a pistol like this was one of a pair. The pair would spend most of their service lives in bulky leather holsters slung from a saddle although one or both might be occasionally be unholstered by the rider and clipped into his belt when on foot and under immediate threat of attack.

While this picture is of fairly low resolution it actually looks as if this gun has an external safety that acts on the internal sear release pivot which protrudes through the lock plate above the trigger.

Source: Real Armería de Madrid

A snub nosed 'detective special' ...😈

This pistol is another one made for Holy Roman Emperor Karl V around 1540-45. It is an example of a fairly 'compact' wheel lock. This pistol is 'only' some 38,3 cm long. The word 'compact' is a relative term here, 'compact' Wheellock pistols were still beefy weapons. While I'm pretty sure these weren't standard issue to the witch hunters and exorcists of the Holy Inquisition, when fitted with a belt clip, this pistol approaches being a 16th century candidate for what the US Americans like to call a 'concealed carry' weapon. While still ridiculously beefy by modern standards and hiding it under clothing may seem ridiculous to modern readers, this pistol could easily have been hidden inside one of the bulky fur lined coats that were so popular in the early 16th century. It would have made an excellent self defence weapon for merchant travellers, wealthy pilgrims or imperial knights and other lower nobility who were under constant threat of being robbed, kidnapped and held for ransom or worse but who could not afford a large retinue of bodyguards. But even those who could afford large bodyguards were vulnerable to assassination. One of the most famous cases is probably Protestant leader William the Silent who was shot with wheellock pistols by a Catholic fanatic named Balthasar Gérard who managed to hide no fewer than two of these pistols under his clothing. The enormous size of his pistols not withstanding, Gérard managed get past by William's guards carrying both pistols without being searched and got close enough to William to shoot him twice. The bullet holes can still be seen in the wall of the hallway in Prinsenhof in Delft where the murder occurred.

Compared to the previous pistol, the grip has been shortened, some effort has been made to shorten the lock mechanism and, obviously, the barrel. This yielded a length saving of some 10 cm. The wooden stock has also been slimmed down. Altogether this is a pretty sleek and compact weapon for a 16th century pistol.

Source: Real Armeria de Madrid

William the Silent was a protestant leader of the Dutch States in rebellion against his most Catholic Spanish Majesty Phillip II. He was assassinated by a Catholic fanatic named Balthasar Gérard using two wheellock pistols although to be fair to Gérard he was probably also motivated by the 25,000 gold crowns offered by his Most Catholic Majesty for William's assassination. Willam became the first public figure in history to be assassinated with a pistol (Scottish regent James Stewart the first public figure to be assassinated by a firearm was shot with a carbine). Note William's voluminous coat. Hiding even a 38 cm long wheellock in there was quite feasible. There are several inaccuracies in this image but the length of Gérard's pistol is not one of them. In fact Gérard bought his guns from a soldier so Gérard's guns were quite long cavalry holster pistols. All in all it seems Emperor Maximilian I was quite prescient when he tried to ban self igniting guns in 1517.

Source: Unfortunately unknown

One of the pistols Gérard used to assassinate William the Silent now in the Prinsenhof museum in Delft. It is a long barrelled cavalry pistol in the German 'puffer' style. Unfortunately the Prinsenhof collection is offline. However a somewhat shorter barrelled pistol in the Royal Armouries collection is some 57,2 cm long so this one is probably closer to 65 cm, that's 70% longer than Peter Peck's 'Detective Special' 😈. Gérard hid two of these things away under his cloak and seems to have aroused no suspicion in any of Williams guards or civilians that passed him as he skulked about in the Prinsenhof looking for a place to ambush William. But, putting this weapon's infamous history aside for a moment, most of the pistols from the 16th century that survive in modern collections are luxury items completely covered with kitschy decorations. This pistol was bought by Gérard from a soldier and it gives one a good idea of what a 'plain' example of one of the pistols used by your average Schwarzer Reiter/Curassier would have looked like. 

Source: Prinsenhof Museum Delft via Reformatorisch Dagblad

A Zwilling with a trigger locking safety

This pistol dates to 1540-45 and was made for Holy Roman Emperor Karl V. The basic over/under twin trigger layout of this gun can still be seen in modern shotguns. It has two independent wheellocks, two triggers, a trigger locking safety on the forward trigger and the characteristic wooden post behind the rear trigger. The gun is 49.2 cm long, it weighs 2,55 Kg and the caliber is 11.7 mm. The gun is quite heavy. Zwillings made as little as 10 years later weigh significantly less. This may be because people were still insecure about the homogeneity  of the steel in the barrels they were using. Research by Alan Williams into the quality of steel used in 15th and 16th century armour has shown that steel could be of extremely heterogeneous quality even within the same breastplate for example. There is no reason to believe barrel makes weren't plagued by this problem as well so worrying about ruptured barrels was a valid concern. Peck may have added extra weight to this pistol since taking the risk of blowing up his most Catholic Holy Roman Imperial Majesty Karl V by making your barrel walls too thin in a quest for lower weight would, after all, not have been a good career move for any gunsmith.

The gun is reportedly quite clumsy to handle and badly balanced. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin states that the gun is heavy and unbalanced to the point where one has to hold it with both hands to achieve any accuracy. However, as we have seen other Zwillings, of not that much later a date, were significantly lighter and probably had better handling characteristics so this Zwilling is probably not quite representative of this entire class of pistols in terms of weight. Of all the pistols reviewed here (including the next two to be discussed) this one is the only one capable of any real rapidity of fire without drawing a second pistol and even then it only offers a rapid second shot. The firing procedure is simple in the extreme:

1. Draw your spanned, primed and loaded Zwilling.
2. Fire first barrel.
3. Move finger to second trigger
4. Flip trigger lock out of the way.
5. Fire second barrel.

After that you transition to another pistol and eventually a melee weapon. There is no reloading any of these guns in the heat of melee combat. The weight and handling issues not withstanding the Zwilling clearly beats the single shot pistol for rapidity of getting off a second shot. As we will see it also beats the pepperbox and breechloader described below in rapidity off getting of a second shot since neither can be made ready to fire a second shot quickly enough in the middle of a melee fight. I have made much of this rapid second shot capability but it must be kept in mind that wheellocks were not a 100% reliable ignition mechanism. If you are in a fight with another heavy cavalryman and your single shot pistol does not ignite, your opponent may be able to draw his own pistol and shoot you or pummel you over the head with a war hammer before you can holster the dud pistol, draw your second pistol or ready your pepperbox or breechloader to fire again. In that situation, the ability to simply move your finger and hopefully get a near instant second shot off this time may mean the difference between life and death. For any Reiter able to afford one or more of these Zwillings, I think that any hit in weight and handling penalty would probably have been worth taking.

This gun is quite hefty. Zwillings from only ten years later weigh as little as to two thirds of what this one weighs. Most of that weight would be in the lock and the barrels. Pistols grew lighter as the lockwork was miniaturised and gunsmiths got access to better and more homogenous steel and got a better feel for how thin the barrels could be made without blowing up on their customers.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

For more detailed  information see the Metropolitan Museum website here.

Three barrel 'Pepperbox' revolver

Tentatively dated to the 1540s and attributed to Peck because of the similarity it bears to Peck's other known creations this is a hand operated wheellock 'pepperbox' revolver reportedly made for Holy Roman Emperor Karl V. I have not been able to obtain any data on how the revolving mechanism works but it seems relatively safe to hypothesise that the wing-nut at the bottom of the grip is used for this purpose to prevent his most Catholic and God Anointed Holy Roman and Imperial Majesty Karl V from pricking his imperial fingers on the darts this thing shoots. The gun is in a sorry state, originally it was gilded but this has now faded. The grip would have been covered in a luxurious fabric such as padded velvet but this is now missing. It seems likely that the gun was made as an experiment or even novelty for the emperor. The gun shoots darts and a full set of three of whom seem to survive. While it is possible that the barrels were pre-primed I have insufficient information to confirm or deny this. The gun is 41,5 cm long, weighs about 1.8 kg, the darts are 20,5 cm long and weigh 80 grams each.

The gun barrels are rotated via the wing nut at the bottom of the grip. Note the spare dog head.

Source: Musei Reali di Torino

YAY!! Rapid shooting!!!!  ... uhh ... no ... not really ... 

People keep asking why weapons like this pepperbox (but shooting more practical projectiles) weren't more common. This weapon was very expensive to be sure, but not so expensive as to deter large numbers of wealthy people from having one made so cost is not the only answer. Weight certainly is an issue. If you scale this thing up to fire bullets effective against an armoured opponent. Another reason is the time it took to prepare the next shot. You can carry the weapon spanned and ready to fire, but once you have discharged the first shot you have to:

1. Rotate the barrels.
2. Locate your spanning tool.
3. Span the gun.
4. Stow your spanning tool.
5. Push the dog forward.
6. Locate your priming powder bottle.
7. Prime the pan.
8. Stow your priming powder bottle.
9. Pull the dog back onto the pan cover.
10. You are now ready to fire again.

Once Snaphance lock revolvers became popular steps 2-5 compressed to the simple steps of (1) cocking the weapon and (2) hand rotating the cylinder. This caused revolvers and pepperboxes to become somewhat more popular since not only did they have pre-primed pans which increased rate of fire. By the 1670s revolvers had even evolved a mechanism that indexed the cylinder when the weapon was cocked but revolvers nevertheless remained relatively rare objects until Mr. Colt entered the stage. This was probably due to their cost and complexity and their weight.

For more detailed  information see the Musei Reali Torino website here.

A self spanning metal cartridge fed breechloader with a side hinged breechblock

This gun is attributed to Peter Peck and dates to 1535-45. It was made for Johann Friedrich I called 'der Großmütige' (the forgiving) Kurfürst und Herzog von Sachsen (Elector and Duke of Saxony). Of all of Pecks' guns his breechloaders are probably the most amazing by comparison to the GNM pistol described at the top of this article and it most clearly shows how his background as a clockmaker influenced his work. The gun is a breechloader with a side hinged breech block that is loaded by means of metal cartridges. This becomes even more astonishing if one realises that this is basically same breechloading system as the Snider-Enfield muzzle loader conversion adopted by the British Army some 320 years later. However it is amazing to think that this gun was made only 20 years after the GNM pistol and on top of the breechloading feature this gun also has self spanning lock. Further more it is worth taking into account that within living memory of the time Peck made this gun (say c.a. 1480) the state of the art man portable firearm used by most soldiers was a hand cannon crouched under the shooters arm with a simple unsprung match holding serpentine fixed to the wooden stock of the hand cannon with a nail.

A serpentine equipped hand cannon from a German 'Büchsenmeisterbuch' (Master gunner's book) dating to 1411. The hand cannon was still the most common form of firearm in 1480s Germany and even at that time most hand cannon were still not as high tech as this one in that they did not normally have a match holding serpentine. However, over the next 20 years, thanks in part to Emperor Maximilian I and his marriage to Mary of Burgundy which brought with it Burgundian military influence, matchlock design would take a major leap forward as a part of extensive Burgundian inspired reforms to the firearms arsenal of the imperial Armies.

Source: Codex Germ. 3069

One question I found myself asking is: Is this a gigantic pistol or short carbine? The gun's length is 70,3 cm, the caliber is 12,25 mm and it weighs  2,765 kg. It is listed as a pistol in the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden catalog but it is also sometimes called a carbine. While it is dimensionally identical to some 17th century holster pistols this gun is also significantly heavier. For comparisons, a holster pistol from 1610 in the Royal Armouries collection in the UK which, at 78 cm long, is actually longer than this gun still weighs in at a mere 1,8 kg. I think I would find this gun tiresome to fire one handed with an outstretched arm as was the custom at the time. I for one would be tempted to shoot this gun like a cheek stocked carbine which, given the length of it, is entirely feasible. Thus, while it is possible to use this weapon as a pistol, I am going to go out on a limb and call this a pistol-carbine hybrid.

YAY!! Rapid shooting!!!!  ... uhh ... sort of ...

This gun is different from Pecks previously described creations in that it has a different stock shape and lacks the wooden trigger guard back post. Apart from the breechloading mechanism and metal cartridges it has some other advanced features. Not only does it appear that it may have a sear locking safety but according to the Staatlichen Kunstsammlung website it also has a self spanning lock that spans the ignition wheel when it is pushed forward to gain access to the priming the pan. The loading procedure is:

1. Unlock the breechblock by means of a sliding button on the tang.
2. Swing the breechblock open sideways. 
3. Remove any spent cartridge and stow it away because you have a finite supply.
4. Retrieve a new metal cartridge containing powder and ball and inserted it into the breech making sure the tab on the cartridge slots into the cut-out in the breech of the barrel to ensure the alignment of the ignition hole in the cartridge with the ignition hole in the barrel.
5. Close and thus lock the breechblock.
6. Push the dog forward which spans the lock.
7. Locate your priming powder bottle.
8. Prime the pan.
9. Stow your priming powder bottle.
10. Push the dog back onto the pan cover.
11. You are now ready to fire again.

This is a loading procedure that time-wise is beginning to be able to hold a candle to that of, say, a US Civil War era Sharps Carbine. This mechanism is somewhat faster to reload than a similar smoothbore muzzle loader but most importantly it gives one the option of speedy reloading with a rifled barrel which gives superior accuracy (which is not to say that this specific gun has a rifled barrel, I was unable to find out). However, while it is remarkably advanced for the 1540s and even if this gun was plain and without the decoration, it is is too expensive to make for general military issue due to the complexity of the lock and the cartridges which were impossible to mass manufacture economically before the advent of precision machine tools. That being said, we have gone from the GNM pistol which is little more than barrel with a sheet metal grip and a primitive wheellock that has its guts hanging out riveted to the barrel, a weapons which I would not want to carry loaded and spanned, to a breechloading cartridge fed (though somewhat heavy) pistol-carbine that spans itself automatically during priming and has what looks like an effective safety. All this was achieved in only 20-30 years. I'd call that pretty amazing progress considering the glacial pace of small arms development over the previous two centuries.

This gun was probably intended to be a pistol but it is very heavy at 2,765 Kg but then again it is only 300 grams heavier than the zwilling described above.

Source: Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Detail of the closed breech block. Note the belt clip on the left side of the gun and the remarkably tight fit of the breechblock.

Source: Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Detail of the open breechblock. The locking tab is visible at the back of the cartridge loading tray and the breechblock unlocking button appears to double as a rear sight.

Source: Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden

A wheellock breechloader cartridge of the type that fitted this gun. The tab on the cartridge bottom slotted into a cut-out at the breech of the barrel.

Finally here is a video from Ian McCollum at Forgotten Weapons demonstrating the working of a similar wheellock on his Youtube channel. This weapon was made in 1625, it is a cheek stocked hunting gun fitted with a set trigger but it uses the exact same breechloading cartridge system as Peck's pistol.

For more detailed  information see the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden website here.

Practical Utility 

So which of these pistols is the one to choose for a Schwarzer Reiter who has decided to forsake the lance in favour of these newfangled firearms and ride off into the wars of the 1530s, 40s and 50s? To a large extent this depends on his economic circumstances. For a professional cavalryman of no great wealth a pair of pistols became an entry level requirement given the battlefield realities that were emerging in the early 16th century from around the time of the Schmalkaldic War. In this context it is worth keeping in mind that the tactics of the time had pistols being used in two ways. Firstly, in a melee fight at very short ranges in combination with swords, maces or war hammers. Secondly, at longer ranges in 'caracole' formation attacks for volley fire to pin down and break up formations of pike armed infantry and render them disorganised enough for an eventual charge and route where the panicking infantry would be slaughtered with melee weapons.

The single shot long barrelled pistols 

These are the obvious choice for a soldier of modest means and this is indeed what happened historically. As we have seen any multi shot gun like the pepperbox and breechloader described above that require you to span and prime them between shots are going to have a similar or even lower rate of fire than you can achieve by simply firing one single shot pistol, holstering it and drawing another and blasting off a second shot. The only exception to this is the Zwilling which delivers an even faster second shot. However, most (though by no means all) cavalrymen seem to have preferred a brace of four or even more single shot wheellock pistols to a pair of double barrelled pistols judging by surviving images and other evidence. This makes sense for reasons other than just the higher cost and the handling qualities of the weapon Zwilling. For example, if you carry a pair of Zwillings and you drop one in the heat of the fight you lose half your firepower. Whereas with four single shot pistols you gain the same firepower but you are only deprived of a quarter of your firepower if you lose one of them for whatever reason and since you are mounted the added bulk of four pistols is usually not a problem.

The single shot short barrelled pistol

A more compact pistol makes more sense for civilians and infantry than it does for cavalry. It being shorter is an advantage for these people and whatever penetration power is lost to the shorter barrel is less of an issue. A civilian seeking protection against thugs and bandits is unlikely to run into a bandit wearing anything heavier than a mail shirt, a brigandine or infantry plate where the brigandine and infantry plate are the only armour likely to give any protection against a pistol shot at close range. This pistol would not necessarily have been guaranteed to penetrate well made full plate armour except perhaps at near point blank range. However, it would have made a proper mess of any lightly armoured highwayman or raider that you encountered on the road. For an infantryman achieving armour penetration is less of a problem than it is for a cavalry man. While cavalry cuirasses of the 16th and 17th centuries could eventually be made up to 8 mm thick for bullet resistance, infantry armour did not get thicker than about 2-3 mm for the simple reason that infantry could not operate for any length of time in bullet proof armour without collapsing from exhaustion. Making infantry armour any thicker than 2-3 mm would result in the infantryman becoming quickly exhausted as Maurice of Nassau found out when he experimented with a bullet proof infantry version of bullet-proof cuirassier armour. Thus a shorter barrelled pistol would still be quite effective in infantry vs. infantry combat as an emergency fallback weapon due to the thinner infantry plate armour. The weapon of choice for infantry vs. heavy cavalry combat is clearly the arquebus/musket deployed in large numbers and in tight well drilled formations capable of sustained fire. Maintaining formation was key to survival for infantry when dealing with cavalry. Any isolated disorganised routing infantry being attacked by any kind of cavalry were in deep, deep trouble that neither an infantryman's musket or a pistol could get him out of. For infantry, maintaining formation equalled by far their best chance of survival, breaking formation was certain death. 

The Zwilling 

This weapon is still a tempting choice even if it is more heavy and clumsy than the single shot pistol since, out of the choices available, it is the only one that gives one the option of a truly rapid second shot. There is no spanning the lock between shots, no priming, no rotating barrels, no replacing a metal cartridge, just move your finger to the second trigger and shoot. This is worth a lot. Cavalry actions have always tended to end up as close quarters fights. In fact some writers on cavalry warfare of the 16th century (Johann van Nassau for example) actually recommend moving as close to your opponent as possible and shooting him in the helmet at point blank range to guarantee armour penetration. Mind you, Nassau was writing during the Dutch-Spanish 80 years war of 1568 to 1648. Armour in the early 16th century hadn't yet become as thick as it was during the 80 years war and pistols did not need to be as powerful in the period from 1540-1550. Nevertheless, even during the 1540s and 50s it was still a fact that the shorter the range, the greater the effect. Thus, heavy and inaccurate thought he Zwilling may be, in a caracole attack and other types of cavalry manoeuvre where ranges are long, accuracy matters far less than well regulated volley fire. At close quarters the rapid second shot is a real advantage, especially if your first shot is a dud. In the end, however, it is very hard to decide between the single shot and the Zwilling without having handled and shot both pistols but I think buying a pair of Zwillings would be worthwhile if you could afford it.

The pepperbox 

Unfortunately the Pepperbox looks to be more trouble than it is worth in its a dart shooter form where it is largely a novelty. Scale this weapon up to the point where it fires bullets that are useful against armour and you have a very front heavy weapon that is even heavier and clumsier than the Zwilling but that that cannot be made to be ready to fire a second shot as quickly as the Zwilling. With the Zwilling one at least gets a truly rapid second shot by the mere movement of a finger and if one of the Zwilling's two locks breaks down, the other one will still work since the locks are independent of each other. The single wheellock of the pepperbox slows down the rate of fire and it is a single point of failure.

The breechloader 

It has the advantage of relatively rapid reloads but then one also has to ask how easily those cartridges are to load into and unload from the gun while wearing a 16th century cavalry gauntlet. You could choose to wear only a gauntlet on your bridal hand but that renders your primary hand vulnerable which brings us to the next question. How easy are the cartridges to drop and lose while trying to reload a breechloader as you bounce around in the saddle? A dropped paper cartridge for a muzzleloader is no great loss. On the other hand, a finely hand fitted reusable metal cartridge for a breechloader is irreplaceable in the field. Furthermore how many metal cartridges do you have? ...ten? ...twenty?  once you have shot your way through your cartridges you are sitting there reloading cartridges. I also doubt one could reload this gun quickly enough for subsequent shots in the middle of a Melee fight. This weapon is also heavy and would probably have benefitted from either being lightened or being built from scratch as a full blown rifled carbine. In the latter role it would certainly be a good choice for a small force of infantry skirmishers with high marksmanship skills due to the accuracy it offers with a rifled barrel and the higher rate of fire than a muzzle loading rifle. A dozen marksmen in a pike square or mixed in with matchlock armed arquebusiers /musketeers could wreak havoc with these guns at ranges where smoothbore guns would be hopelessly inaccurate (assuming no excessive gas bleed from the breech) but that is also 20/20 hindsight. Realistically, the breechloader is complex, hard to maintain and it suffers from the cartridges being expensive to make and hard to replace. Nevertheless, if I could afford one and, say, 30 cartridges I would take it.

Conclusion

Personally I find the amount of progress made in firearms from the crude hand cannon of the 1480s to the GNM pistol quite impressive. However, compare the crude hand cannons of the 1480s to the Peck's breechloader and I'm pretty astounded. The sophistication of gun lock mechanism design went from an S-shaped match holding lever nailed to a stick to a self spanning self igniting wheellock in 60 years. Additionally Peck and his contemporaries developed a practically usable if expensive breechloading system. This breechloading system would remain in small scale use throughout the next 300 years on expensive boutique firearms until the 19th century when metal cartridges that could be mass manufactured on a huge scale finally made this system practical for mass deployment in military and civilian service. Peck and his contemporaries exemplify the inventive spirit of the Renaissance and deserve much credit for having conceived of the metal cartridge firing gun 300 years before precision machine tool technology finally made it truly practical.

In terms of practical utility I can see why a regular Schwarzer Reiter would pick a pair of single shot long pistols or four of them if he could afford them in addition to the original two that he had to own as an entry level requirement for his role as a Reiter (initial Dutch requirements for a cavalry 'pistoleer' in the early stages of the 80 years war actually required only one pistol). For a wealthier Reiter it may make sense to pick a pair of Zwillings even if they are somewhat heavy and unwieldy simply to get the rapid second shot. This did indeed begin to happen in the latter stages of the 80 years war (Osprey, MAA-513, P.14) for those who could afford multi barrel firearms, many solders could still not afford them. The Pepperbox is no more than a novelty. The breechloader, cool though it is, is realistically out of the price range of most except the higher nobility and very wealthy burghers. Furthermore the difficulty in producing the painstakingly hand made cartridges and whatever number of cartridges you can obtain limits your firepower until you can find the time to reload them. Although I suppose you could still muzzle load one of these breechloaders in a pinch. Even so, the breechloader is interesting for very limited military issue especially as a rifled carbine for elite infantry skirmishers but I doubt many soldiers could afford one. All this having been said ... I want one!!