Patent Application
20120111309
1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to protective coverings for the ends of archery and hunting bows, and their methods of use.
2. Background
The use of compound bows, stick bows, or crossbows is very popular with archers and hunters. These bows often utilize one or more cam or eccentric wheels, mounted at the ends of the bow on needle bushings or axles. The cam wheels generally protrude past the ends of the bow, making them highly susceptible to damage during the course of hunting and usage. Hunters frequently traverse rough terrain during their hunting excursions, often in poor weather conditions, subjecting unprotected bow ends to damage by dirt, leaves, sticks, rocks, water, snow, and many other natural elements. The damage caused by these elements is often severe enough to lead to poor bow performance, and, when something such as a chip in the cam wheel is involved, be quite expensive to repair.
Thus, there exists the need for an inexpensive, easy-to-use, light-weight, protective covering for the ends of archery and hunting bows.
The existing prior art fails to fully address this need. U.S. Pat. No. 5,513,621 provides for a padded, funnel-shaped protective device for the ends of bows, which can be attached in a manner to also create a bow sling. The funnel-shaped ends disclosed in the '621 patent are not well-fitted to the bow, leaving a gap between the bow and the protective coverings. The gaps permit the protective coverings to become snagged, entangled, or even pried off when carrying or picking the bow up from a resting position through areas of woods, underbrush, etc., which could create unwanted noise, inconvenience, and possibly damage to the bow or bow strings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,912 attempts to solve this specific problem by providing for padded end covers which are cut and sewn in such a fashion that one length of the end cover is straight, to align with the bow string, and the opposite side of the cover is rounded, and then curved, to align with the cam wheel and attached resilient limb. Although the fitted end covers disclosed in the '912 patent solve the cumbersomeness of the funnel-shaped ends disclosed in the '621 patent, it creates a different problem. By its nature, the pads of the '912 patent are shaped so specifically to the bow that they must be turned the correct way in order to be placed on the bow. This seemingly small inconvenience can become an unwanted hassle when hunting, as being able to pack up and move from one spot to another quickly, with the least amount of noise and effort, is of utmost importance.
This application's objective is to overcome the above-described limitations, by providing an easy-to-use, snug-fitting, non-cumbersome protective covering for use on the ends of numerous bow types.
More specifically, the protective covering is rounded and closed at one end, closed along the majority of the length of the sides, and open at the opposite end, to permit placement of the end of a bow inside the protective covering. The top and bottom surfaces of the protective covering are fairly flat, although they do permit some expandability upon placing an item within the opening. The interior of the rounded end of the protective covering is designed to accept the rounded edge of a cam wheel. The sides of the protective covering are not closed for their entire length, but are left unclosed prior to reaching the open end. The unclosed part of the sides creates a slit like opening between the top and bottom surfaces in which a bow arm and strings fit when the protective covering is placed over a bow end.
The fitting of the bow arm and string into the slits greatly stabilizes the protective covering onto the bow end, preventing the protective covering from inadvertently falling or coming off the bow end. Although seating the bow arm and string into the slits provides greater stability, it is not a cumbersome task. In fact, installing the protective covering onto a bow end takes very little time and effort by the user. The protective covering easily slides over the bow end, into place, and the user is not burdened by having to determine which way the protective covering fits upon the bow end.
As an additional stabilization mechanism, one version of this invention requires the use of a strap with a fastening device attached to the top and bottom surfaces, and strung between the bow strings or bow arm and bow strings. Thus, the straps help to keep the protective covering from being forcibly dislodged from the bow end.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:
In this section, some preferred embodiments of the present invention are described in detail sufficient for one skilled in the art to practice the present invention. It is to be understood, however, that the fact that a limited number of preferred embodiments are described herein does not in any way limit the scope of the present invention as set forth in the appended claims to those particular embodiments.
As can be seen by reference to the drawings, in both
The preferred embodiment of the present invention contemplates that the exterior of the protective covering be comprised of a heavyweight, camouflage material. Additionally, a padding layer of polyfill is placed between the heavyweight, camouflage material and the interior lining, which is preferably comprised of a fleece material.
While only a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that many changes and modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as described in the following claims.
