Dual field optical aiming system for projectile weapons
AssigneeLeupold & Stevens, Inc.
InventorQuint Crispin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for aiming a projectile weapon includes a telescopic sight for use with a second sighting device, such as a reflex sight or other non-magnifying sight. The telescopic sight has an eye point spaced apart rearwardly from its eyepiece and positioned at a vertical plane containing a line of initial trajectory of the weapon to which the aiming system is mounted so that a line parallel to the line of initial trajectory does not intersect the eyepiece. The location of the eye point facilitates concurrent use of a second sighting device at a normal mounting height and viewable past the eyepiece, thereby allowing the viewer to change views between the telescopic sight and the second sighting device with little eye movement and essentially no head movement.
Claims20
A projectile weapon aiming system comprising:
- a telescopic sight including a housing having a mounting surface that facilitates mounting the telescopic sight on a projectile weapon, the housing supporting an optical system of the telescopic sight and positioning the optical system relative to the mounting surface, the optical system including:
- an objective that produces an image of a distant target at a focal plane, the objective having an optical axis;
- an eyepiece positioned along the optical axis and rearward of the focal plane;
- a light redirection device positioned along the optical axis and rearward of the eyepiece adjacent a viewing end of the telescopic sight, the light redirection device altering an optical path of the image toward an eye point spaced apart rearwardly therefrom at which the image of the distant target is viewable, wherein, when the telescopic sight is mounted to the projectile weapon, the eye point is located at a place above a horizontal plane tangent to an uppermost edge of the eyepiece, the horizontal plane vertically offset from the optical axis such that a line intersecting the eye point does not intersect the eyepiece;
- and
- a second sight positioned within the housing and vertically offset relative to the horizontal plane, wherein a line-of-sight of the second sight is positioned above and does not intersect the optical axis to define a second eye point offset from the eye point, such that both the telescopic sight and the second sight can be used to aim the projectile weapon with essentially no movement of the viewer's head.
A projectile weapon aiming system, comprising:
- a telescopic sight including a housing having a mounting surface that facilitates mounting the telescopic sight on a projectile weapon, the housing supporting an optical system of the telescopic sight and positioning the optical system relative to the mounting surface, the optical system including:
- an objective that produces an image of a distant target at a focal plane, the objective having an optical axis;
- an eyepiece positioned along the optical axis and rearward of the focal plane;
- and
- a light redirection device positioned along the optical axis and rearward of the eyepiece adjacent a viewing end of the telescopic sight, the light redirection device altering an optical path of the image toward an eye point spaced apart rearwardly therefrom at which the image of the distant target is viewable, wherein, when the telescopic sight is mounted to the projectile weapon, the eye point is located at a place on a plane vertically offset from the optical axis such that a line intersecting the eye point does not intersect the eyepiece.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.