TODAY’S PATENT – AUTOMATIC GUN

The Automatic Gun was invented by William G. Smith, Ladd Yuhash on December 23, 1980 bearing patent number US4240324A.

The present invention relates to automatic guns and in particular to guns separately loadable with a projectile and a propellant case. Conventional automatic guns have used the energy developed by their recoil to automatically eject and reload ammunition. In a known automatic gun, a breech block is removable from a breech position contiguous to a propellant case. After firing, the breech block is removed and an extractor arm is employed to automatically remove and eject the spent propellant case from the bore of the gun barrel. In this known arrangement the recoil motion of the barrel itself is not used to insert the ammunition.

An automatic gun for firing a projectile by means of a separately loaded pellant case has a receiving frame in which an elongated barrel can reciprocate. The barrel, which has an axial bore from its breech to its muzzle, has a chamber member slidably mounted on its breech end. This chamber member, having a concavity shaped to hold the propellant case, is transversely displaced from alignment with the barrel to an unlocked position by an actuating means, in response to barrel recoil.