Firearm with a Pressure Accumulator
The firearm with pressure accumulator (5) having increased battering charge (3) and barrel (1) length has a piston (43) sliding in the accumulator housing (41) fixed to the breech (6) and springs (38, 38, 40) supporting the piston. To create a pneumatic spring (17) an annular brake chamber (44) is provided. The battering charge is arranged in the bolt body (31) located in the breech and has a neck (7) with an opening (9) facing towards the barrel to direct propellant gas to the barrel. This structure can be adapted to any size of the firearms, e.g. sharpshooter rifles with range of 4 to 6 kilometres, sky sweepers with an amplitude of 30 to 35 kilometres to combat targets by homing missiles as well as intercontinental missiles with a range of 500 to 1000 kilometres.
The invention relates to a firearm with pressure accumulator for eliminating the fundamental drawbacks of known and used firearms and unifies and improves their basically advantageous properties.
The pressure in the barrels of firearms known till now is uneven. At the former part of the barrel, the pressure increases rapidly, reaches a maximum, and then decreases gradually. The barrel materials known and economically achievable do not allow the maximum gas pressure in the barrel to exceed 3000-4000 bars. Owing to the pressure drop at the farther parts of the barrel, it has no sense to apply a longer barrel than 50-60 times of the bore diameter of the barrel (the so-called calibre), since at the end of a barrel longer than that, the pressure driving the missile forward is reduced to such an extent that forces breaking the missile are larger than those accelerating it, thus the missile, instead of being faster, gets slower.
Due to the limitations mentioned above, the missile leaves the barrel of traditional firearms with a muzzle velocity of maximum 1-1.6 km/s.
In the 1960-ies, in the USA, by means of a solution elaborated in frame of the HARP program (High Altitude Research Project) and applying a guide shoe concept a muzzle velocity of 2.5-3 km/s could be achieved so that by the mediation of guide shoes missiles having smaller size than the calibre are shot out from barrels of large calibre. By using this method, the weight of the missile could be decreased to the ⅓-¼ of the missile with traditional size, which means that the driving force acting on a unit part of the missile is increased up to 3-4 times. In this solution, the length of the barrel is 150-200 times larger than the diameter of the barrel. This method is generally applied in the developed countries for guns of tanks.
A major disadvantage of this solution is that the pressure of gases driving the missile forward is uneven, and at the same time, the missile above the calibre is difficult to move due to its extraordinarily large size and weight and it is also very expensive. In addition, the guiding shoes are quickly worn when consuming the significant part of the driving energy at every shot.
The invention is related to solving the above problems so that the major part of the gases originating from the combustion of an increased amount of gunpowder is introduced into a pressure accumulator, whereas the smaller part flows into a barrel of strongly increased length driving the missile forward, then as the missile passes through the barrel, gases accumulated in the pressure accumulator flow into the barrel, and drive the missile along the total length of the barrel with a nearly identical pressure.
Thus, the invention consists of a firearm with pressure accumulator, which is provided with an increased amount of gunpowder and significantly increased barrel length as compared to traditional firearms.
It should be mentioned that the idea of building-in a pressure accumulator into firearms emerged recently as means for making the gas pressure in the barrel more uniform and for decreasing the repulsive force at shooting, but in these solutions the shot range could be increased only by about 20-30%, in contrast to the 500-600% increase in the shot range achievable by making use of the present invention.
There are also known solutions in which the increase of the gas pressure in the barrel is caused by exploding more charges of gunpowder simultaneously or after each other, however, these methods are not safe and very difficult to handle.
The invention is described in detail on the basis of the drawings; its principal advantages as compared to former firearms are illustrated in
The energy relations of the three embodiments shown in
On curve a it can be seen that in the barrels of traditional firearms the gas pressure increases steeply at the beginning then decreases definitively. The same applies for the gas pressure appearing in the solution when applying guide shoes, as illustrated by curve b, with the difference that corresponding to the larger calibre used, values belonging together are significantly larger. The solution illustrated by curve c and corresponding to the method of the invention, shows a uniform gas pressure not exceeding the value limited by the strength of the barrel material, in spite of this, however, the size of the uniform, elongated working area compares with the size of the working area characteristic for the increased calibre using guide shoes, and in some cases it even exceeds the latter by a certain value.
In the new types of firearms developed according to the invention different kinds of pressure accumulators may be used.
In
The embodiment of the pressure accumulator shown in
Both high speed automatic charging from the side, and the problems with ring seals are solved in the improved embodiment shown in
The drawback of pressure accumulator according to
Embodiment shown in
Embodiment according to
Gunpowder gases originating from the combustion of gunpowder charge 3 are led in this case also to barrel 1 forward, and to accumulator piston 43 backward. Barrel 1 is fixed in the former part of breech 6, whereas accumulator piston 43 protrudes in a sealed way into the cylindrical space found in its back part. The plate-formed supporting end 45 of accumulator piston 43 reclines against strong springs 38,39 placed into one another. Springs 38, 39 are preferably oppositely wound spirals. They recline with their opposite ends to supporting plate 47, which supporting plate 47 is fixed to bounding extensions 46 of breech 6 via bounding rods 48 by means of locknuts 49. It is obvious in this embodiment that the size of springs 38, 39 can be increased at will.
These springs may be equally made of both special steel materials and different fibrous plastic materials.
A significant disadvantage of mechanical springs is their large mass and limited operation speed. The swivel inertia of large moving masses can make the pressure in barrel 1 uneven decreasing thereby the efficiency of the gun according to the invention. At the same time, swivel waves propagate e.g. in steel by a velocity of 5 km/s. At such velocities occurring in this embodiment, the durability of the springs may be reduced significantly.
In order to eliminate these disadvantages, embodiments 7 and 8 were born, in which various elastic gas media are applied as springs.
In embodiment shown in
The embodiment illustrated in
Advantages of the new firearm according to the invention can be summarized as follows. The main advantage consists of the fact that in case of a suitably large gunpowder charge and barrel length, the muzzle velocity of the firearm according to the invention can exceed significantly those achievable with firearms known till now.
Another large advantage of the solution according to the invention is that fast combusting, brisant gunpowders with large stretching force can be used without damaging the barrel. A further advantageous property is—mainly at using self bearing rockets—that the mild, smooth acceleration in the barrel does not cause an explosion of the explosive material being in the barrel, neither are the instruments and structural parts sensitive against rattle damaged.
It is also advantageous that the repercussion acting on the missile at firing is decreased significantly; even it can be fully eliminated by choosing the appropriate ratios of the swinging masses.
The invention means a step forward almost in every size range of firearms: it can be applied e.g. in long range guns for reaching a shot distance of 4-6 km, or in air defence machine guns for fighting down targets in a height of 30-35 km by self directing rockets, and it is also applicable in intercontinental rockets of large size for reaching a shot range of 500-1000 km.
The embodiments according to the invention applying pressure accumulator is applicable not only for increasing the shot range, but by restricting the pressure of gases originating from the combustion of the gunpowder, the missile is accelerated in the barrel smoothly and evenly making it especially well applicable for firing rockets.
Claims
1. An inventive firearm with pressure accumulator preferably for achieving large shot ranges characterised in that it comprises a significantly increased gunpowder charge (3) relative to earlier traditional firearms, and a barrel (1) having a uniform cross-section and also of a significantly increased length free of any lateral passages, and having a pressure accumulator (5) for absorbing the major part of gunpowder gases originating from the combustion of gunpowder charge (3) capable of breaking open the breech (6), and subsequent to the passing forward of the missile (2) in the barrel (1), the absorbed amount of gas flows from said pressure accumulator (5) into the barrel (1).
2. Firearm according to claim 1 characterized in that its pressure accumulator (5) is provided with a bore leading the gases of the combusting gunpowder charge (3) partly into the barrel (1), and radial bores (14) for leading the gases into the accumulator space (15).
3. Firearm according to claim 1 characterized in that its pressure accumulator (5) is provided in its breech (6) with a cylindrical space (11) and a ring piston (13) supported by a ring (13).
4. Firearm according to claim 1 characterized in that in the breech (6) of its pressure accumulator (5) two symmetrically ordered right side and left-side cylindrical. spaces (26,27) are situated.
5. Firearm according to claim 1 characterized in that its pressure accumulator (5) is provided with a bore (9) ensuring the flow of the gases originating from the combustion of gunpowder charge (3) partly into the barrel (1), and with another bore (42) leading the remaining gases to the opposite direction towards the pressure accumulator housing (41) mounted on the breech (6) from behind.
6. The firearm according to claim 5, further further comprising an accumulator piston (43) supported by springs (38,39,40) placed into each other and sliding in the pressure accumulator housing (41) in a sealed manner.
7. The firearm according to claim 6, further comprising a gas cushion (17) damping the impact exerted by the springs (13, 38, 39, 40).
8. The firearm according to claim 6, wherein its accumulator piston (43) is provided with a supporting end (45) shaped in δ a plate form and supported by springs (38, 39) protruding from breech (6) backwards and placed one into another.
9. The firearm according to claim 6, wherein the cylindrical space (11) of its accumulator space (15) is filled out with the gases formed by the combustion of gunpowder charge (5).
10. The firearm according to claim 6, wherein the cylindrical space (11) of its accumulator space (15) is filled out with a neutral or a combustible gas introduced via gas connector (52) and valve (51).
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 16, 2006
Publication Date: Oct 2, 2008
Inventors: Jozsef Toth (Miskolc), Istvan Attila Levai (Bekessamson), Istvan Balazs (Miskoic)
Application Number: 11/908,589
International Classification: F41A 5/26 (20060101); F41A 3/94 (20060101); F41A 3/62 (20060101);