Like their older brothers, the flintlocks, these weapons can be hard to identify. It seems like just about everyone was making guns, and still are for that matter, and only the larger manufactureres were marking them. Percussion was the next technological step past Flintlock as it was more reliable, especially in wet or inclement weather. However it lasted a relitivly short time in history. As with all things, wars have the effect of leap-frogging technology ahead at an increased rate. Thus Percussion was superceeded by Black Powder Metalic Cartridges within the span of a few years due to the increase in dependability and speed in reloading, in all cases particularly in wet or inclement weather reliability became an issue. However there is still a large section of the shooting world that shoots matchlocks, flintlocks, and percussion weapons, and can demonstrate great accuracy, it was said that troops in the civil war were required to reload and fire in as little as 10 seconds, some could do it in as little as 8 seconds.