Many of the pistols designed for higher officers are richly ornamented. The decoration on these weapons is not made from ivory, but instead of inlay formed from cattle bones. A large number of these wheel-lock weapons have a distinctive ballshaped pommel. Known as ‘puffers’, these were brought to Graz from Augsburg and Nuremberg in the last third of the 16th century.

Wheel-lock pistols belonged to the equipment of both the heavy cavalry and the harquebusiers. These pistols were kept in leather holsters that were attached to the horses’saddles.