Patent Application
20240151488
This invention relates to the field of firearms. More specifically, the invention comprises an electrically-powered firearm training device that can be installed in a conventional firearm and subsequently removed to restore the normal operation of that firearm.
Firearm training with live ammunition is both expensive and dangerous. It is therefore desirable to conduct training without actually having to fire a weapon. However, such training does not allow the trainee to realistically operate the firearms controls and thereby gain an instinctive familiarity with them. This is particularly true for semiautomatic pistols, where the user must master the operation of a trigger, a magazine release, the operation of replacing a spent magazine itself, and the release of a slide that has locked back after the firing of the last round in a magazine.
Weapon simulators that are useful only in training can perform many of these desired functions. These are expensive, however, since they are only useful in training and therefore require a law enforcement department to purchase an actual firearm and a separate simulator that mimics that firearm.
A better approach is to provide a simulation system that can be used in an actual firearm, then removed to restore the firearm to its normal state. Such an approach is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,602,784 to Dvorak. The Dvorak device uses air pressure to operate the slide of a pistol and simulate its firing. This approach requires the user to “recharge” the system using compressed air.
The present invention provides an electrical actuation system. The inventive system can be easily recharged and reused many times. The inventive system also allows a more realistic operation—as the depletion of an actual magazine can be better simulated.
The invention can be altered and adapted to fit a wide variety of firearms, but it is particularly well suited to semi-automatic pistols. Such weapons will be well known to those skilled in the art. An exemplary weapon is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 984,519 to John M. Browning (the Browning “1911” pistol). The invention can be used with 1911-type pistols in which the locking of the barrel to the slide is controlled by a pivoting link.
A second exemplary weapon is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,618,510 to John M. Browning (the Browning “Hi Power” pistol). The Hi Power uses a fixed barrel lug to lock the barrel to the slide. Many subsequent designs have used this approach. A more recent design incorporating this approach has been patented by Heckler and Koch as U.S. Pat. No. 5,799,434. The ′434 Patent describes a Heckler and Koch Military and Police Pistol (“MP”). More recent evolutions of this design are known as the Heckler and Koch Universal Self-Loading Pistol (“USP”). A simplified depiction of the USP is shown in the drawing figures of this disclosure.
The invention is not limited in its application to the USP, however. The invention can be adopted for use in practically any firearm—including the 1911 Browning, the Browning Hi-Power, the Beretta 92/M9 (as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,162), and the Glock family of pistols (to name a few). U.S. Pat. Nos. 984,519; 1,618,510; 5,799,434; and 5,596,162 are hereby all incorporated by reference.
The installation and operation of the invention will be described with respect to a Heckler and Koch USP semi-automatic pistol. In order to benefit the reader's understandings, the conventional operation of this pistol is depicted in
Slide contains striker 28, which is spring-biased toward the rear. The rearmost portion of the striker is exposed so that hammer 18 can strike it—thereby propelling the striker forward so that the nose of the striker impacts the primer on the base of a cartridge in chamber 30. The impact of the striker detonates a cartridge when the weapon is fired. Lock mechanism 26—the mechanism for securing the hammer in a cocked state and precisely releasing it when the trigger is pulled—is housed generally in the area indicated by the dashed line. As the lock mechanism is not significant to the present invention, no detailed explanation for these components is provided.
For a semi-automatic pistol, the firing of a cartridge performs several actions without further user involvement. These are generally (1) propelling the slide to the rear, (2) ejecting the spent cartridge case, (3) cocking the hammer or otherwise resetting the lock system, (4) feeding a new cartridge into the chamber, and (5) closing the chamber to be ready for the next firing.
At this point the propellant gasses escaping from the muzzle propel barrel 16 rearward with respect to frame 12. The breech end of the barrel bears against breech face 132 and propels slide 14 rearward with the barrel. Barrel 16 includes a descending lug 38. Cross pin 32 runs laterally through slot 42 in locking body 40. The ends of the cross pin are secured to frame 12 so that it remains with the frame and does not move. As barrel 16 moves rearward, lug 38 engages the corresponding inclined surface on locking body 40. This engagement pivots the breech end of the barrel downward and propels locking body 40 rearward until the forward end of slot 42 runs into cross pin 32.
Slide extension 102 extends downward from the forward portion of the slide and encompasses guide rod 34. As the slide travels rearward, spring 36 is compressed by the slide extension and stabilized by guide rod 34. Spring 36 tends to urge slide 14 forward. Thus, as the slide continues to travel rearward—as a result of momentum—spring 36 opposes this motion and decelerates the slide.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the depictions of
The inventive firearm simulator seeks to duplicate the motions thus described, as well as providing additional features.
The present invention comprises an electrically powered firearm training device. There are two main components—a simulator barrel assembly and a simulator magazine assembly. The simulator barrel assembly replaces the firearm's conventional barrel. The simulator magazine assembly replaces the firearm's conventional magazine. The simulator barrel assembly includes an electric motor that controllably moves a traveler using a jackscrew. The traveler cycles the slide in order to simulate the normal operation of the firearm. Electrical power is supplied to the motor from batteries within the simulator magazine. Control and monitoring functions are preferably also provided in the simulator magazine.
The present invention can be configured for use in a wide variety of firearms and physically realized in a wide range of embodiments. One skilled in the art—having reviewed the following detailed descriptions—will envision many more embodiments. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be fixed by the claims rather than the specific examples provided.
The embodiments described in the following paragraphs are designed to function with the prior art firearm depicted in
A central concept of the invention is that the training device can be added to an existing, functional firearm. It is also desirable for the firearm to be easily returned to its conventional state after the removal of the training device. In this description the term “conventional” shall mean a component that is found in the normal, operational state of a firearm. Thus, a conventional barrel is a component that includes a firing chamber and a bore. A conventional barrel receives a loaded cartridge in normal operations and contains it during the firing sequence. A conventional magazine contains multiple cartridges that are fed into the barrel as the firearm goes through the firing sequence repeatedly.
The inventive training device includes two main components—a simulator barrel assembly and a simulator magazine assembly. The simulator barrel assembly replaces the conventional barrel—typically along with a few other adjacent components. The simulator magazine assembly replaces the conventional magazine assembly.
Tang 52 extends from the aft portion of barrel 56. Electrical connector 54 is mounted to the aft end of tang 52—facing downward. Lug 48 descends from the lower portion of the barrel. Cross bore 50 is provided through the lug, transverse to the direction of the bore of the barrel. Guide rod 62 extends forward from lug 48 in a direction that is parallel to the barrel.
Electrical connector 82 is provided on the upper portion of the simulator magazine assembly. Base 68 is provided on the lower portion. The base in this example includes indicator lights 72,74 and a user control input (button 76).
In order to install the invention the user must first remove some conventional components from the firearm. For the exemplary firearm of
Simulator magazine assembly 46 is installed by sliding it up into magazine well 22 in the direction indicated by the arrow. Magazine latch 96 is spring-biased to pop into retention notch 78 and thereby retain the simulator magazine assembly in position. During the installation process of the simulator magazine assembly, electrical connector 82 on the top of the simulator magazine assembly mates to electrical connector 54 on the tang of the simulator barrel assembly. Power and control communication is thereby established between the simulator magazine assembly and the simulator barrel assembly.
In the example of
The first scenario is when the simulator magazine assembly is loaded into the firearm when slide 14 is locked back (shown in
The second scenario is when the simulator magazine assembly is placed in the firearm with the slide fully forward. This scenario is shown in
Under either scenario, the user initiates a simulated firing cycle by pulling the conventional trigger.
The reader will note that the barrel within simulator barrel assembly 44 is held in place by cross pin 32 passing through lug 48. Unlike the conventional barrel, the simulator barrel assembly does not move rearward nor does it tilt. Accordingly, the external profile of barrel 56 within the simulator barrel assembly 44 does not exactly match the external profile of the conventional barrel. Barrel 56 has external features that allow slide 14 to slide past it even when it is held in place.
The motor, jackscrew, and traveler are preferably designed to cycle quite rapidly. The entire opening and closing cycle in the example shown takes about 250 milliseconds (¼ second). This is fast enough to provide the desired training functionality.
In this example, proximity sensor 86 is provided on the aft portion of the traveler. This proximity sensor—which could be mounted in other locations or even on other components—detects the motion of the striker when the trainee pulls the trigger. Contact insert 108 is provided below the traveler. This provides electrical contact pads for communicating with the proximity sensor and for other purposes. Electrical conductors connect the contact insert to connector 56 on tang 52. Conductors 110 also connect motor 58 to connector 54. As explained previously, it is preferable to place all these conductors in protective potting 64.
When traveler 60 is moving forward and is almost to its “home” position (fully forward), contact 94 bridges contacts 136 and 138 on contact insert 108. This sends a first signal to the processor in the simulator magazine assembly and the processor responds by slowing and stopping the traveler in its home position. When traveler 60 is in its home position contact 90 on the traveler is touching contact 136 on the contact insert and contact 92 on the traveler is touching contact 138 on the contact insert. This configuration places proximity sensor 86 in communication with the processor in the simulator magazine assembly—as will be explained subsequently.
Processor 118 runs software retrieved from associated memory 130 to govern the operations of the training device. Proximity sensor 86 detects the firing of the weapon via detecting the motion of the striker. This closes an electrical circuit that is monitored by processor 118 (in this case the voltage on a pin is pulled to ground and this is interpreted as the detection of a firing event). Processor 118 then provides a power and control signal to motor controller 126 via power output electronics 120. Motor controller 126 energizes motor 58 and drives it to move the traveler rearward.
The motor in this example includes a simple rotary encoder that sends pulses to the motor controller. The motor controller counts these pulses on the rearward stroke for the traveler until a predetermined number of pulses has been reached. The motor controller then reverses the direction of the motor to retract the traveler.
The motor controller can operate simply by counting pulses from the rotary encoder—stopping when the same predetermined number of pulses has been reached on the return stroke. As an additional control method, the processor monitors contacts 136 and 138 during the return stroke. Looking briefly at
Processor 118 also interacts with charge controller 128, which is preferably located on the same PC board. Charge controller 128 monitors the condition of batteries 114 and regulates the recharging of the batteries when an external power source is connected to charging socket 112.
Processor 118 controls the operation of visual indicators 72 and 74. These can be LEDs. One or more can also be a graphical display that is configured to displays numbers and text. User input 76—a push button in this example—is also monitored by processor 118. When the input is activated by the user, the processor detects this action and can respond. Speaker 140 is also provided. The processor in this example has an integrated audio output unit that can use the speaker to produce sounds.
Processor 118 also controls the operation of actuator 80 through power output electronics 120. In this example actuator 80 is a solenoid with a moving plunger that extends upward when activated. The physical location of actuator 80 is shown in
The inventive embodiment thus described can be programmed to operate in many different ways. It is helpful to consider a few examples of this programmed operation.
The training device is set to simulate the operation of a semi-automatic pistol having a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. The processor detects when the simulator magazine assembly is first loaded into the pistol via an initial interaction with motor controller 126 (a simple limit switch can also be used). The processor at that point sets the magazine count to the defined value (15 rounds). The processor records each firing cycle and deducts that value from the magazine count. When the processor detects the initiation of the 15th and final cycle, it actuates actuator 80 when the traveler is nearing the rearward portion of its stroke and holds the actuator in its extended position for a brief interval—long enough to engage slide latch 122 and hold slide 14 in its latched position (see
This action visually alerts the user that the magazine has been expended. In this example, multiple identical instances of simulator magazine assembly are available. The user responds by actuating the conventional magazine latch—releasing the “spent” magazine. The user then places a new simulator magazine assembly in the magazine well and resumes the operation.
The batteries in a simulator magazine assembly will ordinarily endure through many “15 round” cycles before they need to be recharged. It is therefore helpful to allow the user to reset a magazine to the full state for training. This can be done in many ways. Looking at
Part of the training for operating a semi-automatic firearm is learning to deal with a jam. The processor can be programmed to randomly generate a simulated jam. As an example, the traveler can be actuated halfway to its normal rearward extent. The user must then press button 76 to “clear the jam” and resume normal operations.
In some instances the training session will not involve counting rounds and replacing magazines. For this case the processor can be programmed to permit continuous operation, where the firearm can be cycled hundreds of times without removing the simulator magazine assembly (subject only to battery life).
Trainees are sometimes taught to “top off” a partially expended magazine during a lull in the action. For this case the processor can be programmed to add rounds to its count when button 76 is pressed while the simulator magazine assembly is removed from the firearm. The processor adds a round for each time the button is pressed.
Selecting an operating mode can be carried out via indications on indicators 72,74 and pressing button 76. A separate programming jack can also be provided. Wireless communication with the processor is another option. Other features are possible including, without limitation:
Although the preceding description contains significant detail, it should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but rather as providing illustrations of the preferred embodiments of the invention. Numerous other permutations and modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Thus, the scope of the invention should be fixed by the following claims rather than the examples given.
