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US 2022/0090897 A1Published application
Configurable ammunition packaging apparatus
AssigneeCK Manufacturing, LLC
InventorGordon P. Chicoine
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An ammunition packaging apparatus and system is reconfigurable to package a select caliber of ammunition by changing a set of components to those associated with the selected caliber of ammunition and selecting the corresponding operating procedure. An ammunition collating and packaging apparatus can be quickly reconfigured from packaging a first caliber of ammunition to packaging a second caliber of ammunition by quickly replacing a define set of components and modifying operationally timings to correspond to the selected caliber.
Claims11
A method for convertible ammunition packaging, comprising:
- configuring an ammunition collator with a collator plate based on a first ammunition caliber wherein the ammunition collator consistently orientates one or more rounds of ammunition;
- coupling an ammunition channel to the ammunition collator wherein the ammunition channel is sized for the first ammunition caliber and wherein the one or more rounds of ammunition are delivered sequentially from the ammunition collator to a first opening of the ammunition channel in a horizontal orientation and wherein the ammunition channel is alternatively laterally displaced along a vertical path;
- positioning a flipper tray beneath a second opening of the ammunition channel wherein the flipper tray includes a plurality of furrows configured for the first ammunition caliber and wherein positioning includes moving the flipper tray laterally to accept a single round of ammunition in each furrow in the horizontal orientation;
- positioning a down chute assembly proximate the flipper tray wherein the down chute assembly includes a plurality of down chutes of the first ammunition caliber in a vertical orientation, the plurality of down chutes matching the plurality of furrows, each down chute configured to accept the single round of ammunition residing in a corresponding furrow;
- rotating the flipper tray 90 degrees from the horizontal orientation to the vertical orientation responsive to the plurality of furrows being aligned with the plurality of down chutes thereby placing each single round of ammunition residing in the corresponding furrow in the aligned down chute of the down chute assembly in the vertical orientation;
- and
- aligning each of a plurality of ammunition receptacles in an ammunition tray, the ammunition tray configured for the first ammunition caliber, with a down chute of the down chute assembly so as to moveably accept the single round of ammunition residing in the down chute in the vertical orientation.
4 more elements
An ammunition packaging system, comprising:
- a first component set associated with a first ammunition caliber composed of a first collator plate based on the first ammunition caliber, a first ammunition channel, a first flipper tray, a first down chute assembly and a first ammunition tray;
- a second component set associated with a second ammunition caliber composed of a second collator plate, a second ammunition channel, a second flipper tray, a second down chute assembly, and a second ammunition tray;
- an ammunition packaging apparatus reconfigured to package ammunition of the second ammunition caliber from the first ammunition caliber by selecting the second ammunition caliber on a user interface and replacing, at the ammunition packaging apparatus, the first component set with the second component set;
- and
- a machine, capable of executing instructions embodied as software, communicatively coupled to the ammunition packaging apparatus and to a non-transitory computer readable storage media having a plurality of software portions wherein one of said software portions is, when executed by the machine, movably positions the installed flipper tray beneath the installed ammunition channel, and aligns the plurality of ammunition receptacles of the installed ammunition tray with each down chute based on selecting the second ammunition caliber.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.