Light Weight Machine Gun

Abstract

A light-weight machine gun is made by replacing selected components previously made of steel with interchangeable components made of coated titanium alloy. Several different coatings are used on the components depending on the performance requirements of the component as well as factors related to convenience. The back sight bracket, the side plates, bottom plate and cocking handle guide of the receiver, and the carrying handle rod of the carrying handle assembly, are made of titanium alloy coated with tungsten DLC; the front block, also made of titanium alloy, is coated with a first coating of chrome nitride for resistance to wear resistance and secondarily for high temperature resistance, followed by a second coating of chrome carbo-nitride to provide the appropriate appearance; and the titanium alloy carrying handle bracket of the carrying handle assembly is coated with boron carbide. Performance of the lighter machine gun is equivalent to the prior art carbon steel machine gun but with a weight reduction of over four pounds.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENTS[0001]The priority benefit of U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60 / 945,808, filed Jun. 22, 2007, is claimed.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]An important and basic part of the US Army small arms arsenal is the M240B machine gun. The M240B, first used by the US military in the late 1970s, is referred to as a light-weight machine gun. Compared to other machine guns, at about 27.5 pounds without ammunition, it is one of the heavier light machine guns. It is intended to be carried, along with several belts of ammunition, by individual soldiers in combat and to deliver sustained firepower during an enemy engagement.[0003]The M240B would be less of a burden on the soldier if it were lighter. Accordingly, there remains a need for reducing the weight of the M240B. A likely route to reducing weight, particularly if a redesign of the basic configuration of the M240B is to be avoided, is the substitution of lighter weight metals, such as titanium al...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0004]According to its major aspects and briefly recited, the present invention is an improved M240B machine gun. The improvement is in the substitution of coated titanium components for carbon steel components to reduce weight. In particular, the components of an M240B currently made of carbon steel that are replaced in the present light-weight M240E6 with coated titanium alloy components are the receiver side plates, bottom plate, cocking handle guide, back sight bracket, front block, carrying handle rod and bracket. A front sight collar is made of titanium in the improved machine gun but not coated with the same special coatings as the other titanium parts. In addition the final exterior surfaces of the receiver of the present machine gun are coated with a ceramic to eliminate shine and also to be able to apply a suitable camouflage color.

[0006]The advantage of the replacement of the various components with titanium alloy components is significant weight savings, helping to reduce the overall weight by more than four pounds. The advantage of the use of coatings is that performance of the coated surfaces of the M240E6 is expected to be as good as the carbon steel surfaces of the components replaced and with no loss of interchangeability with the prior art, carbon steel components of older M240Bs.

Problems solved by technology

Nonetheless, light weight metals, and titanium alloys in particular, do not have the same performance characteristics as carbon steel and are not compatible with the remaining components particularly in the environment of use of a combat machine gun.

Notwithstanding the advantage in overall weight reduction, performance sufficiently degraded may be unacceptable.

Images