Paintball storage tube carrier

[00002] This invention relates to tool belts, fabric caddies and more particularly to equipment used in the practice of paintball war games.

[00003] During war games in which participants shoot frangible plastic balls full of a liquid dye at their opponents, hundreds of paintballs may be used by a single participant. Paintballs are ordinarily packaged into cylindrical containers which can be conveniently and quickly unloaded into the paintball magazine of a gun. The prior art has provided several types of paintball container carrying belts. The most common example of carrier has a series of pockets formed against the outside surface of the belt. Each pocket can securely nest one paintball container. A paintball warrior's belt may also be encumbered and burdened by other articles hanging from it or secured to it such as replacement goggle, flashlights, radio communication device, pouches of cleaning wipes and other miscellany to a point where only a very small number of paintball containers can be accommodated.

[00004] This invention results from an attempt to increase the paintball container carrying ability of a game participant.

[00005] The principal and secondary objects of this invention are to provide a paintball war game participant with a waist-mounted caddy that can accommodate a large number of spare paintball containers without encumbering the full length of a belt carrier, while allowing a quick detachment of the paintball container from the carrier without compromising the security of its attachment.

[00006] These and other valuable objects are achieved by a fabric belt in which a portion of the outer face is lined with a first type of hook-and-loop fabric fastener. A number of cylindrical paintball containers have their outside surface covered by a resilient sleeve formed over approximately one-half by a patch of a second type of hook-and-loop fabric fastener that can cooperatively grasp and cling to the strip lining the belt. A second half of the sleeve is formed by a patch of the first type of hook-and-loop fabric fastener as the belt strip. Accordingly, a number of sleeved containers can be bunched together to form an agglutination of up to twelve containers in several layers clinging to one another through the cooperative contact of their fabric fastener sections. The sleeve preferably includes a portion of elastomeric material so that it is securely but resiliently cinched around the container. The pack of containers can then be applied and secured against the strip on the outer face of the belt. A pair of cooperating straps having their roots attached at opposite sides of the strip of hook-and-loop fabric material can be wrapped around the pack of containers to secure their attachment to the belt.

[00011] Referring now to the drawing, there is shown a paintball storage tube carrier in the form of a belt caddy 1 which comprise a web 2 made of fabric, and is shaped and dimensioned to wrap around the waist of a user. The two free ends 3, 4 of the web are long enough to overlap each other. They are line on the inside with a first type of hook-and-loop fabric fastener 5 and similarly lined on the outside with a second type of hook-and-loop fabric fastener 6 that cooperates with the first type, so that the web can be conveniently cinched around the waist of the user and secured by the clinging contact between the two types of fastener.

[00012] It should be noted that in connection with this as well as other parts of the belt caddy, other types of contact-clinging materials besides the hook-and-loop fabric could be equivalently used such as sheets of patches of magnetic materials of opposite polarities, strips coated with releasable bonding substances such as a very tacky adhesive, dimple-and-nib textured sheets and other obvious flexible fastening substitutes.

[00013] A comfort lumbar pad 7 is removably applied to a median section of the inside face 8 of the web by means of cooperating patches 9, 10 of contact-clinging materials.

[00014] A large strip 11 of a first type of contact-clinging material is permanently secured to a median portion of the outer face 12 of the web and extends over approximately one-fourth of its length. A number of substantially symmetrical paintball containers 13 are shown clinging to the strip 11 and are secured in that position by further use of contact-clinging material as explained below.

[00015] As more specifically illustrated in FIG. 4, each paintball carrier 13 has a cylindrical outer surface and a lockable cover 15. The carrier can accommodate 120 to 125 paintballs 16. A resilient sleeve 17 more specifically illustrated in FIG. 3, is cinchedly applied, and almost completely covers the cylindrical outer surface. The sleeve is made of two patches 18, 19 of contact-clinging material of different but cooperating types and a short length of elastomeric material 20 sewn side-by-side so that each patch covers approximately one longitudinal half of the outer surface of the container. A plurality of containers can be bunched together to form a multi-layer pack where each container clings to one or more other containers through the interlocking cooperation of its contact-clinging material patches 18, 19. Moreover, the entire pack clings to the strip 11 on the outer face of the belt and is held in that position by the cooperative entanglement of the contact-clinging materials of the strip and some or all of the container sleeves. The entire pack is further secured to the web by a pair of cooperating straps 22, 23. The roots 24, 25 of the straps are permanently attached to the web astride the lateral edges of the contact-clinging material strip 11. Their free ends 26, 27 are long enough to overlap when wrapped around the agglutination of the containers. Those ends are also provided with cooperating patches of hook-and-loop fabric fasteners 28, 29 or other contact-clinging materials.

[00016] While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been described, modifications can be made and other embodiments may be devised without departing from the spirit of the invention and the scope of the appended claims.