 The new method permitted the abandonment of flint-lock firing mechanisms and opened the way to modern firing methods.The new mechanism used a magazine filled with fulminate primer, which would deliver a small amount of priming powder near the gun breech every time the magazine was cocked.Since the fulminate powder was highly sensitive to humidity, methods of coating the fulminate in varnish were developed, as well as methods of encasing the fulminate culminating with the invention of the percussion cap by François Prélat in 1818 and Deloubert in 1820.