Importance

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Abstract

A long-life, low-maintenance air gun/hydro gun includes a one-piece, integral shuttle having an unusually long hollow shank with a firing piston whose configuration is the mirror image of the operating piston, except for the slightly smaller diameter 'D' of the firing piston. The shank length L is at least 2.5 times D, and the whole shuttle is guided by this shank sliding within a shaft seal and bearing assembly. By virtue of this guidance, the perimeters of the operating and firing pistons are always kept slightly spaced from their respective associated cylinder walls for eliminating contact of these pistons with their cylinder walls for advantageously dramatically increasing the total number of operating firing cycles which can be accumulated in use before the need for replacing any worn parts, except for the operating and firing seals which are inexpensive. Thus, this air/hydro gun offers a low-maintenance feature. Further, it is only the shank-guiding bearing assembly which is replaced, instead of both of the cylinder walls; the perimeters of the two pistons do not become worn, and thus the operating characteristics (triggering/firing response) do not significantly change over long periods of repeated numerous cycles of operation, and triggering/firing ' jitter' is avoided. In conjunction with the shank-guidance, a novel configured tapered wall surface of the operating chamber produces smoother acceleration and deceleration of the shuttle, so that operating stresses in the shuttle are reduced. This reduction in stresses plus the unitary one-piece construction of the shuttle provide a long operating lifetime for the shuttle. The housing of the air gun comprises two main components instead of the usual three. Therefore, only a single clamp ring holds the air gun together. Then, only one more clamp ring is employed to secure the outer housing of the hydro gun around the air gun. The change from air-to-hydro gun, and the change back to an air gun are both quickly and easily made on shipboard while at sea. The air gun and the hydro gun are less complex and lighter in weight than prior guns of comparable firing volumes, but they are powerful relative to their weight, thus being easier to handle at sea than earlier air guns or water guns. Advantageously, for controlling and modulating the acceleration and deceleration of fast-travelling shuttle the inner surface of the operating sleeve liner can be designed to have any desired configuration, because it is freed from the need to guide the rim of the operating piston by virtue of the fact that shuttle guidance is now provided along the shank. The effective bearing length guiding the shuttle shank is more than three times the O.D. of the shuttle shank. The resilient O-ring firing seal is maintained under continuous spring-loading for enhancing its sealing ability and for automatically supporting this firing seal continuously biased toward its sealed position, thereby contributing to consistent, reliable, repeatable firing characteristics throughout a long operating life and providing a larger throat opening for the firing chamber.

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First Claim