US3282214A

US3282214A - Projectile

Info

Publication number: US3282214A
Application number: US418036A
Authority: US
Inventors: Madison H Briscoe
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1964-12-14
Filing date: 1964-12-14
Publication date: 1966-11-01
Anticipated expiration: 1983-11-01

Description

Nov. 1, 1966 M BRISCOE 3,282,214

PROJECTILE Filed Dec 14, 1964 FEM H68 INVENTOR MADISON H. BRISCOE BY W/Wggew? ATTORNEYS Unite This invention relates to a new and improved projectile or bullet particularly suitable for hunting game.

One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a projectile which will inflict a highly effective wound on game and yet may be manufactured with various constructions that may be reta-iled at commercially competitive prices.

A more specific object of the present invention is to provide a projectile having a unique construction which upon striking a target such as game, will cause the projectile to ultimately turn and travel in a broadside position, that is, transverse with [respect to the travelled path of the bullet whereby the size and shock of the inflicted wound will be substantially increased.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the attached drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a bullet representing a particular embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of the bullet shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic view illustrating a sequence of movement of the bullet before and after it strikes a target;

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic view of the bullet illustrating various forces which act on the bullet soon after it strikes a target;

FIG. 5 is a front end view of the bullet shown in FIG. 1 after it has entered the target and a nose portion thereof has been separated;

FIG. 6 is a side view of a bullet illustrating a second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a front end view of the bullet of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a view similar to FIG. 7 illustrating a modification of the bullet of FIG. 6;

FIG. 9 is a side view of a bullet illustrating yet another modification of the bullet of FIG. 6;

FIG. 9b is a side view of a bullet illustrating still another modification of the bullet in FIG. 6;

FIG. 10 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 11 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of a modification of the embodiment of FIG. 10;

FIG. 12 is a longitudinal cross-sectional View of yet another modification of the embodiment of FIG. 10;

FIG. 13 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view of another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 14 is a side view of another embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 15 is a side view of yet another embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 16 is .a side view of the "bullet of FIG. 15 taken after the bullet has struck a target.

Referring to the drawings in detail, FIGS. 1 and 2 illusirate a particular form of the invention wherein a bullet generally designated 11) has a body 12 including an integral nose 14 formed from any suitable material such as lead or lead alloy. In the specific embodiment of FIGS. 1 and 2, nose 14 is generally conical and diverges into a cylindrical portion 16 of the body which is formed with a hollow or cavity 18. Powder 20 is provided in cavity 18 and sealing the latter is a cartridge case of suitable material including a cylindrical portion 22 surrounding and engaging body portion 16 and a base 24 disposed at the rear end of the body. A typical primer 26 is pro vided in base 24 of the case as shown in FIG. 2.

States Patent 0 In accordance with the present invention, nose 14 is weakened by a score line or groove 30 formed in its periphery so as to define a plane which extends at an oblique angle to the longitudinal axis of the bullet as best shown in FIG. 1.

Groove 30 is made sufiiciently deep so that when the bullet strikes the game or target, a nose portion 32 will be sheared or separated from the body along an oblique plane defined by groove 30 to thus present a corresponding oblique surface 34 (FIG. 5) at the leading edge of the bullet. Surface 34, because of its oblique disposition which results an unsymmetrical or uneven distribution of the area on the leading end of the bullet, will produce unbalance-d forces on the leading end of the bullet causing the bullet to turn in a broadside position with respect to the travelled path in the target such as designated by G in FIG. 3.

To brie-fly analyze the sequence of movement of the bullet after it is fired, reference is made to FIG. 3 wherein position A illustrates the condition of the bullet as it is travelling to its target T while position B illustrates the bullet as it initially strikes target T. In positions A and B, the bullet is travelling in a rectilinear path and is also spinning about its longitudinal axis. Upon striking target T, nose portion 32 is lost as described above, and referring for a moment to FIG. 4, there is diagrammatically illustrated in simplified fashion, forces which act on the bullet immediately after nose portion 32 has been severed. The

driving force which impels the bullet forwardly is represented by D while the reaction force exerted on the bullet by the target is represented by R. The vertical component R of reaction force R produces an unbalanced force on the leading end of the bullet causing the bullet to shift into the position designated C which extends at an oblique angle with respect to the original path of movement of the bullet. However, since the bullet is also spinning about its longitudinal axis, leading surface 34 is also rotating and consequently changing orientation so that, for example, when surface 34 has rotated from position C, the vertical component R, of the reaction force will cause the bullet to shift into position E shown in FIG. 3. Thus, it will be apparent that the leading portion of the bullet will describe a circular path as the bullet travels through its target. At the same time, the rear end of the bullet will also describe a circular path, but of a lesser diameter than that described by the leading end of the bullet.

Once the vertical component R of the reaction force has diplaced the leading nose of the bullet sufficiently from the rectilinear path, the bullet will abruptly turn to present its broadside to the target and will continue to drive through the target in this position until it exits or its driving force is dissipated.

Thus, up to several times the original square area of the nose can be brought to bear on the target.

In designing the size of the severa'ble nose portion 32, it is important that it not be made large enough to cause a substantial loss in the bullet mass. It should be only a small fraction of the complete bullet mass, since it is important to retain all the mass and hence, momentum and broadside area possible with the main body of the bullet for maximum broadside effect. The examples shown are for many uses somewhat exaggerated for clarity. Additionally, it will be appreciated that the size and angularorientation of the leading surf-ace 34 together with the velocity, weight, construction, and overall shape of the bullet will determine how quick the bullet ultimately will turn in the broadside position. Accordingly, these factors may be varied to produce a desired effect. 1

Referring to FIGS. 6 and 7, another embodiment it) of the invention is shown wherein the bullet is preformed, that is, manufactured, with an unbalanced nose 4-2 including a leading surface 44 extending generally obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the bullet but also being slightly convex as illustrated in FIG. 7. Alternatively, bull-let 49 as well as bullet 19 described above, could also be constructed so as to present a concave leading surface which in FIG. 8 is illustrated as being made of two triangular sections Likewise, the leading surface may be formed with a partially conical shape such as illustrated at 47 in FIG. 9.

Another embodiment is shown in FIG. 9b with a nose that has, or utirna-tely will take on, an unsymmetrical shape having a more or less fiat area (y) and at a right angle to tr e longitudinal axis (x) as opposed to the rest of the nose area.

Since the unbalanced nose 42 of the bullet of FIG. 6 will cause it to gyrate while approaching the tar-get, the accuracy of this bullet is somewhat lessened. However, for certain applications where extreme accuracy is not essential, the bullet of PEG. 6 will provide satisfactory results.

Turning to FIG. 10, there is shown another embodiment of the invention wherein the severable nose portion 52 is formed separate from the bullet body 54. Nose portion 52 has an oblique rear surface 56 which seats against a matching surface 58 on the bullet body. Holding nose portion 52 against body surface 53 is a generally conical cap 69 which receives nose portion 52 in its closed end and extends onto a portion of the bullet body. A cylindrical jacket 62 is received on the remaining portion of the bullet body and suitably attached to cap as at 64- to thereby hold cap 6%) in place.

Sufficient-ly soft material is employed in forming cap 69 so that upon impact with the target, cap 60 will rupture and deform to release nose portion 52 and present surface 58 of the bullet body which will thus bring about the broadside effect as described above. Rupture of cap 6%, may be facilitated by the provision of score lines or grooves (not shown) formed in the periphery of cap 69 in surrounding relationship to

surfaces

56 or 58.

FIG. 11 illustrates a modification wherein the jacket, 66, is employed to hold the severable nose portion, 68, on the bullet body prior to striking the target. This is accomplished by lengthening jacket es so as to engage and hold the periphery of nose portion 68. In the bullet of FIG. 11, open end portion 69 of jacket as is formed of a reduced thickness so that upon impact with the target, jacket portion 69' will mushroom or deform to release nose portion 68 and thereby present oblique surface 76.

A further modification is shown in FIG. 12, wherein the jacket '74 is provided with an internal partition 76 extending obliquely between the opposite side walls of the jacket rearwardly or forward jacket portions 7 8. Nose portion 8% is held against partition 7e by jacket portions '78 which, upon striking the target, will deform to release nose portion 8% and present partition 76 as the leading, unsymmetrical, surface of the bullet. Additionally, in this embodiment, nose portion 8t? is recessed at S ll and jacket portions 7 8 are received in recess 81 in flush relationship with the tip of nose portion 80.

In the modification of FIG. 13, nose portion 90 is comprised of two parts, namely, a wedge piece 92'seated against a correspondingly shaped oblique surface 93 formed on the bullet body 94; and a rivet or pin 96 which extends through wedge piece 92. into the bullet body 94 to hold wedge piece 92 in position. Pin 96 is formed from relatively soft material so that upon impact with the target, the stem 9% of pin 96 will shear to release wedge piece 92 and thus prevent the oblique surface 93 of the bullet body.

FIG. 14 illustrates another embodiment of the invention wherein a bullet ltltl has a jacket 101 secured about da soft core 102, which extends out of the jacket at the nose 163. On one side side of the jacket 101 where the soft nose protrudes at 103 a cut, cuts or weakened area 164 is provided so that upon striking the tar-get the soft nose will upset in an unsymmetrical, oblique surface because of the weakened side of the jacket.

FIG. 16 illustrates yet another form of the invention wherein a bullet Elli is weakened by a U shaped groove 112 which extends into the eriphery of the bullet body along the sides of and around the nose thereof to define a plane generally parallel to the longitudinal axis of the bullet. Groove 112 is made sufiiciently deep and termina-tes at 1-14 short of the rear end 116 of the bullet so that upon impact with a target, a portion 124 ofv the bullet will sever from the body along groove f ll and be deformed outwardly as shown in FIG. 16. The forces of resistance acting on deformed bullet portion 120 will thereafter cause the bullet to rotate clockwise (as viewed in 16) into the desired broadside position.

As will be apparent to persons skilled in the art, various modifications and adaptations of the structure a-bove described will become readily apparent without departure from the spirit and scope of the invention which is defined in the appended claims.

What is claimed is:

l. A bullet comprising a body portion and a leading end portion generally at the forward end of the body portion, and means for separating said body portion and said leading end portion along complementary surfaces upon impact with a tar-get, the surface of separation of said body portion being such that an unbalanced surface area is presented on the forward end portion of said body portion causing the bullet to turn into a broadside position in the target after separation of the leading end portion.

2. The bullet as defined in claim 1 wherein said body portion has a hollow core charged with powder and there is provided a cart-ridge case on the rear end of the body portion closing said core.

3. The bullet defined in claim ll wherein said surface of separation of said body portion extends generally obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the bullet.

4. The bullet defined in claim 1 wherein part of said un-balanced surface area is rounded and part is flat and generally at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the bullet.

5. The bullet defined in claim 1 wherein said leading portion is formed separately from said body portion and wherein said means includes a hollow jacket secured 'on said body portion and having a portion engaging the external surface of said leading portion.

6. The bullet defined in claim 1 wherein said surface of separation of said body portion is a partition interconnecting sidewalls of the body.

7. The bullet defined in claim 1 wherein said means includes a cap having one end enclosing said leading portion and another end fixed to the body portion.

8. A bullet comprising a body having a nose on the leading end thereof, and frangible means for causing a portion of said leading end to separate from the body when the bullet strikes a target and thereafter causing an unsymmetrical surface to be presented on the leading end of the body thereby creating unbalanced result-ant forces of resistance acting upon said unsymmetrical surface to cause the bullet to turn and travel broadside into the target, said frangible means including a portion formed integral with said body and nose, and said body having a groove formed in the periphery thereof generally defining the periphery of said unsymmetrical surface to be presented.

9. A bullet having a body and means on the leading end of said body for causing the bullet to travel into a broadside position in a target, said means including a .groove in the leading peripheral surface of said body dimensioned to cause a leading portion of said body to sever from the remaining portion of the body upon impact with the target.

UNITED References Cited by the Examiner STATES PATENTS Wilson 102-52 Hammer 10253 Wes-nel- 10252 Moore 10292.5

Studler 10=292.5

6 Studler et a1. 102-52 Schreiber 10292.5 Lyon 10252 Barry 10 2-7 FOREIGN PATENTS of 1898 Great Britain.

Great Britain.

0 BENJAMIN A. BORC'HELT, Primary Examiner.

R. F. STAHL, Assistant Examiner.

Claims

1. A BULLET COMPRISING A BODY PORTION AND A LEADING END PORTION GENERALLY AT THE FORWARD END OF THE BODY PORTION, AND MEANS FOR SEPARATING SAID BODY PORTION AND SAID LEADING END PORTION ALONG COMPLEMENTARY SURFACES UPON IMPACT WITH A TARGET, THE SURFACE OF SEPARATION OF SAID BODY PORTION BEING SUCH THAT AN UNBALANCED SURFACE AREA IS PRESENTED ON THE FORWARD END PORTION OF SAID BODY PORTION CAUSING THE BULLET TO TURN INTO A BROADSIDE POSITION IN THE TARGET AFTER SEPARATION OF THE LEADING END PORTION.