I am translating the document below and looking for an English equivalent of the German term “Auslenkbegrenzer”, which is a part of a carabine that a German company has developed for firearms. As far as I understand, the purpose of this particular element is to limit the space in which the carbine can pivot. What about ‘deflection stop’ of ‘deflection limiter’? Would that make any sense here? Here is the abstract of the invention:
The invention relates to a carbine having a central weapon plane (32), comprising a barrel (1) that has a barrel bore axis (37), a gas drive (2), a bolt carrier (18), a recoil spring unit (31) and a charging handle unit (8) arranged in front of the bolt carrier (18), wherein the charging handle unit (8) comprises at least one handle (21a, b), which is mounted on a slider element (20) for rotation about pivot pins (23a, b) and is forcibly displaced about a pivot pin (23a, b) into its rest position by at least one handle spring (24), and the slider element (20) is mounted in a carriage (19) which is arranged axially in front of the bolt carrier (18) and is movable in the axial direction. The carbine is characterised in that the at least one handle (21a, b) comprises an elongate hole (36) for receiving the pivot pins (23a, b) and for the support by said pins.
Carbine with a weapon center plane (32), with a barrel (1) with a barrel bore axis (37), a gas drive (2), a slide (18), a recoil spring unit (31) and a cocking slide unit (8) arranged in front of the slide (18), wherein the cocking slide unit (8) has at least one grip (21a, b) rotatably mounted on a slide body (20) about pivot pins (23a, b), which is urged into its rest position by at least one grip spring (24) about a pivot pin (23a, b), and the 10 clamping slide body (20) is mounted in a slide (19) arranged axially in front of the slide piece (18) and movable in the axial direction, characterized in that the at least one grip (21a, b) has an elongated hole (36) for receiving and mounting about the pivot pin (23a, b).
I’m not an expert in patent language, but here are some thoughts.
I would tend to use stop when addressing a user of the system, meaning something like a physical piece of metal. Limiter might be more appropriate for a patent as it addresses the function performed by a stop.
As for deflection, I would ask what specifically is being limited by the stop. What is “deflecting”?
To me, deflection would indicate a deviation from an intended direction.
Here, It sounds like there is something that pivots, rotates, or slews, which is limited by the stop. This changes, and the stop restricts, the intended [aiming?] direction.
Just looking at the abstract, it looks like they are describing a bolt action rifle. The sliding mechanism, pivots, and pins all describe the bolt action. It might be something else, but it sure looks like the bolt action.
A bolt action is not specific to carbines. Carbines are basically just shortened versions of full length rifles. The bolt action itself is one of several methods used to chamber (load) the next round (bullet).
At first glance this doesn’t look like it has anything to do with pivoting the carbine itself.
Begrenzer translates as limiter.
I’ll look through the rest of the PDF a little more. The PDF I’m seeing has the German and English all mixed together, so it’s a little hard to dig through.
As near as I can tell “deflection limiter” seems to be the best English translation. ( auslenkung begrenzer )
Deflection seems to mean sort of cam or bevel that facilitates the movement and locking of the bolt. So when parts slide past each other, they meet at a slight angle, which causes one or both to change directions. The deflection limiter seems to allow deflection (which is necessary) but limits it for some reason. The filers of this patent think they do it better than has been done in the past. It refers to several other patents on similar mechanisms, and explains why this new one is different than the others.
It’s really hard to read the PDF since it has 300+ word sentences with no breaks. My eyes have a really hard time reading a lot of straight text like that.
It would be a heck of a lot easier to understand if they had some diagrams. That’s why we have draftsmen, because it’s extremely hard to describe these types of things with words.