The Firearm Blog

Wilsons Gunshop (aka. Wilson Combat) has just had two patent applications approved. Both attribute Douglas D. Olson as the inventor.

The first, entitled "Bridged extractor spring for firearms" describes a a duel spring designed to prevent extraction problems in short barreled AR-15s.

Jay (jdun1911) pointed out that a $5 spring and o-ring will achieve the same result and does not require a modified bolt.

Does anyone know if Wilson has ever made use of this invention? The patent application dates back to 2007.

The other patent awarded to Wilson is for a new night time pistol sight. I only skim-read the patent, but form what I made out it uses a combination of an angled mirror, tritium insert and fiber optics to provide a supposedly superior night time sight picture.

New and unique improvements of prior known fiber optic sights for firearms with day and night time capabilities are disclosed that comprise (A) a sight base, (B) a fiber optic rod mounted in said base having an angle cut at the distal end which is positioned on the underside of the rod, and (C) an artificial light insert that is positioned in a cavity in the fiber optic rod. The cavity is sealed with a fiber optic rod plug and epoxied using an optically clear epoxy. The sight provides increased light output, co-located day and night sight views with increased illumination during the day, and uses a low power tritium insert for night time use. At night the sight achieves a transition from a bright ring during the day to a small central dot at night while maintaining the same color light for both.

Many thanks to Jay for his help.

On the 24th of this month the USPTO approved Magpul's patent application for the Magpul self-leveling AR-15 magazine follower. Patent number 7621063 lists the inventors as Richard M. Fitzpatrick, Michael T. Mayberry and Eric S. Nakayama.

Diagram of the follower from the patent.

The patent can be viewed after the jump.

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Carl Walther GmbH has filed for a patent on a mechanism which prevents a pistol being disassembled if a round is chambered. It works by using the extractor to manipulate a pin which prevents the disassembly.

Diagram from the patent.

Personally, I think all gadgets like this are unnecessary. Police departments, on the other hand, love these kind of features. That the Glock requires its trigger to be pulled on disassembly has often been cited as a reason police have switched away from the Glock in favor of its competitors.

The patent application can be viewed online at Scribd.com.

War games just got more fun. Raytheon has applied for a patent on a simulated M18 Claymore Anti-Personal Mine for the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) training system.

The patent describes a device that looks like a claymore but instead of hundreds of steel balls and C4 explosives, it is armed with over one hundred laser diodes and LEDs arranged to simulate a claymore explosion, including the back blast.

Real Claymore Range


Simulated Claymore Killing Zone

To increase authenticity, the device could be hooked up to a pyrotechnic charge to simulate the light, sound and smoke of a real claymore. In short, it provides everything expect the for horrific mess and mental trauma that is the modern anti-personnal mine. I am sure it will help green recruits learn that “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” does in fact mean front toward enemy

Many thanks to Daniel E. Watters for telling me about the patent.

The US Naval Air Warfare Center funded a patent application, published two weeks ago, with the innocuous title of “Military Training Device”. The device turns out to be a suicide vest simulator for the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) training system.

The proposed MILES equipped “explosive’” clothing.

The original MILES system was developed in the 1980’s to provide a realistic force-on-force training system for the US Army. The system utilized an array of sensors on soldiers clothing, equipment and vehicles. When a blank cartridge is fired from a MILES equipped rifle, the laser is activated and transmits information about the shooter, his weapon and ammunition. If a laser hits a sensor, the software calculates if the shot was a kill based on the range and what ammunition was being used. MILES is in use by many armed forces including the Australian, British, Czech, Irish, Israeli, Turkish and Canadian armies.

M4 with MILES gear attached. Camp Shelby Joint Force Training Center.
From Wikipedia.

The patent application, number 20090053679, describes a system where clothing is covered in light generating devices, such as LEDs, that when activated broadcast the appropriate MILES codes for a kill over a wide area. Sensors in the “blast” zone would then calculate the distance from the “explosion” and see if it resulted in a kill. Previous simulation systems for suicide bombers have just generated smoke and sound effects.

The Kill Logic

The system also allows for defensive action against suicide bombers. Sensors would also be placed on the bomber and certain hits would be able to disable the bomb – something the Israelis have demonstrated is possible in real life.

Bomber armed with M16?!?!

The patent goes out of its way to be politically correct. The words “suicide bomber” are only used once. From the patent, emphasis mine:

[0040]In act 112, electrical circuit 18 disables offensive capabilities of military training device 10. In the particular embodiment described above in which multiple integrated laser engagement system 14 includes light generating devices 16a as well as light detectors 16b, light generating devices 16a may be inhibited from further operation until the current military training maneuver is completed. In this manner, a particular trainee simulating a suicide bomber may be disabled from inflicting damage to other trainees.

This is a very interesting system and I look forward to seeing it develop. Providing training with this level of realism can only help the troops stationed in parts of the world where suicide attacks are likely to happen.

Many thanks to Daniel Watters for the information.

The IBM bullet dodging patent story, which originally broke on this blog after being discovered by reader Daniel E. Watters, created quite a lot of noise on the internet.

Noah at Danger Room noticed that the patent has since been withdrawn. It seems odd to go to all that work writing a patent, paying lawyers, only to withdraw it after news of its existance hits the internet days later. Anyone know if this happens frequently?

I had already used pat2pdf.org to convert the patent to a PDF. So here is patent number 07484451 hosted on scribd for your viewing pleasure

The lesson here is that you cannot deleted stuff off the internet, someone, somewhere, has a copy.

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