Barrel assembly for non-lethal personal defense devices

Abstract

A barrel assembly for delivering non-lethal projectile (pepper ball, for example) to inhibit a living target, using various personal defense launching devices (paintball gun and other compressed-gas-powered launchers, for example), compact and automatic pistols as launching devices, method to launch pepper gel directly with a launching device, methods to effectively and swiftly rupture, spread and disperse the content of the non-lethal projectile to reach a target far away and at very fast speed, and tactical methods of the use of the barrel assembly, a barrel assembly has metal pins installed or built-in at the exit, said metal pins pinch and rupture the non-lethal projectile after said projectile has been accelerated inside the barrel. Variations of the pins include using gear-teeth, orifice or reduced inner diameter of the barrel at the exit, near the exit or in the middle of the barrel. A variation of the use of the barrel assembly is to launch more than one non-lethal projectile during one launch to increase the delivery dosage and covering areas.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This is the first application and no claim of related applications is hereby incorporated by reference. REFERENCES CITED US Patent Documents [0002]6,494,195B2December 2002Perry et alBarrel Assembly withRemovable . . .6,668,815B1December 2003FernandezSelf-Aligning PaintballGun Barrel . . .6,823,857B2November 2004Perry et alBarrel Assembly withRemovable . . .6,386,113B1May 2002PinneyNon-Lethal WeaponSystems6,546,661B1April 2003StaubsGun Mounted Sprayer6,196,419B1March 2001Haney et alPistol-Shaped Cap forUse in . . .5,950,611ASeptember 1999Lopez et alPaintball Gun HavingMovable Gas . . .OTHER PUBLICATIONS US Patent Application and Other Publications [0003]20030152619A1August 2003Stevens et alMethod and Apparatus for . . .20030047105A1March 2003Vasel et alNon-Lethal Projectile Systems20020134055A1September 2002Martinz, Jr.Method for Manufacturing . . .20030129138A1July 2003LoghmanNon-Lethal Incapacitation . . .WO 2004006679A2January 2004Chi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011] The present invention addresses the aforementioned problems by providing a barrel assembly for delivering non-lethal projectile, such as a pepper ball, to a living target, using various personal defense launching devices, such as compressed CO2-powered paintball gun and other compressed-gas-powered launchers. More specifically, the barrel assembly has metal pins inside its bore. The said pins are located near the exit of said barrel assembly and are in the path of the projectile in order to pinch and rupture the non-lethal projectile after the projectile has been accelerated inside the barrel. The prototype barrel assembly used with a CO2-powered paintball gun has shown that the method can effectively break, spread and disperse the content of a non-lethal projectile, that the substance inside the projectile can reach a target much farther away and at a much faster speed than a regular spray. Since the projectile is ruptured at the exit of the barrel, the chemical substance in the projectile is widely dispersed before reaching the target and covers a large area that is similar to a regular pepper spray, effectively forming a bullet pepper spray. Such a pepper spray, scientifically named as oleoresin capsicum, can temporarily incapacitate the living target instantly. As a result, precise aiming at the target is not required and only “point-and-shoot” is needed. A barrel assembly disclosed in the present invention used in a CO2-powered paintball handgun, such as the ones disclosed in U.S. Patents Application Publications 20030047174A1 and 20030106545A1 to Tiberius et al. and Verini, respectively, firing a pepper ball, such as the ones disclosed by U.S. Patent Application Publication 20030047105A1 by Vasel et al, is well qualified as a cost-effective, compact, swift, effective and truly-non-lethal personal defense device.

[0013] A variation of the use of the barrel assembly is to launch more than one non-lethal projectile during one launch to increase the delivery dosage and the covering area by the chemical substance released from the projectile. Two as well as three paintballs have been successfully launched by the prototype barrel assembly during one launch with a CO2-powered paintball gun and showed significant increase in the area on the target covered by the paint.

Problems solved by technology

However, these current devices have their own shortcomings that severely limit their applications.

All of the above compact sprayers are limited in applications by the short distance that the spray can cover and by the slow speed that the spray is delivered to the target, even though these sprayers are compact, effective under the right circumstances and truly non-lethal to the living target.

Although their sprays can cover much longer distance, the large sprayer systems are slow in speed and not convenient to use due to their large sizes.

However, the projectile needs to directly hit certain areas on the living target to be effective, causing unacceptable uncertainties in aiming, especially at moving targets.

The 50,000-volt current passed between the two electrodes is believed, by some, to be the cause of some deaths amongst the people who have been hit by a Taser stun gun.

In summary, most commonly used non-lethal personal defense devices are limited in applications by their own shortcomings and remain a source of frustration for users and law enforcement agents.

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