Patent Publication Number: US-6708843-B2

Title: Paintball container tube loading stand

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention concerns the apparatus involved in playing the sport of paintball warfare and discloses a loading stand that facilitates the loading of paintballs into a paintball container tube which in turn is then used to load paintball gun magazines. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The sport of paintball warfare has become a popular pastime and a military training exercise. The sport employs the use of hand held paintball air compression guns which shoot out small approximately .68 caliber diameter paintballs. These paintballs are semi-hard, hollow, plastic balls containing various colored dyes, which leave a colored mark on the objects they strike. These paintballs are contained in paintball ammunition magazines that are attached to and feed these paintballs into the guns. These magazines must be reloaded or refilled from time to time from paintball container tubes, “tubes” or “tube” for short, which are carried into the playing area. These tubes themselves must be reloaded from bulk paintball stock supplies by pouring these paintballs into the tubes or by hand delivering the paintballs to the tubes. At the present time, the procedure for reloading the tubes has proven to be an awkward process often leading to the destruction, damaging or soiling of the paintballs being transferred to the tubes, thus rendering the paintballs too defective for use in the guns. Various haphazard methods have been applied to overcome this problem, but none has proven to be sufficiently effective or easy to use in order to meet with wide acceptance. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention described here provides a solution to the problems met in reloading these tubes with paintballs by disclosing a practical, inexpensive, portable, easy to use loading stand apparatus to facilitate the rapid reloading of these tubes. This apparatus comprises a stand which supports two parallel, horizontal shelves, separated by a few inches. These shelves are provided with circular vertically aligned apertures into which the tubes to be loaded are inserted and held steady in fixed, vertical positions, the top of each of the tubes being essentially flush with the top surface of the top shelf. Attached to the top shelf, by a pivoting hinge, is a wide mouthed hopper, open at the top and bottom. When this hopper has been rotated over and onto the top shelf, the paintballs can be poured into the hopper which funnels these paintballs into the top open ends of the tubes until they are full. To remove the loaded tubes, the hopper is rotated off the top shelf freeing the tubes. 
     It is thus an object of this invention to provide a container tube support means to facilitate the loading of paintballs into a container tube. 
     It is a further object of this invention to provide a container tube support means for loading paintballs into a container tube which is easy to use, reliable and portable. 
     It is a further object of this invention to provide a loading stand for loading paintballs into a container tube which is inexpensive to manufacture. 
     These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The more specific object features and advantages of this invention will be more readily apparent from the following description wherein reference is made to the accompanying drawings illustrating a preferred embodiment of the invention. 
     In the drawings: 
     FIG. 1 is an upper perspective view of a two paintball container tube loading stand, with the hopper in the loading position, the hopper shield in the open position and two tubes in place to be loaded with paintballs. 
     FIG. 2 is a left side elevation view, looking through the loading stand, with the hopper in the loading position, with the hopper shield rotated into the hopper, and one tube in place to be loaded. 
     FIG. 3 is a top plan view of the loading stand, looking downward into the hopper in the loading position, with the hopper shield covering an unused tube aperture, and with one tube placed in an aperture to be loaded. 
     FIG. 4 is an upper perspective view of the loading stand, with the hopper and the hopper shield rotated to the open position, and with two tubes in place to be loaded. 
     FIG. 5 is a front elevation view of the loading stand, with the hopper and hopper shield rotated to the open position, and with two tubes in place to be loaded. 
     FIG. 6 is a top plan view of the loading stand, looking downward into the hopper, which is in the loading position with the hopper shield open, to allow the simultaneous loading of the two tubes in place. 
     FIG. 7 is a top plan view of the loading stand, looking downward onto the two tube aperture plate, which holds one tube to be loaded and has one aperture empty, and with the hopper and hopper shield rotated to the open or non-loading position. 
     FIG. 8 is a rear elevation view of the loading stand with the hopper in a loading position and the hopper shield in the open position. 
     FIG. 9 is a side elevation view of a paintball container tube with its hinged cover in an open position. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     A preferred embodiment of the paintball container tube loading stand, in which one tube or two tubes simultaneously can be loaded, is described and exemplifies embodiments in which one tube or two or more tubes can be loaded simultaneouly. 
     In FIG. 9 a standard paintball container tube is illustrated. A standard tube is a circular cylinder  1 , slightly less than 12 inches long, having one open circular end  4 , between 2 and 3 inches in diameter. This end can be sealed with a lid  3  which is attached to the rim of the open end  4  by a short flexible hinge  2 . The lid  3  is opened to allow the tube  1  to be loaded with paintballs and when the tube  1  is used to load the paintballs into the magazine of the paintball gun. The lid  3  is usually closed when the tube  1  is being carried. 
     Different views of a paintball container tube loading stand, “loading stand” for short, are presented in FIGS. 1 through 8 in the preferred embodiment in which one tube or two tubes simultaneously can be filled. 
     Referring to FIGS. 1,  2 ,  4 ,  5 ,  7  and  8 , a loading stand is shown, which comprises a flat rectangular strip or plate which is bent to define three flat rectangular planes which, when viewed edge on, forms an inverted, squared off “U”. The full plate width  60  is about three container tube lengths, which therefore is the length of the upper, horizontal, middle section or upper shelf  21 . This upper shelf  21  meets each of the two vertical side planes  20  and  22  at a right angle. This structure thus constitutes an essentially vertical, free standing frame supporting a horizontal upper shelf. The upper shelf  21  width is approximately two tube diameters which is also the distance separating the outer surfaces of the two vertical sides  20  and  22 . The vertical side planes  20  and  22  are of equal height which should each be somewhat longer than the length of a tube. The top and bottom edges of the vertical sides  20  and  22  is the same as the length of the upper shelf  21 . Attached to and across the inward facing surfaces of the vertical sides  20  and  22  and parallel to the upper shelf  21 , approximately half-way down these vertical sides, is a flat thin shelf  29 , the lower shelf. This lower shelf  29  has approximately the same dimensions as the downward facing surface of the upper shelf  21 . This lower shelf  29  serves to strengthen the structural form and integrity of the loading stand. 
     Referring again to FIGS. 2,  4 ,  5 ,  6  and  7 , there are indicated two circular apertures  27  and  37  in the upper shelf  21  symmetrically spaced with respect to the open ends of this shelf. The diameters of these apertures  27  and  37  are just large enough to allow the free insertion of a tube  1  into each aperture. Each aperture  27  and  37  is positioned close enough to the vertical side  20  so that, when tubes are inserted into these apertures, the hinge  2  of each tube  1  will extend across the outer top edge of the surface of the vertical side  20 . This will allow this hinge  2  to hold the lid  3  of the tube over the top edge of side  20 , while holding the top circular rim or edge  4  of each tube almost flush with the upper surface of the top shelf  21 . 
     Concentric with each of the circular apertures  27  and  37  in the upper shelf  21 , are circular apertures  23  and  33  in the lower shelf  29 , as shown in FIGS. 1,  4 , and  5 . The circular apertures  23  and  33  are concentrically aligned with the circular apertures  27  and  37 , respectively, along a vertical line through the centers of these apertures. Thus, when the tubes  1  are inserted into the loading stand through these apertures, these apertures will serve to hold these tubes vertically positioned while they are being loaded with paintballs. 
     Referring again to the Figures, a wide mouthed paintball receiving hopper  50  is shown attached to the upper shelf  21  of the loading stand by a pivoting hinge  28  set in place near the upper edge of the vertical side  22 . The hinge  28  also attaches to the hopper  50  along its bottom edge  52 , refer in particular to FIGS. 2,  4  and  8 . 
     The top open receiving end of the hopper  50 , defined by the edge  51 , is of slightly greater area, but the same shape as the upper shelf  21 . The walls of the hopper are tapered to narrow downward to form a rectangular delivery opening defined by the edge  52 . This delivery opening is large enough to surround the apertures containing the open ends  4  of the tubes to be loaded in the upper shelf  21 , but edge  52  of the hopper stays within the area of the upper surface of the upper shelf when the hopper is in the loading position, see FIG.  6 . In order to insert the tubes  1  into the loading stand through the apertures  27  and  37 , or remove the tubes when they have been loaded, the hopper  50  is rotated about the hinge  28 , off the upper shelf  21 , to an open position, the first position, see FIGS. 4,  5  and  7 . After the tubes  1  have been inserted into the apertures  27  and  37 , the hopper  50  is rotated to the upright or closed position, the second position, refer to FIGS. 1,  2 ,  6  and  8 . An indentation  25 , along the bottom edge of the hopper  50  which meets the top edge of the vertical side  20  of the loading stand, opposite the lower hinged edge of the hopper, is provided to accommodate the hinges  2  on the tubes which hold the lids  3  of the tubes extended outward from the loading stand, see FIGS. 1,  2 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6  and  7 . 
     The hopper  50  is approximately a hand&#39;s width in height when the hopper is in the vertical or closed filling position. The walls of the hopper are tapered in the downward direction, like a funnel, in order to direct the paintballs into the open ends  4  of the tubes  1 , when they are being loaded via the hopper. 
     The hopper  50  is also provided with a tapered aperture shield  26 , which is attached to the hopper by a pivoting hinge  30  fixed to the hopper along the upper short side of edge  51 . This is the side oriented at a right angle to the lower hinged edge of the hopper and is the short edge nearest the aperture  27  in the upper shelf  21 , refer to FIGS. 1 to  8 . This aperture shield is left in the open or outward position when both apertures  27  and  37  are being used for filling tubes simultaneously or when the hopper is in an open position as in FIGS. 1,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7  and  8 . If only a single tube is being loaded, the aperture shield is rotated, about the hinge  30 , inward to close off the unused aperture  27  and to guide the paintballs into the tube which has been inserted into the aperture  37  as in FIGS. 2 and 3. The aperture shield  26  is tapered forward to conform to the downward taper of the hopper  50  and it is bent outward slightly to further conform to the geometry of the hopper. The aperture shield  26  is further provided with a knob  31  in its upper surface to facilitate lifting the aperture shield into and out of the hopper, see FIGS. 3,  4 ,  7  and  8 . 
     It is anticipated that the loading stand, including the hopper, in the embodiment as described here, would be constructed primarily out of a strong, lightweight, flexible material such as quarter inch thick bendable plastic, with plastic or metal hinges and clips attached where necessary. 
     It will be understood that the above description of the present invention is susceptible to various modifications, changes and adaptations without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention, and the same are to be comprehended within the meanings and range of the appended claims.