Nick and I continually bemoan the apparent ‘stagnovation’ in the domestic firearms market, where a gun can be sold as “Completely Redesigned For 2014!” simply because the upcoming version will have interchangeable backstraps. But there’s reason to hope it’s not just hype: a record 370 firearms patents were issued in just the last year. This is a 35-year high, and more than twice the average of 169 patents per year since 1977. Our firearms inventors are working away in their machine shops and keeping their patent lawyers’ time-shares paid up, but where’s the next Saint John The Browning? And where’s my caseless 4.73mm carbine? . . .
Some of these patents seem a bit silly, like No. 8.584.391 which envisions a telescoping-barrel shotgun:
A shotgun has a telescoping barrel made of concentric barrel sections slidably engaged together. These include at least an inner barrel section and an outer barrel section. A grip on the outer barrel section aids telescopic movement. A locking pin secures or releases the barrel sections. The barrel sections have protrusions that interfere with further outward movement once fully telescoped out. The grip may have a channel to permit a pistol grip to slide onto the grip. A second pistol grip may be connected to the trigger. The butt of the gun may slide out to make a shoulder rest. A butt plate is connected to a rod that slides into and out of the shotgun. The rod has teeth that engage a spring-loaded arm to secure the rod in an extended position. A compression or tension spring may bias the concentric barrel sections in an extended or shortened configuration.
Would this become an NFA-registered SBS when you collapse the barrel? I don’t know, but nobody’d better tell DiFi that this patent includes a shoulder thingy that goes up. Either way, I’m not sure how a cone-shaped barrel would make your shot patterns any tighter unless it’s got The Mother Of All Jug Chokes at the end of it. (Which is nowhere in the patent abstract, BTW.)
And I hate to second-guess the fine minds of the U.S. Patent Office, but some of these patents seem to have been done already, like the Ammunition Carrier For Firearm Stock described in Patent No. 8,584,389:
An ammunition carrier for attaching one or more cartridges to a firearm. The ammunition carrier may comprise a base member for securing the carrier to the stock of a firearm such as a long gun and a cartridge holder for releasably retaining one or more cartridges within a plurality of cartridge storage loops. A releasable connection between the base member and the cartridge holder allows for the cartridge holder and the cartridges held therein to be quickly and easily removed from the stock of the firearm such as when the firearm is to be placed in a case for storage or transport. A cover may also be associated with the ammunition carrier for covering at least a portion of the one or more cartridges and the cover is at least partially moveable to permit selective removal of the one or more cartridges.
It may be an awkward time to mention this, but I think I’ve already got one of these attached to my old Mossberg 500. And, just possibly, another one attached to the stock of my Remington 70 PSS. But what if I’m wrong, and somebody wants to cover our rifle buttstocks with Picatinny-rail ammunition carriers? The horror! The horror!
Some of these patents, however, sound like a damned good idea. U.S. Patent No. 8572878 protects Beretta’s concept for a cocker/decocker for striker-fired semiautomatic pistols.
A cocking/de-cocking mechanism for semi-automatic striker-fired pistols having a multi-function cocking lever for controlling, by rotational movement, the cocking or arming of the tiring pin, while effecting de-cocking by the lateral displacement of the cocking lever on its support pin.
This is fairly hard to visualize, and I’m not an inventor so this publicly-searchable patent illustration doesn’t help me much. Many of the other patents I searched through (magazine monopods, revolver cylinder shrouds, et cetera, ad nauseum) were solutions in search of a problem, but this Beretta patent actually seems to do something useful: it de-cocks a striker-fired pistol without having to dry-fire it. A lot of Glock owners could have avoided soiling their BVDs if their striker-fired pistols had a feature like this.
Even this good idea still smacks of only incremental, evolutionary change in firearms technology. If you’re waiting for something revolutionary like the Glock, you’ll have to keep waiting. Or maybe you can find it, if you want to spend a long time searching through the rest of the firearms patents at the U.S. Patent Office website.
Have a ball while you’re there. And if you see my caseless 4.73mm carbine, shoot me an email, would ya?
This Super bowl Ad thing is just Daniel Defense looking to get a little free publicity at the Superbowl’s expense. You’ll be seeing a lot of this between now and February.
I’m holding out for some kind of phaser or blaster; anything that discharges energy from a distance to strike the target, as opposed to hurling a projectile at it.
I would like a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range
Patents don’t really mean much anymore. If you follow the tech-industry you’ll be familiar with “patent trolling”, where companies file frivolous patents for every little feature regardless of how many times it’s been done before (prior art).
I would venture a guess that pretty much every industry is being flooded by useless patents that contain no real innovation.
In the second picture, they’re trying to figure out what to do with a shotgun. The class clown holding the shotgun is pointing as he says “I think this end goes in front”, while the other two look on in befuddlement.
The more we see crap like this, the more we know we have far too many overpaid and under-worked police officers.
Nice HK, don’t look at a photo of the internals because it’ll make your brains explode.
Very well said!
I took that piece of junk Benjamin ‘legacy’ pellet rifle back and got a Henry golden boy in 22 mag. Octagon bbl.
This thing is simply beautiful. Action is very smooth.
Can’t wait to hit the range Sunday. I’ve got three different brands of ammo.
Haven’t been this tickled over getting a new boom stick in a while. 🙂
I swear it’s like all the PD’s from all over the country had them a big ol’ conference call and came up with the idea to raise the bar for asshattery as far as they could. Somebody gotta tell these guys just how stupid they look.
Wait!..this is from Florida? He should hang some oranges off of that thing. That’d be perfect.
Maybe he was up to no good. Or maybe he was just one of those people who thinks people will be impressed that you have a gun. In either case, I don’t have that much sympathy.
Then again, it’s also possible someone discovered it accidentally by brushing up against him or something, I guess.
I wish my Taurus striker-fired (basically single action) had a decocker.
I love how silly prototype guns like the G11 are invariably in every movie and video-game produced when they are in their ‘development’ as if they were commonplace.
Told the wrong girl, I’ll bet.
Time to purge
Wearing military camo patterns is insulting, and screams wannabe. Blue, black or grey BDUs, with PD or SD patches, as someone above mentioned, would work quite well. I wasn’t that long ago that SWAT teams wore exactly that.
Jesus! Thank you for writing
This is a good example of the futility of discussions or debate with people who argue that they have a “natural right” to one thing or another. It’s a complex issue that touches on issues of constitutional law, public safety, and personal liberty. And I’m all in favor of a good debate on these topics.
But “I have a natural right to own a gun” is an assertion, not an argument. And there’s really no point in continuing the discussion once that card is played. It’s an unfalsifiable claim that can not be proven or disproven.
Apparently one of the primary rules of writing a legal brief also applies to gun blogs: Never ask a question. You might just get an answer.
The (point) .9mm revolver is a rare Liechtensteinian pistol commissioned by Prince Franz I during WWI. It launched a 7 grain lead semi-wadcutter hollow point bullet at 5700fps from a 4.5″ barrel producing just over 500lb/ft.of muzzle energy (Liechtenstein, like the United States never signed on to the Hague conference’s ban on expanding ammo). It was the most powerful handgun ever produced until the .357 magnum was introduced in 1934. During the 30s the American market was flooded with Liechtensteinian Army surplus revolvers and units in unfired condition could be had for as little as 25 cents. Most of these weapons however made their way to Mexico where they were favored by the Sinaloan drug cartel since the Mexican government did not recognize the .9mm Franz (as it was informally known) as a military cartridge and were therefore legal to posses in Mexico. Today they are quite collectable, but no ammunition is available from any major manufacturer, so it is generally considered a reloader’s cartridge.
We won’t have any trouble importing lead… Just like we don’t have any problem importing surplus M1 Garands.
In other words she supports it as much as the bloggers on TTAG, the NRA, SAF, GOA and others.
The problem of gun violence is better understood by observing the dynamics of the urban ghetto than understanding some alleged fluke of a school massacre. The reality is Sandy Hook only matters because it tugs at the heart strings of white people.
The best way for schools to prevent shootings is to stop bullying and ostracizing of certain kids before it starts. Identify mentally ill students and provide proper security or you should not be running a school.
Stopping violence in the ghetto, the every day gun violence, is more complicated. Hoods don’t have a lot of opportunity to advance and achieve, so they make money and prestige the only way they know how. Not every felon who carries a gun wants to kill anyone, some just want to feed their families and come home alive.
“Gun control” solves nothing and creates new problems for law abiding people. Period.
Actors speeding driving recklessly,and crashing all over CA & not one has the decency to run this old cow down.
My response to her response:
“Bullshit.”
I TRY my damdest to respect the wishes of proprieters that have posted signs. Sometimes this isn’t practical as in situations where I can’t easily walk back to my car. But for the most part, if the building is posted I will respect and move on.
Here’s the deal, if you are going to describe yourself as a law-abiding gun owner then you have to respect the law. If you don’t like the law then become a voice to change it (NY, CT, CA residents, are you listening?). You can also tell the proprieter/manager that because they are posted you will respect their wishes but as a result they are losing a customer.
IMO, breaking the law isn’t a great option. Law-abding gun owners are only the good guys as long as they abide by the law.
Anyone serious about learning how to search gun patents may find this article useful: http://www.langlotz.com/wp-content/uploads/bsk-pdf-manager/46_BPFP_NEWS_OCT_14.PDF