Package and article carriers – Carried by animate bearer – Article held by receiver
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-20
2001-08-21
Vidovich, Gregory (Department: 3727)
Package and article carriers
Carried by animate bearer
Article held by receiver
C224S911000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06276581
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a holster for a firearm, especially a handgun, with a trigger guard.
A wide variety of safety requirements are now imposed on holsters. They not only are supposed to store the weapon safely and mechanically protect it, but also reliably prevent theft or snatching of the weapon from the holster by another person, for example, in the event of a scuffle.
However, it is also required at the same time that the lawful user should be able to draw the weapon at any time quickly and unhampered without additional activities or even the use of the other hand.
A holster is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,157 A in which an elastic tongue engages in the trigger guard from the side. When the weapon is to be pulled, an activation device whose handle is situated between the holster and the user must be pressed down so that the elastic tongue is pushed away by a type of wedge and the trigger guard of the weapon, and thus the weapon itself is released. When the weapon is inserted, the elastic tongue is deformed so that the trigger slides past it, the elastic tongue springing back into its initial position after passing the trigger guard and thus blocking the weapon.
This arrangement has the drawback that the handle must be pushed over a relatively long path to activate the elastic tongue and that during longer use in the open the elastic tongue can be fixed in its released position by penetration of soiling and foreign objects so that sufficient safety does not exist. The fact that a significant mechanical stress occurs because of the large path that the elastic tongue covers, through which fatigue phenomena occur in the area of the spring during frequent use or longer wearing, which ultimately leads to failure of the spring, is added to this.
Another holster is known from WO 98/40686 A. In this holster, on the one hand, holding of the weapon occurs by means of magnets, which cooperate with magnetizable components of the weapon, security against inadvertent or undesired removal of the weapon from the holster is provided by a safety pin, which is mounted to move essentially perpendicular to the plane of symmetry of the weapon and also extends into the region of the trigger guard and is secured by a spring in its motion path during removal of the weapon from the holster. By means of a wing-like activation device, which has an oblique plane, it cooperates with an also oblique entry plane of the pin; the safety pin can be pushed against the force of the spring from the movement region of the safety guard when the weapon is to be removed from the holster. It is proposed in one embodiment to fix the activation lever or safety pin in the locked position with a lock in order not only to stow the weapon in the holster, but also to safely store it.
When the safety pin also has a beveling on the side facing the open side of the holster in order to be pushed by this during insertion of the weapon, it is not possible in a commercially available holster of this type to introduce the weapon to the holster without operating the handle, which naturally significantly reduces comfort during use.
Moreover, because of the sliding movement between the handle and the safety pin along the two oblique surfaces either the activation path or the force to be applied for release is inconveniently large, which in both cases is irksome and leads to handling errors, especially when the weapon is to be quickly and reliably drawn in an emergency even by untrained persons.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objective of the invention is to devise a holster that does not have these drawbacks and in which a handgun, on the one hand, is secured in the holster reliably and safely even in the presence of significant extraction forces and, on the other hand, the activation device to release the weapon is operated with minimal expenditure of force and only a minimal activation path of the mechanism occurs for release.
For this purpose, it is proposed according to the invention that a blocking hook be arranged in the holster in the region in which the trigger guard of the weapon being stowed lies in the inserted state, this hook being rotatable around an axis that runs parallel to the plane of symmetry and perpendicular to the barrel axis of the weapon being inserted, in which the blocking hook has a pressure surface on the side of the pivot axis opposite the hook on which the trigger guard comes to lie during insertion of the weapon and loads the safety catch with a torque in the direction toward its locked position, and by the fact that the safety catch has an activation tab on the side opposite the contact surface with reference to its pivot axis, on which a thrust element engages to open the blocking hook.
Because of this expedient, the previously known path- and force-intensive activation devices with a wedge effect are replaced by virtually pure rotational movements and linear movements to exert pressure or tension so that the mechanical efficiency of the device is substantially increased, which benefits both the forces to be applied and the paths to be covered and in this manner also increases the functional reliability and lifetime of the device.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1635984 (1927-07-01), Corriston
patent: 1750139 (1930-03-01), Swift
patent: 2349376 (1944-05-01), Ray
patent: 2551913 (1951-05-01), Toby
patent: 4256243 (1981-03-01), Bianchi et al.
patent: 4318503 (1982-03-01), Capano
patent: 5275317 (1994-01-01), Rogers et al.
patent: 5284281 (1994-02-01), Nichols
patent: 5467909 (1995-11-01), Resca et al.
patent: 5810221 (1998-09-01), Beletsky et al.
Kilpatrick Stockto
Vidovich Gregory
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