Pintle

A pintle is a pin or bolt, usually inserted into a gudgeon, which is used as part of a pivot or hinge. Other applications include pintle and lunette ring for towing, and pintle pins securing casters in furniture.

Use

Pintle/gudgeon sets have many applications, for example: in sailing to hold the rudder onto the boat; in transportation a pincer-type device clamps through a lunette ring on the tongue of a trailer; in controllable solid rocket motors a plug moves into and out of the motor throat to control thrust.

In transportation, a pintle hitch is a type of tow hitch that uses a tow ring configuration to secure to a hook or a ball combination for the purpose of towing an unpowered vehicle.

As a weapon mount a pintle-mount is used with machine guns as the mounting hardware that mates the machine gun to a vehicle or tripod. Essentially the pintle is a bracket with a cylindrical bottom and a cradle for the gun on top; the cylindrical bottom fits into a hole in the tripod while the cradle holds the gun.