Radial detents for rifle scope adjustment
AssigneeLeupold & Stevens, Inc.
InventorRodney H. Otteman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention provides a unique rifle scope detent mechanism, and rifle scope including such a detent mechanism, for adjusting elevation and windage of a rifle. The detent mechanism includes a convex spring with a detent ridge, that cooperates with grooves formed on a frontal face of a jack nut. Accordingly, as the jack nut is rotated during adjustment of the rifle scope, grooves of the jack nut click in and out of ridges of the spring. The jack nut is threadingly coupled to a jack screw that reciprocates as the nut rotates, thereby urging against an inner tube of the rifle scope that contains optics to adjust the rifle for elevation or windage.
Claims28
An adjustable rifle scope with detent mechanism for incremental adjustment of the rifle scope, comprising:
- an outer tube including a socket having a base;
- a spring including a detent structure, the spring located in and prevented from rotational movement in the socket of the outer tube, the spring providing a bias force for urging the detent structure away from the base of the socket;
- a jack screw extending through the outer tube and keyed to the outer tube to prevent the jack screw from rotating relative to the outer tube while allowing the jack screw to reciprocate relative to the outer tube;
- a rotatable jack nut engaging the jack screw;
- and
- a face associated with the jack nut for rotation therewith, the face including a set of spaced face structures sized to cooperate with the detent structure of the spring, the spring urging against the face with sufficient force to urge the detent structure into registration with one of the face structures,
- whereby, in response to rotation of the jack nut, the detent structure registers against the face structures with tactile clicks each indicating an incremental rotation and the jack screw moves an incremental distance with each of the clicks to adjust the rifle scope incrementally.
A mechanism for making incremental adjustments in a rifle scope, comprising:
- a body supporting a detent structure, the body adapted for mounting to an outer tube of a rifle scope to prevent rotational movement of the body relative to the outer tube;
- a spring operatively associated with the body for urging the detent structure away from the outer tube;
- a jack screw including a flat side surface for keying the jack screw to the outer tube to prevent rotational movement of the jack screw relative to the outer tube while allowing the jack screw to reciprocate relative to the outer tube;
- a jack nut adapted to be supported on the outer tube for rotation relative thereto, the jack nut threadably engaging the jack screw;
- and
- a face associated with the jack nut for rotation therewith, the face including a set of face structures opposite the detent structure of the body, the face structures spaced apart in a substantially circular pattern and sized to cooperate with the detent structure, the spring urging the body against the face with sufficient force to urge the detent structure into registration with one or more of the face structures,
- whereby, in response to rotation of the jack nut, the detent structure registers against the face structures with tactile clicks each indicating an incremental rotation and the jack screw moves an incremental distance with each of the clicks for adjusting the rifle scope incrementally.
In a rifle scope adjustment mechanism of the type having a manually rotatable member adapted for rotatable mounting on a rifle scope for adjusting the rifle scope, an improved detent mechanism for dividing each revolution of the rotatable member into multiple incremental amounts of rotation that impart incremental adjustments to the rifle scope, comprising:
- a body having a detent structure, the body adapted to be supported on the rifle scope and restricted from rotation relative thereto;
- a face associated with the rotatable member for rotation therewith, the face including multiple face structures opposite the detent structure of the body, the face structures spaced apart in a substantially circular pattern and sized to cooperate with the detent structure;
- and
- a spring operatively associated with the body to urge the body against the face with sufficient force to urge the detent structure into registration with one or more of the face structures,
- whereby, in response to rotation of the rotatable member, the detent structure registers against the face structures with tactile clicks each indicating an incremental rotation of the rotatable member thereby facilitating incremental adjustment of the rifle scope.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.