Gripping bell for bottles or the like

A gripping bell for bottles comprising a sleeve-like housing having a central axis and a reception opening for the head of a bottle in a lower end thereof, said housing having an inner surface comprising a control surface portion that widens conically upwardly and outwardly from said reception opening and an axis parallel surface portion located above and that merges with an upper end of said control surface portion, an actuating element arranged for axial movement in an upper portion of the interior of said housing, a sleevelike collet chuck slidably mounted for axial movement in said housing between said actuating element and said reception opening, said collet chuck comprising a base portion attached to said actuating element and a plurality of elastic, circumferentially spaced gripping fingers extending downwardly from said base and separated from each other by axis parallel slots, each of said fingers having inner and outer side surfaces and gripping ends at the lower ends thereof, the outer side surfaces of said fingers being slidably guided by said axis parallel surface portion of said inner surface of the housing while said ends are slidably guided by said control surface portion thereof, and a stationary guide surface in the interior of said housing spaced radially inwardly from and extending parallel to at least a portion of said axis parallel surface portion of said inner surface of said housing to form an annular guide passage with said inner surface for said fingers, whereby during axial movement of said collet chuck within said housing by said actuating element, said ends of said elastic fingers are deformed and directed radially inwardly into a gripping position or radially outwardly into a bottle receiving position by said control surface portion of the housing's inner surface depending on the direction of movement of said collet, while said inner and outer side surfaces of said fingers are slidably guided in said annular guide passage, respectively, by said stationary guide surface and the axis parallel surface portion of said inner surface.