Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to firearms and, in particular, concerns a firearm with a magnetically stabilized sight.
Description of the Related Art
Firearms such as pistols, rifles and shotguns typically have sights to facilitate the shooter in aiming the firearm. A very common type of sight is known as iron sights that typically have a rear component with an operative mounted towards the rear of the firearm and a front component in the form of a blade or bead located adjacent the end of the barrel of the firearm. To use this type of sight, the shooter looks through the aperture on the rear site and aligns the front component in the aperture and then aims the aligned front component and rear component at the desired target. This results in the barrel of the firearm being leveled and pointed at the desired target.
The front and rear components can comprise a variety of different configurations. The front component can be a simple blade or it can have a bead or other colored implement to make the front component more visible. The rear component can comprise a plate with an aperture cut in the center or it can comprise some other form of device that has an aperture that the shooter looks through or some other component that is aligned with the front sight or with the target. In the plate configuration, the aperture can comprise a slot beginning at the upper surface of the plate or it can comprise a hole in the plate. The slot or hole can have a variety of different configurations.
Often both the front and rear sight are adjustable to allow the shooter to orient the sights to align the barrel with a desired point of aim. The sights can be adjustable in both the vertical orientation which adjusts the elevation of the sight and in the horizontal direction which adjusts the horizontal orientation of the barrel. It is common that the rear component be both adjustable in the horizontal and vertical directions.
In one specific non-limiting example, the rear sight of a firearm such as a pistol includes a mounting assembly that is positioned on an upper surface of a barrel, receiver, slide or other horizontal component of the firearm that is fixed in relationship with the barrel. A swing member is attached to the mounting assembly that is vertically movable. A plate that has the aperture is attached to the swing member such that the plate can be horizontally movable. The swing member typically has springs that urge the swing member upwards and the swing member is restrained by a screw or fastener that opposes the biasing of the spring. To adjust the vertical orientation of the swing and thus of the sight, the user adjusts the vertical position of the screw or fastener and the springs urge the swing member upward against the vertical position of a flange of the fastener.
One difficulty with the vertical sight described above is that the swing member is typically often attached to the mounting assembly via a pivot pin such that the swing member pivots with respect to the pivot pin. This results in the swing member moving in an arc. However, the spring is typically a vertically extending member that exerts force in a linear direction and not in an arc. This can result in difficulty in precisely aligning the vertical orientation of the swing member with respect to the barrel of the firearm. Further, the spring can bind as a result of the miss-match between the vertical force exerted by the spring and the arc movement of the swing member. For shooters who desire very precise positioning of the vertical orientation of the sight, this problem can be significant.
Thus, there is a need for a more precise adjustment of a firearm sight. To this end, there is a need for a vertically adjustable sighting system that has a component exerting force in a vertical direction on a vertically adjustable component of a sight that is consistent with an arc-type motion of the vertical component.