Patent attributes
A projectile launching apparatus for launching a projectile, such as a pellet, a BB bullet, an arrow, a dart and a paintball includes a linear motion converter driven by a motor, a piston coupled to the linear motion converter and reciprocally movable within a cylinder, a gas spring and a breech assembly. The piston compresses a gas within the cylinder, after which the compressed gas expands in the barrel of the breech assembly for launching the projectile. Breech assembly includes a breech, a bolt, and bolt barrel cam, which rotate with the gas spring to allow a projectile to enter the breech and then to seal the bolt in the breech before the gas spring releases its stored energy to launch the projectile. In another embodiment, the bolt is coupled with a magnet instead of a cam.