GB1133392A - Round feeding mechanism for automatic guns - Google Patents

Abstract

1,133,392. Automatic guns. BOFORS A.B. 21 Feb., 1966 [2 March, 1965], No. 7559/66. Heading F3C. A round feeding mechanism is provided in an automatic gun, the gun having a recoiling barrel 1 and breech ring 2 and at least one round compartment 10 spaced from the vertical plane through the barrel 1 and holding a vertical stack of rounds lying one above the other with their axes parallel to each other and the barrel of the gun. The feeding mechanism comprises means exerting a permanent downwards pressure on the rounds in the compartment 10, e.g. a spring (Fig. 4, not shown) and a rotatable shaft 16 which carries two star wheels 14, 15. The spacing between each pair of the arms of the star wheels corresponds to the diameter of a round. The star wheels 14, 15 are rotated for feeding rounds to a ready position on flaps 5 by the weight of the rounds and the pressure means, the rotation of the wheels being controlled by a rotation checking device which includes two crown-toothed wheels 19 (20, not shown) fixed for rotation with the shaft 16 and an axially displaceable sleeve 21 mounted between the toothed wheels 19 (20), provided at each end with projections, and spring-urged towards the toothed wheel (20). The sleeve 21 is actuated through a series of pivoted levers 26, 29, 30 and 35 and a cam follower 36 mounted on lever 35 which cooperates with a cam path provided by a feeder arm 6 of a down-feeding mechanism disclosed in Specification 1,073,613. In the rest position of the feeding mechanism the sleeve is urged towards crown-toothed wheel 19 such that the projections of the sleeve abut the teeth of the wheel 19. The feeding mechanism may be locked in this position by a manually-operated device which includes a control rod 38 and a locking lever 37, the latter co-operating with a recess in the lever 29. The projections at one end of the sleeve 21 are offset with respect to the projections at the other such that, on actuation of the sleeve 21, the star wheels 14, 15 rotate through a part of their feeding motion until one set of projections mesh with the teeth of crown-toothed wheel (20), the sleeve 21 subsequently being returned towards toothed wheel 19 whence the star wheels 14, 15 complete their feeding motion and are then checked by the meshing of the other set of projections with the teeth of wheel 19. This two-part feeding motion occurs during recoil and recuperation of the gun barrel 1 and breech ring 2 respectively. The lever 35 may be disconnected from the other levers which actuate the sleeve 21 by a manually-operable lever 46, link 47, 44 and cam 48 device, the cam acting on a pin 50 and lever 39 assembly to disconnect a spring-loaded clutch mechanism 32, 34 such that the round compartment may be emptied without actuation of the down-feeding mechanism 6, 7.