GB2517395A - Accessory for Skirmish Gaming - Google Patents

Abstract

An accessory, for use in skirmish gaming (eg Paintball) with a skirmish gaming gun having a mounting element, comprises a body having a first face with a gun-mounting feature 10 configured to engage onto the guns mounting element 30. The body has a further face with means for igniting the fuse of a hand held pyrotechnic device (such as a flash-bang or smoke grenade). The means may comprise a hook for hooking the ring-pull of a ring-pull ignited pyrotechnic or comprise an open-topped channel to hold a replaceable striker strip in place for striking alight a striker lit pyrotechnic.

Description

Accessory for Skirmish Gaming

Field of the Invention

The present invention concerns an accessory primarily for use in skirmish gaming, with Paintball or Airsoft guns or the like, to enhance the gaming experience.

Background to the Invention

Skirmish gaming comprises the playing of military style games using Paintball guns or similar normally low velocity gas-powered or electro-motor powered guns. The best known such games are Paintball and Airsoft.

Over the past three decades since it was invented Paintball has evolved to is become one of the most popular competitive sports and active pastimes as well as being a staple of corporate team-building programs and a useful tool for training military and security service personnel. The range of apparatus used by and available to a player has expanded over the years to provide players with an ever more immersive experience including in simulation of battlefield The core technology of Paintball gaming centres around the paint ball gun with its compressed gas (normally compressed air) firing mechanism and the use of dyed gelatin capsules as ammunition. The capsules are fired from the gun directly at other players who are generally equipped with eye masks for protection. The participants in a Paintball game now also have available to them a range of ancillary equipment including pods for storage of the capsule ammunition, ancillary gun sights, red spot scopes, spotlights and even laser sights and other more exotic weapons such as paint grenades and paint throwers. A number of these, which are designed for aiming the gun or to be aimed by the gun are designed to mount to the main body of the gun, or in some cases to the stock or the barrel of the gun, as they would in real guns. Since they are often after-sale accessories to the gun they commonly make use of a dove-tail rail mount that is provided on many modern paintball guns to do so.

Airsoft is a similar type of game! sport to Paintball that was invented at around the same time and which uses guns with compressed air firing mechanisms or electromotor firing mechanisms. Airsoft differs from Paintball primarily in that the ammunition is not dyed gelatin capsules but rather spherical non-metallic pellets that are fired at restricted velocity so as to cause mild pain but nevertheless be essentially harmless. A similar range of accessories are available for Airsoft are available for Airsoft as are available for Paintball and most Airsoft guns like-wise have a dove-tail rail mount, normally on the gun's main body, for mounting ancillary aiming devices. The same can also apply to other guns used for skirmishing including so-called BB guns.

For the more sophisticated gamers whether for fun, tournaments or professional training, one class of game accessory that is a separate weapon' from the guns and which adds substantially to the whole skirmishing experience comprises hand thrown pyrotechnic effect devices such as the thunder-flash (or flash-bang as it is also known) and smoke grenades. The thunder-flash is a pyrotechnic device constructed similarly to a firework, normally as a cylindrical container (eg cylindrical cardboard tube plugged at each end) with the pyrotechnic material (eg a magnesium powder-based composition) stored inside and with an ignition and timing fuse at one end. It is designed to be hand held and thrown after being ignited. Ignition is normally one of two types -either by pulling a ring-pull mechanism or by striking against a striker. In the latter case the striker is normally on the device's cap for which it is necessary to remove the device's cap that covers the device's fuse and strike the top of the cap, which has a striker medium covered surface, against the tip of the fuse -lighting the fuse in the manner of lighting a safety match. The device has a fuse that normally is specified to burn for of the order of 4 to 10 seconds and should be thrown a safe distance of 15 metres or more to detonate and provide a loud bang and flash of light, simulating a grenade. Thunder-flashes have been available for decades and are used in the movie industry as well as in modern Paint ball or Airsoft gaming and in battlefield training and are relatively safe to use provided handled as instructed. Smoke grenades to be thrown to provide billowing clouds of opaque but low toxicity, low temperature smoke can also often come packaged in a form factor similar to Thunder-flashes. These smoke grenades also have a fuse designed to be ignited by a ring-pull or else have a fuse covered by a strike cap designed to have their fuse lit by friction against the strike cap when the strike cap is removed and struck against the tip of the fuse.

While playing Paint ball or Airsoft, to deploy striker-lit, hand thrown pyrotechnic devices such as the afore-mentioned thunder-flash or smoke grenade is a task that requires the user to have both hands free to be able to grasp the pyrotechnic device's body in one hand and to pull the ring-pull by the other hand. If the device is of striker-ignited type, the user must pull off the device's striker cap and hold the device's body in one hand and the cap in the other and strike one against the other before throwing. Given the highly competitive nature of Paint ball or Airsoft, the time taken to do this can be critical in the game-play, since the user must briefly drop their guard and lower their gun to do so. For some, the inability to simultaneously keep their main weapon ready while deploying the pyrotechnic device may be a frustrating handicap or represent a missed opportunity for a surprise storming attack. It is, accordingly, a general object of the present invention to provide the skirmish gamer with an accessory that overcomes this problem, enabling the gamer to remain better in control of their gun when priming a hand thrown pyrotechnic effect device.

Summary of the Invention

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided an accessory for use in skirmish gaming with a skirmish gaming gun having a mounting element for an ancillary device (primarily gun aiming devices such as a scope or sight) and which accessory comprises a body having a first face with a gun-mounting channel configured to engage onto the gun's mounting element, the body having a further face with a striker or providing a support surface for a s striker and! or having a hook thereon or coupled thereto for hooking an ignition ring-pull for igniting the fuse of a flash-bang or smoke grenade or other hand-thrown pyrotechnic device.

The ring-pull hook is suitably a metal or plastic hook and preferably the accessory is dual operational, with a channel adapted to receive replaceable striker strips or to receive a base of a ring-pull hook. In this case the ring-pull hook may be provided formed or assembled with a base-plate that slidingly fits into the striker-receiving channel, replacing the striking strip or sitting adjacent it in the channel.

Alternatively the ring-pull hook may have a body with a recess adapted to mount directly to the gun's mount, preferably with a channel to mount to a dovetail rail.

In a second aspect there is provided the above accessory in combination with a striker, carrying the striker on the support surface. In a third aspect there is provided the accessory in combination with a skirmish gaming gun to which the accessory is mounted in use. The mounting element is preferably a mounting rail and preferably is a dove-tail type mounting rail.

Preferably the further face of the accessory with the support surface is obverse to the first face and preferably comprises a receptacle to receive a strip of a striker medium. The striker medium may suitably comprise a paper or card strip coated or impregnated with a match composition such as powdered gass or sHica (sand), red phosphorus, binder, and filler, just like the striker of a safety match.

The striker receptade enabes the strip to be readily demounted and rep'aced with a fresh strip whenever necessary.

The receptacle preferably comprises a striker-receiving channel with sidewalls adapted to receive and engage the side edges of the strip. The sidewalls may have a groove, suitably a basal groove at the base of at least one sidewall.

Indeed, there is preferably a pair of opposing basal grooves in the channel, one at the base of each opposing sidewall. Alternatively or additionally the sidewalls may be laterally inwardly protruding or laterally inwardly inclined towards the open top of the striker-receiving channel to hold the strip in place. Preferably the gun-mounting channel of the receptacle is shaped and configured as a female component of a dovetail joint so as to be complementary to and to co-operatively engage with a mounting element that comprises a male dove-tail formation on the gun.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be more particularly described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figure 1 is an end elevation view of the first preferred embodiment of the accessory having a gun mounting channel on its underside, as designed to slidingly couple onto an industry standard 20mm wide male dove-tail shaped universal mounting rail of a Paint-ball or Airsoft gun; Figure 2 is a perspective view of the Figure 1 accessory showing the accessory being brought towards coupling engagement with a schematically illustrated industry standard 20mm wide male dove-tail shaped universal mounting rail on a paint-ball gun's stock; Figure 3 is a perspective view of the Figure 1 accessory showing a strip of a striker medium being slidingly inserted into the striker-receiving channel of the accessory from one end; Figure 4 is an elevation view of a variant of the Figure 1 accessory having a hook component for hooking and deploying the ring-pull ignition of a ring-pull ignited pyrotechnic device, the hook component being demountably mountable in the striker-receiving channel in place of or in addition to the striker strip; and Figure 5 is an elevation view of a second preferred embodiment of the accessory having a gun mounting channel on its underside and having an integral ring-pull hook on its upper-side.

Description of the Preferred Embodiment

In the illustrated embodiment of Figures 1 to 4 the accessory 1 is a moulding or casting, suitably an extrusion moulding formed of a tough elastomer or nylon, HDPE, polypropylene or other tough plastics. It is shaped to define a gun-mounting channel 10 on its underside and a striker-receiving channel 20 on its top side. Some example dimensions for the moulding 1 are illustrated in Figure 1 and they suit the substantially industry standard 20mm wide male dove-tail shaped universal mounting rail 30 that is commonly provided on a paint-ball gun's main body nowadays for fitting ancillary aiming devices such as scopes, lamps or sights. At its widest point the gun-mounting channel 10 is marginally over 20mm wide and the extrusion is preferably about 50mm to 100mm long.

The gun-mounting channel 10 is of a profile that complements the male dove-tail shaped universal mounting rail 30 so as to slidingly mount onto and securely co-operatively engage with the rail 30 in use. The fit of the gun-mounting channel 10 onto the gun's mounting rail 30 holds the accessory reliably in place during use but nevertheless allows the accessory 1 to be forcibly shifted along and removed as required for replacement with another device or when not needed. The striker-receiving channel 20 on the top side of the accessory 1 is designed to slidingly receive and engage and support a striker strip 21. The striker strip 21 illustrated is a 50mm long strip of paper laminate that is coated or impregnated with a suitable safety striking composition. The composition may, for example, be a safety match strike composition of powdered glass or silica (sand). red phosphorus, binder, and ITher, just like the striker on the side of a box of safety matches. The preferred composition is one that is the same as is used on the striking cap of flash-bangs or smoke grenades to be able to provide the same performance as using the striking cap on the flash-bangs or smoke grenades.

The striker-receiving channel 20 is illustrated as being of a similar width to the gun-mounting channel 10 at its base 20a but it is widest at the base! channel floor 20a due to opposing basal grooves G in the sidewalls 20b, 20c of the channel 20 that serve to retain the strip 21 in the channel 20, preventing it from curling up or slipping out the open top of the channel. The top of the channel 20 is open and is there of the order of 10 to 15mm wide to provide good access for the tip of the pyrotechnic's fuse to be dragged across the surface of the striker strip 21 for striking the fuse. The basef channel floor 20a provides a rigid level support surface for the striker, as required when the striker strip 21 is not itself fully rigid. For cases where the striker strip 21 is itself relatively rigid the support surface for the strip 21 may instead comprise a ledge or lip under each side edge of the strip 21. In other less preferred variants the striker might be formed or assembled integral to the accessory and! or the accessory may be formed or assembled integral to the gun.

To enable use of the first embodiment of accessory I not only with the hand thrown pyrotechnic devices that are striker-lit, but also with the ones that are of the ring-pull ignition type, a hook component 25 with a base plate 25a may be provided to be mounted into the striker-receiving channel 20. Referring to Figure 4, the ring-pull hook 25 is suitably a metal or plastic hook that is moulded integrally formed or integrally assembled with base plate 25a with the stem 25b of the hook 25 substantially orthogonal to the base plate 25a to be able to project up through the top opening in the channel 20 to present the hook 25 accessibly for use. The base plate 25a suitably is of a width substantially the same as the strips 21 so that its side edges can engage in the basal grooves G of the channel sidewalls to be held down securely for when the hook 25 is used to hook and pull on the ring-pull of a ring-pull ignition pyrotechnic device.

Referring to Figure 5, this shows a further embodiment of the accessory, here adapted as a ring-pull hook 25 with a base 25b that is formed with the female dovetail componentl gun-mounting channel 10 integrally formed or assembled on the underside thereof to fit direct to the guns' mounting rail 30 rather than via the mounting channel 20 of the first embodiment of accessory 1.

By the simple but ingenious solution of providing a pyrotechnic striker support and! or ring-pull hook as a gun accessory that mounts to the gun, the Paintball or Airsoft gamer can now deploy and throw flash-bangs or smoke grenades or other striker-lit or ring pull lit hand thrown pyrotechnic devices without having to first lay down the gun. In the striker lit case, he or she can hold the gun in one hand and uncap and hold the flash-bang or smoke grenade in the other and simply strike the tip of the fuse of the flash-bang or smoke grenade against the striker strip 21 in the channel 20 of the striker holding accessory 1 on the top of the gun before throwing the pyrotechnic towards the enemy position and proceeding to lay down gunfire straightway without having to first pick the gun up to do so.

Similarly, if the hand thrown pyrotechnic device is of ring-pull ignition type then the Paintball or Airsoft gamer can hold the gun in one hand and uncap and hold the flash-bang or smoke grenade in the other and simply pull the ring-pull linked to the fuse of the flash-bang or smoke grenade by hooking the ring-pull onto the hook 25 on the top of the gun and pulling the flash-bang or smoke grenade away from the gun to dislodge the ring pull and ignite the fuse before throwing the pyrotechnic towards the enemy position, all without lowering the gun.

Claims (19)

1. CLAIMS1. An accessory for use in skirmish gaming with a skirmish gaming gun having thereon a mounting element and which accessory comprises a body having a first face with a gun-mounting feature configured to engage onto the gun's mounting element, the body having means adapted for igniting the fuse of a flash-bang or smoke grenade or other hand-thrown pyrotechnic device.
2. 2. An accessory as claimed in claim 1, wherein the means adapted for igniting the fuse comprises a striker or a support surface for supporting a striker for use.
3. 3. An accessory as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the means adapted for igniting the fuse comprises a hook for hooking and operating an ignition ring-pull of a hand-thrown pyrotechnic device.
4. 4. An accessory as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the gun-mounting feature is a channel shaped as a female dove-tail component to slidingly engage onto a gun mounting element that is a dove-tail male mounting rail.
5. 5. An accessory as claimed in claim 2 comprising a support surface for a striker in combination with a striker on the support surface.
6. 6. An accessory as claimed in any preceding claim in combination with a skirmish gaming gun to which the accessory is mounted in use.
7. 7. An accessory as claimed in claim 2, wherein the face of the accessory with the support surface is obverse to the first face.
8. 8. An accessory as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the accessory has a receptacle to receive a striker medium.
9. 9. An accessory as claimed in claim 5, wherein the striker medium is a strip coated or impregnated with a composition that the fuse of a striker-lit pyrotechnic device may be struck against to light the pyrotechnic.
10. 10. An accessory as claimed in claim 5, 8 or 9, wherein the receptacle comprises a striker-receiving channel with sidewalls adapted to receive and engage the side edges of the strip.
11. 11. An accessory as claimed in claim 10, wherein the floor of the striker-receiving channel serves as support surface to support the strip for striking.
12. 12. An accessory as claimed in claim 10 or 11, wherein the striker-receiving channel has a groove in at least one sidewall to receive and engage a side edge of the strip.
13. 13. An accessory as claimed in claim 12, wherein the striker-receiving channel has a pair of opposing basal grooves in the channel, one at the base of each opposing sidewall.
14. 14. An accessory as claimed in claim 10, wherein the striker-receiving channel sidewalls are laterally inwardly protruding or laterally inwardly inclined towards the open top of the striker-receiving channel to hold the strip in place.
15. 15. An accessory as claimed in claim 3 and 8, wherein the hook has a base that mounts in the receptacle to be held thereby for use.
16. 16. An accessory as claimed in claim 12 and 15, wherein the hook base slidingly engages with the groove of the channel. 31)
17. 17. An accessory as claimed in claim 3, wherein the hook has a base and the base is formed with the gun-mounting feature integrally formed or assembled thereon.
18. 18. A skirmish gaming gun having thereon an accessory that comprises a body having a feature that connects the accessory to the gun, the body further having means adapted for igniting the fuse of a flash-bang or smoke grenade or other hand-thrown pyrotechnic device.
19. 19. A skirmish gaming gun as claimed in claim 18 wherein the accessory is integrally formed or assembled on the gun.