NZ749503B2 - Magnetic ammunition for air guns and biodegradable magnetic ammunition for airguns - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to the field of ammunition for air guns having magnetic chambering of rounds. Conventional air guns involve overly complex actions and conventional mechanical guns that use magnetic forces merely use magnetism as an adjunct to some form of mechanical action. A round for a magnetically chambered air gun has a magnetically influenced portion and a non-magnetically responsive portion, as well as an exterior shell and an interior. The interior may be hollow, solid, or filled with liquid. Any part of the invention may be the magnetically responsive portion: the shell, the interior, the solid or liquid core and so on. The round may advantageously be spherical, and may include an actual magnet itself as opposed to merely being magnetically responsive. Magnetic materials may be impregnated into a non-magnetic portion such as a plastic shell. The shell may be of multiple part construction allowing it to be shipped empty and filled at or closer to the location of use, with a snap together design. For liquid filled shells, a bladder and fill nipple may be provided. Fragmentation grooves may be provided in embodiments. The round of the invention may be biodegradable, recycled or refuse materials, with magnetic infusion into the mantle of paper, powder or compressed refuse or a magnetically influenced core. r a magnetically chambered air gun has a magnetically influenced portion and a non-magnetically responsive portion, as well as an exterior shell and an interior. The interior may be hollow, solid, or filled with liquid. Any part of the invention may be the magnetically responsive portion: the shell, the interior, the solid or liquid core and so on. The round may advantageously be spherical, and may include an actual magnet itself as opposed to merely being magnetically responsive. Magnetic materials may be impregnated into a non-magnetic portion such as a plastic shell. The shell may be of multiple part construction allowing it to be shipped empty and filled at or closer to the location of use, with a snap together design. For liquid filled shells, a bladder and fill nipple may be provided. Fragmentation grooves may be provided in embodiments. The round of the invention may be biodegradable, recycled or refuse materials, with magnetic infusion into the mantle of paper, powder or compressed refuse or a magnetically influenced core.

Description

IC AMMUNITION FOR AIR GUNS AND BIODEGRADABLE MAGNETIC AMMUNITION FOR AIRGUNS RELATED APPLICATION(S) This application claims the priority and t of previously filed US Patent Application No. 14/449550, filed on Aug. 1, 2014, and PCT Application No.

PCT/US15/42197, filed on Jul. 27, 2015, both entitled “MAGNETICALLY-CHAMBERED FULLY AUTOMATIC AIR GUN”, and US Patent Application No. 15/195,967, filed June 28, 2016, entitled “MAGNETIC AMMUNITION FOR AIR GUNS AND BIODEGRADABLE MAGNETIC AMMUNITION FOR AIRGUNS”, in the name of the same inventor, James Nicholas Marshall.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates generally to ammunition and projectiles, such as are found in class 102 of US Classification Index, and more specifically to ammunition for air guns having magnetic chambering of rounds.

OUND Simplicity in the mechanical action of a weapon is extremely ant, and so it is frequently true that a weapon is considered an advance over previous models e it simplifies the action.

In addition, air guns present some e advantages over gunpowder weapons, however, air guns also tend to suffer from the problem of overly complex actions. For example, a typical low end lever-action air gun might generate a muzzle velocity of only 275 FPS (85 m/s), and require half a minute to pump up, even though it has numerous moving parts such as a piston, the lever, the lever arm, block, and so on.

Various weapons have used magnetic forces in their actions in various s. However, these weapons all have more or less ional actions, which use magnetism merely as an adjunct to some form of mechanical .

An air gun has been invented, in the parent application to this application, which has as few moving parts as possible in the action, preferably none at all. It has the ability to fire at full automatic, and yet generate, in embodiments, muzzle velocities r to those of der weapons.

It is possible to design ammunition specifically tailored to this unique new type of weapon.

Such tion would not be similar to that for a rail gun (a gun using magnetic forces to accelerate the rounds). Such weapons are enormous, heavy, expensive, and in fact not yet working in any practical manner e of the laboratory.

The enormous muzzle velocities generated by rail guns render the ammunition they use automatically fatal, the enormous recuperation energy required between shots renders them extremely slow to fire.

The air gun of the parent application on the other hand develops more or less normal muzzle velocities comparable to a low-power gunpowder weapon and fires more rounds per minute than any known air gun. The motive force is provided by a large reservoir of compressed air, not magnetism. Magnetic forces are used in place of a breech block.

Thus appropriate ammunition for the weapon will be small, light, inexpensive, ferrous (meaning magnetically responsive, not necessarily iron based), and since the magnetically chambered action of the air gun does not handle rounds individually, it will also be spherical.

Cost of tion is a g issue and for a gun, such as that gun of the parent application (whose full disclosure is incorporated herein by reference) which fires a simply enormous amount of ammunition, ammunition cost is an extremely significant expense. While the al for a single round of ammunition may be bought at pennies in bulk, a gun which fires (as taught by the parent application) at a cyclic rate of 10,000 RPM or higher will rapidly run up the cost of even inexpensive ammunition due to sheer quantity. Thus it would be preferable to provide an inexpensive material for ammunition for air guns, especially for ically chambered airguns.

Spent ammunition is further becoming an issue. For e, depleted uranium core ammunition (prized for armor piercing rounds due the very high density of uranium) is only mostly depleted: the uranium remains slightly radioactive. Worse, uranium is itself a poison in the non-radiation sense. When such rounds are fired, an environmental issue can be created. Similar issues apply to other types of ammunition, even lead in old style small arms ammunition, which is a nown nmental contaminent and so on and so forth. It would be preferable to provide materials for ammunition which are less prone to contaminating the environment.

It would further be preferable if the ammunition ed a ready means for customization close to the end user.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [00013c] According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a round of ammunition comprising: a cal body, the body comprising a first body part and a second body part; the first body part being a core; the second body part surrounding the core and being a shell about the core, the second body part having an interior void into which the core is disposed; the second body part being made at least in part of a structural material which is non-magnetic; the second body part being made at least in part of a material which is magnetically responsive; and a magnet disposed within a material of the first body part.

The present invention teaches a spherical round of ammunition for an air gun which uses a magnetic chambering system instead of a block. The round is therefore magnetic in whole or in part. In l, the round may be a single material, however a layered construction is preferred in the presently preferred embodiment and best mode now contemplated for ng out the invention: in l, either a shell or mantle is disposed over either a core or a hollow void able to receive the user’s choice of materials.

] In embodiments, the ion may have a core which has over it a mantle.

The core may be a magnetically influenced / magnetically responsive material such as a ferrous metal, while the mantle may be a foam or the like which provides a better degree of protection and impact absorption compared to traditional “rubber s”. Thus, a non-lethal round may be provided, the effect of which is accentuated by the extremely high rate of fire of the magnetically chambered air gun (up to 10,000 rounds per minute cyclic rate has been achieved in testing) and yet is not deadly due to the rate of fire and muzzle velocity being adjustable anywhere from extremely low up to extremely high.

] In other embodiments the mantle or shell may be made of plastic, infused with numerous small particles of a magnetically influenced material, for example iron filings or the like.

In other embodiments the actual caliber of the round may be varied greatly.

Smaller rounds such as the ional caliber of approximately .177 or the like may be used, however, the t disclosure and the gun which fires it is advantageous in that it can handle rounds up to the size of normal pistol rounds (40 caliber, 45 caliber) or in fact may handle rounds having calibers of 1 inch or more.

In embodiments, the device may have a hollow shell which is shipped for military or mobile use with nothing inside. The shell may be made of multiple parts, shipped nested but ted, so that they can be filled as needed. For example, a round of 1 inch caliber can easy be used with sand, even gravel, small explosives, anda materials, and so on and so forth. These “snap over anything” shells may have tabs, grooves, fasteners with matching detents and so on allowing the shell to actually fasten together by snapping into place. The hollow shell may be made of a ferrous material or 4a followed by 5 other ically responsive material, or it may be a non-ferrous material, for example, iron versus c: both could be used in different embodiments.

In embodiments, the hollow shell may have a fill nipple and an internal bladder.

The user may select a liquid to put into the bladder. In such embodiments, the device of the invention may have serrations in the shell (grooves such as an old fashioned “pineapple” grenade has) to allow easy fragmentation. The liquid used may itself be magnetically influenced or it may have something such as iron filings in the liquid.

In other embodiments the core may be a material such as iron filings, within a mantle or outer shell made of any non-magnetic material.

In yet other ments, the core may be itself a magnet as well, such as a rare earth magnet of neodymium or the like. In combination embodiments, a core of iron filings may have a rare earth magnet embedded within the iron filings.

In other embodiments (such as liquid casings) the magnetic influence may be on the outer shell / mantle rather than the inner al or core. Thus the round may be “outer influenced” or “inner influenced”.

In one “outer nce round”, the thick mantle may be of a polymer material or the like, which may be infused with iron filings or otherferrous materials or ically responsive materials so that the , rather than the core, is magnetic.

In yet further embodiments both the core and the shell may be magnetically influenced.

These, and other, embodiments of the invention will be better appreciated and tood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. It should be understood, however, that the following description, while indicating various embodiments of the invention and numerous specific details thereof, is given by way of illustration and not of limitation. Many substitutions, WO 05196 modifications, additions and/or ngements may be made within the scope of the invention without departing from the spirit thereof, and the invention includes all such substitutions, modifications, additions and/or rearrangements.

In other embodiments, the ion may be made of a biodegradable, recycled or refuse material. For example, the invention may be made of a paper mantle, with an iron core for magnetic influence. The invention may also be made of a paper mantle with an infusion of a magnetically responsive material such as iron fillings, iron waste particles, and so on. In other embodiments the core cavity may be coated with a thin liquid impermeable layer so as to prevent a liquid core (such as a paint or tear gas) from soaking into the paper mantle.

] In yet other embodiments the mantle may be made of a powder, deeply compressed so as to maintain its structural integrity for a period of time prior to and during firing. After use, the powder mantle may egrate (for e, due to impact, due to weathering, water, etc) and the round may thus degrade away. Like many paper types, the powder of the mantle may be ”true” biodegradable, that is, degraded by biological activity. Again, a magnetically influenced core may be used, or the core cavity may be coated with a liquid impermeable layer, and the magnetic responsiveness may be created by infusing into the powder mantle a material (such as iron filings) which is quickly able (uncoated iron breaks down rapidly when exposed to typical atmospheric conditions of humidity and temperature).

In yet other embodiments, the ammunition may be made of compressed refuse, such as compressed plastic, paper, etc. In ular, one common stage of recycling is the grinding or shredding of plastic or paper or the like into streamers or granules. Such partially recycled materials may advantageously be compressed into a mantle shape. If the mantle includes an on / component of magnetically responsive materials (ferrous or non—ferrous) then the interior may again be a cavity suitable for liquids. Note that if the mantle material is a non-absorbent material such as plastic, no interior coating may be necessary. In alternative embodiments, the compressed refuse core may be non-magnetically responsive but the core may be magnetically responsive, including either a ball of material such as iron, or a ball made of ssed magnetic refuse, that is, partially ground / or partially shredded metals of a ferrous or magnetic nature.

SUMMARY IN REFERENCE TO THE

Claims (17)

1. A round of ammunition comprising: a spherical body, the body comprising a first body part and a second body part; the first body part being a core; the second body part surrounding the core and being a shell about the core, the second body part having an interior void into which the core is ed; the second body part being made at least in part of a structural material which is non-magnetic; the second body part being made at least in part of a material which is ically responsive; and a magnet disposed within a material of the first body part.

2. The round of ammunition of claim 1, the magnet further comprising: a rare earth magnet.

3. The round of ammunition of claim 2, wherein the rare earth further comprises: Neodymium.

4. The round of tion of claim 1, wherein the al of the second body part further comprises: iron filings.

5. The round of ammunition of claim 1, wherein the second body part is made of two constituent materials, a first structural material which is non-magnetic and a second magnetically responsive material dispersed within the first structural material.

6. The round of tion of claim 5, the first structural material further comprising: a polymer. 1003336699

7. The round of ammunition of claim 6, the first structural material polymer further sing: a shock absorbing polymer.

8. The round of tion of claim 6, wherein the second magnetically responsive material further comprises: particles of metal.

9. The round of tion of claim 8, wherein the particles of metal further se: iron filings.

10. The round of ammunition of claim 6, wherein the core further comprises: a gas.

11. The round of ammunition of claim 6, wherein the core further ses: a metal.

12. The round of ammunition of claim 5, wherein the second body part is comprised of a plurality of sections, the sections having fastening means by which the sections are fastened together about the core.

13. The round of ammunition of claim 12, the fastening means further comprising: on a first one of the sections, a plurality of tabs, each tab having thereon at least one catch, on a second one of the sections, at least one detent, the detent dimensioned and configured to accept the catch into mechanical engagement, whereby the two sections are fastened together.

14. The round of ammunition of claim 12, wherein the shell further comprises: a plurality of fragmentation grooves whereby the shell may more easily nt upon ; and further whereby the shell may absorb energy by means of fragmenting upon impact. 1003336699

15. The round of tion of claim 5, wherein the first ural material is biodegradable.

16. The round of ammunition of claim 15, the first structural material further sing one member selected from the group consisting of: paper, cellulose, wood fiber, saw dust, powder, polymer, recycled material, compressed materials, and combinations thereof.

17. The round of ammunition of claim 15, wherein the second magnetically responsive material comprises one member selected from the group consisting of: iron filings, metal particles, recycled material, compressed materials, and combinations thereof.