Dry Fire Practice Training Device

This application is a continuation application of, and claims priority pursuant to 35 USC § 120, to US co-pending U.S. utility patent application Ser. No. 18/473,466 that was filed on Sep. 25, 2023 entitled “DRY FIRE PRACTICE TRAINING DEVICE,” which claims priority to U.S. utility patent application Ser. No. 17/945,657 that was filed on Sep. 15, 2022 entitled “DRY FIRE PRACTICE TRAINING DEVICE” and which has issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,796,287, which claims priority to U.S. utility patent application Ser. No. 16/425,832 that was filed on May 29, 2019 entitled “DRY FIRE PRACTICE TRAINING DEVICE” and which has issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,460,271. The entire contents and disclosure of earlier-filed, priority applications, U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 18/473,466; 17/945,657 and 16/425,832 are fully incorporated herein by this reference. Inventorship of this continuation application is the same as that of aforementioned U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 18/473,466; 17/945,657 and 16/425,832.

This invention relates to firearms, and more particularly to a dry fire training device.

Live firing is the best way to practice drawing and firing a weapon. The practice process builds muscle memory, and helps the shooter develop proper techniques of delivery and complete weapon control. There are several negatives of this type of practice. Using ammunition is an ongoing expense, and measures have to be taken to practice with safety. This could mean traveling to a firing range, providing safety equipment for the shooter and possibly others, and allotting special time in the schedule for the practice session.

Dry fire practice is a good substitute for live fire practice. Dry firing is another process of building muscle memory whereby a firearm, especially a pistol, is drawn, aimed, and fired without using live ammunition. This enables the practice of firing a weapon to proceed smoothly and accurately without all of the negatives of live fire practice. Because no live ammunition is used, there is no ongoing expense, there is no need to use safety equipment, a special shooting environment is not necessary, and practicing can be accomplished in much less time.

Dry firing also allows the shooter to practice in the actual environment where the weapon may need to be used for protection such as in the home. With complete safety, actual shooting scenarios can be practiced in and around the home.

Practicing at the range can also be improved. When live fire is practiced at the range, the novice shooter usually has to spend a significant amount of time and expend a lot of ammunition getting accustomed to the report and recoil of the pistol. Before live practice begins, some dry fire practicing can be done. This gets the novice shooter accustomed to the trigger feel before having to deal with the recoil and the report of live firing.

A major negative factor occurs with most methods of dry firing because when a semi-automatic pistol is live fired, it resets its firing pin and is the pistol ready to be fired again until the magazine is empty. The shooter's hands remain in the firing position, and just the trigger finger and the trigger are employed. With normal dry fire practice, after the first activation of the trigger releasing the firing pin, the shooter must remove a hand from the pistol, and rack the slide back in order to reset the firing pin. The shooter can then let the trigger return to its unfired position. The pistol is then ready for another activation. This must be done each time a shot is simulated. Doing this teaches improper muscle memory because it is not at all what happens during actual live fire. When people are in real shooting situations, they need to be able to depend on simply acting upon how they have practiced. Anything else could be deadly.

Another negative for standard dry fire practice is there is concern as to wear and tear on the constant releasing of a weapon's firing pin without it having the cushioning effect of the firing pin striking a round of ammunition.

Some patent training systems incorporate computer graphics into the training scenario. Other patents address the duplication of a pistol's recoil, laser marking of “shots”, projecting images onto a screen, etc.

Here are a few examples of pistol training patents:

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS:

These are some devices or systems that aid in dry fire practice, but only one of the patented devices (U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189) or systems address the “hands-free” trigger reset problem or the firing pin use problem.

Negative qualities of these devices or systems are that they are either user intensive and/or expensive to purchase, but most significantly they do not allow a shooter to use a fully functioning pistol that he may already own. There is also a learning curve or training necessary to use these systems, but most of all, none of the patented devices or systems except (U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189) address the “hands-free” trigger reset problem and the possible firing pin damage problem of normal dry fire practice.

The device with U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189 (my previous patent) solves all of the stated problems, but there are improvements that need to be made. The means for insertion into the magazine's well has been simplified, internal parts have been improved, and alterations have been provided so that the device can interact with electronic training systems through a micro switch and electronic components.

There is no device that provides proper dryfire training as already described that also has components that will allow it to interact with electronic training devices like lasers, simulators, and virtual reality.

There is therefore a need for a dry fire training device that uses a fully functioning pistol, allows for precise muscle memory training, is simple to operate, prevents the firing pin of the fully functioning pistol from being damaged, provides for safe on-site home training, inserts easily into the magazine well, and has capabilities to interact with electronic training systems. This new device improves upon existing device U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189 (my previous patent).

The invention that is to be described accomplishes the most important aspects of dry fire training: no live ammunition is used providing safety and no on-going expense, convenience of practicing in the home environment where the protective, fully functioning pistol would most likely be used for defensive purposes, no involved disassembling and reassembling of any of the fully functional pistol's components, the realistic feel of the trigger during the firing process and the trigger reset, precise muscle memory training using only the trigger finger motion, and does not negatively affect the fully functional pistol's firing pin. This invention also helps the novice shooter train with his pistol before he has to deal with the recoil and the report of firing live ammunition. This invention is simple to use, provides realistic feel of the trigger operation, produces a sound that simulates the release of the pistol's firing pin, and does not require any alterations to the fully functional pistol such as disassembling and reassembling of any parts of the pistol. There is therefore a need for a dry fire training device that uses a fully functioning pistol, allows for precise muscle memory training, is simple to operate, prevents the firing pin of the fully functioning pistol from being damaged, provides for safe on-site home training, inserts easily into the magazine well, and has capabilities to interact with electronic training systems. This new device improves upon existing device U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189 (my previous patent). This improved device addresses these situations through the pistol's magazine compartment. This invention simply slides into the magazine compartment in the pistol's handle, and practice can begin. It requires no alterations to the pistol before or after practice. This new device functions completely independent of the pistol's firing pin.

An additional point of safety is that the base plate, which is always visible to the shooter and trainer, is a bright color, such as orange, blue, red, green, or pink, to identify the device as being safe and quickly and easily visibly distinguishable from a magazine that could contain live ammunition. There is no way that this device can mechanically accommodate any live ammunition.

illustrates a back view of the exterior of a simulated magazine case.illustrates a sectional side view of the simulated magazine casealong the sectional line-shown in.illustrate the simulated magazine casethat has six holes. The simulated magazine caseincludes a pair of opposing holes, one in each side of the simulated magazine case(indicated asin). In combination, this pair of opposing holes, one in each side of the simulated magazine case, are sized and shaped to receive the fulcrum pin(shown in) for the lever(shown in) to hinge upon. The simulated magazine casealso includes a third hole (indicated asin) in the front of said magazine caseto provide access to the regulating set screw(shown in) which is mounted in the set baseas illustrated in, being adhered to the inside back wall of said magazine case. The simulated magazine casealso includes a fourth hole (indicated asin) beneath the previously mentioned third hole, and which the fourth holeallows for adjusting the mounting screw (indicated asin) for the detent reed. The simulated magazine casealso includes a fifth hole (not shown) in the back of the magazinefor adjusting a second set screw (not shown) in the micro switch lever (indicated asin), the second set screw (not shown) being configured to regulate the adjusting point of another training device. The simulated magazine casealso includes a sixth hole (indicated asin) in the front of the magazineto allow the swing lock (indicated asin) to interact with a member in the pistol's magazine well (not shown) to lift and place the lever (indicated asin) in the proper position with the pistol's trigger mechanism when the device is inserted into the pistol's magazine well.

illustrate the leversized and shaped to support the detent reed (indicated asin), locate the compression spring (indicated asin), mount the swing lock (indicated asin), and mount the micro switch lever (indicated asin), and a projection at the top to interact with the pistol's trigger mechanism at point A; all these are illustrated in.

illustrate the swing lockwhich is pin mounted to the lever(as shown in) and protrudes out of the hole (indicated asin) in the front of the magazine'sfront side (as shown in) to interact with a member in the pistol's magazine well (not shown) which places the lever(as shown in) into its proper position with the pistol's trigger mechanism (not shown). In some embodiments, the swing locksnaps onto a fulcrum pin that is integrated as a molded component of the lever.

illustrate a micro switch leverwhich pin mounts to the lever(as shown in), the micro switch leverhas a hole for accommodating a second set screw (not shown) for adjustments through the fifth hole (not shown) in the back of the magazine, and provides a location for mounting a micro switch(shown in). In some embodiments, the leverincludes no microswitch lever, but instead the micro switchis mounted to a PC board that is mounted in the case by screws, in such embodiments the leverincludes a screw to actuate the micro switch.

illustrate the set screw basewhich is adhered to or at least partially captured or enveloped within the inner back wall of the magazine(as shown in) and accommodates the set screw(shown in) to adjust when the detent reed(shown in) snaps as the lever(shown in) is actuated by the pistol's trigger mechanism (not shown) at point A (shown in). In some embodiments, the set screw baseincludes a protrusion as shown in. In some other embodiments (not shown), the case includes a pocket or cavity instead of the protrusion shown in.

illustrates a fulcrum pinthat allows the lever(shown in) to rotate to activated the detent reed(shown in) by the action transferred through the lever(shown in) at point A (shown in), moving the detent reed(shown in) against the set screw(shown in), producing the simulated tactile release and the audible response of the weapon's firing pin. Another fulcrum pin (not shown) mounts the micro switch lever(shown in) onto the lever(shown in). In some embodiments, the fulcrum pinand/or another fulcrum pin (not shown) is integrated as a part of leverand/or as a molded portion of one or both case halves.

illustrates a compression springthat returns the lever(shown in) to its resting position against the front of the magazine(shown in) and resets the pistol's trigger mechanism to its resting position. The location of the compression springrelative to the magazine caseand leveris shown at.

illustrates a detent reedwhich is mounted to the lever(shown at) and provides the tactile release simulating the feel of the release of the pistol's firing pin and an audible response simulating the sound of the release of the pistol's firing pin.

illustrates the set screwwhich is used in the set screw base(shown at) and is configured to be adjustable to apply more or less pressure to the detent reed(as shown in). A second set screw (not shown), similar to set screw, provides for adjustments to micro switch lever(shown in).

illustrate the micro switchwhich is mounted to the micro switch lever(shown in) and presses against the inner wall of the magazine(shown in) to activate an electronic component for other training devices. Persons of ordinary skill in the art will readily recognize that the configuration of the micro switchrelative to the inner wall of the magazineis interchangeable, such that the micro switchis mounted to the inner wall of the magazineand in any event the micro switchis depressed when the leveris actuated by the pistol's trigger mechanism.

illustrate the microprocessorthat is activated by the micro switch(shown in) when the lever assembly is hinged towards the back of the magazine(shown in) and thus provides an electrical signal received by another device for dry fire training. In some embodiments, the electrical signal includes a Bluetooth, LED, RF, and/or IR signal.

illustrates a sectional view of the assembled dry fire training device showing the leverin its resting position. The compression springis applying a forward force to hold the leverforward. This view shows the detent reedresting against the set screwin its “untripped” or unreleased position. The set screwprovides adjustment to control the release of the detent reedat precisely the right position in the travel of the pistol's trigger. The swing lockis mounted to the leverso that when the device is inserted into the pistol's magazine compartment, the swing lockinteracts with the pistol's magazine release bar and pushes the levertowards the back of pistol far enough that the levercan freely move behind the pistol's trigger mechanism. The swing lockthen swings out of the way so that the leverassembly is free to interact with the pistol's trigger mechanism. When the pistol's trigger mechanism presses against the leverat point A, the leverassembly swings towards the back of the magazine. This movement compresses the coil spring, bends the detent reedthrough its activation point against the set screwand provides the tactile and the audible response, thus simulating the release of the pistol's firing pin; the micro switchis compressed against the wall of the magazinecompleting the circuit to the microprocessorwhich sends a signal to interact with a separate dry fire training device. When the pistol's trigger is released, the coil springreturns the leverassembly to its resting position.

The previously patented device U.S. Pat. No. 9,182,189 had a sliding member that had to be pushed up to accomplish the positioning of the leverbehind the trigger mechanism. Then, after the leverwas in its working position, the shooter needed to pull the sliding lever lifter back to its resting position. This new design accomplishes this setting action without any additional actions of the shooter. The new devise also has means of interacting electronically with other dry fire training devices.