Spearguns

[popolarbear]

as i understand from studdying verrious resources, the neumatics are slightly more dangerous. as on rare occasion people have speared themselves whilie loading by disscharging while loading. the thought of getting steel lodged into the base of my throat by accident is a distastefull thought. ... although id bet they are alot easier to load than a powerbanded one, especialy the longer multi banded guns. it took me a while to build myself up to just be able to load mine. even my small one has more power than youd think. im new to the sport but the few suckers ive shot were nearly crushed into pieces by the impact. .. i dont know if im doing something wrong or if that is a common problem. the peircing goes thru a 5lb size sucker cutting it nearly in two(slightly off center hits). not much to fight at that point.my first thought was i need a smaller shaft.

[freedivernd]

I split this topic as I see it's going a different direction than the orginal.. it will be easier for people who browse the forums.
I can talk spearguns all day, so I think this is a good idea.

I would agree that pneumatics might be a bit more dangerous to load, but like all guns of all types.. they need respect and the knowledge to operate them, and then, like all guns, they are very safe.

Some of the blue water hunters load up their pneu's so much that they can't load them in the water but have to get back into the boat to push the spear into the gun against a wall or floor.. so, not so easy to load.  the people I spear with set the pneus up with about 65#'s of loading force, which seems to work out for most.  At that.. I've lost my spear tip (I still have a shaft that uses a screw on tip, but not for long) and still taken big carp at fair range with no tip, just a dull threaded shaft, and sent the spear half way through the fish in the bone.  With the mods we've done to the guns.. as a friend of mine says, "the fish doesn't know what hit them until they look down see the line going through them." 

Even my little mini-mini sten gun has more power now than my double banded gun.  I won't go back to a banded gun because with the right modifications, power to size there is no comparison.

If you hit a fish in the soft, with all the thrashing they end up tearing on the line.  Not like when you stone them.  The best size shaft, through all the homework, is a 7mm.  8's being to heavy and 6's or 6.5's being to susceptible to bending or breaking.  The 8's may have their place though.. I have my mini-mini setup to shoot the original 8mm shaft and a longer 7mm shaft.  An efficient upgrade is to throw the screw on tip away, sharpen the end of the shaft, drill a hole a bit back from the tip and add a single flopper.  This will really streamline the shaft.. throw the braided shaft line away and replace with 200# test mono and your good to go.
Fred

[popolarbear]

i understand most of these mods. they seem to make comon sense. but what is the reasoning behind preference of mono over braid? to me the thick mono stuff is so brittle, that ive always woundered if that brittleness effects the accuracy, perhaps pulling the shot slightly off, also it is slightly thicker in diameter(atlest i think it is), perhaps the braid has higher coefficent of drag though. ive done little experimenting with mods. dont get that much oportunities to spearfish in the cities, but i would realy like to build a gun. id start my project with an omer mech, basicaly id just be assembling components that are available. but i would like to attempt making a composite float barrel. perhaps add a magnet track in the barrel.

[freedivernd]

the 200# tst monofilament that I use measures less than .05 inch (actually 1.25mm) diameter, way smaller diameter than the braided line, is not brittle by any means, and just smokes through the water (and the fish ).  Other than streamlining the shaft, changing to monofilament is probably the next best modifications for improved performance. 

[freedivernd]

I'd love to build a gun too.. but I want to start with a turning lathe.. always wanted one of them.  there are some great russian designs in pneumatic guns that would be good to copy.  After dismantling several mares guns, you can see many places for improvment.

[popolarbear]

turning lathe. you lost me, you plan to make a wooden barell. is that a typical lathe or a copy lathe?  you like the mares guns in the pnuematics?

[freedivernd]

o.k... a metal turning lathe then.. no, I'd build from scratch the tubes and pistons.
The mares gun is good but it is in need of a lot of mods, like most pneus.  One thing that is really bad about the mares is there is a ton of wasted space in the tube.  Unlike the russian guns I've seen pictures of, that have the trigger way way in the back and no garbage in the barrel up at the front.  You can probably subtract 5" off of the mares to get the apples to apples of an efficiently built gun. i.e. 70cm mares gun = 57cm well built gun.  But, the mares are easy to modify for performance increases.
Fortunately, my spearing buddy Roland can read Russian and has been very helpful in figuring out stuff on the guns.. Across the ocean they are way ahead of us in building guns.  Mares sells a gun called a spark mimetic that looks to be more efficiently built from the factory, but guess what.. not available in the U.S. - go figure.

[popolarbear]

shouldnt be a problem getting one. simply drop ship one off of ebay germany. pay with a CCard. ive done that before. not all sellers will sell to americans but enough will. shipping might be costly. mares has some of the best stuff for freediving, id be realy surprised if there isnt a good US rep. probably not in minnesota, but atleast one in florida and caly.

[freedivernd]

have you ordered a speargun out of germany?  Months ago I contacted several shops in several countries to try and get a gun.. and shoot.. spearfishing wasn't allowed in germany so no luck there.  But even if you could get one shipped here from euro, like you said, the shipping would hardly justify ordering one vs. buying the cyrano here.  which is what I finally ended up doing.

Where have the good times gone of ordering out of europe for $ X .65 ? and reasonable shipping on top of that?  I miss those days.. the first tailor made wetsuit I bought out of italy was $179 delivered to my door..

all this talk about spearguns has me thinking some fish somewhere may not be safe this weekend!

Fred

[popolarbear]

no, ive not purchased speargun out of germany, but have drop shiped a number of other odd things i couldnt find anywere else. its a usefull site from time to time. yes the exchange rate is terrible. not long ago $1 was worth two, now the euro is a stronger currency(and prefered currency in many places) as a result our doller is worth half in an economy that is itself inflated somewhat past ours. net result is that for europeans sometimes its way way cheeper to buy there own products and have them drop shiped from the us.(just like the japanese do with their electronics, they fly direct to minneapolis/mega mall, and go on a shopping spree, and end up saving a ton of money once all is said and done.) dosent allways make sense, but from time to time depending on exchange rates this happens...

.
im surprised that germany bans spearguns. as omer is german! well actualy im not surrprised that they ban spearing in central regions, as it is basicaly forbidden to do everything including fishing.(you have to get a membership from the pond you plan to fish!, and pay for the stocked fish you catch, and you must kill it even if you only plan to toss it in the garbage!-yes, everything must be imedeatelly stuck in the head and killed!)..... perhaps on the coast spearing is allowed as i think the hunting fishing regulations are more sensable in those regions.

.
.
i also agreee, ive got an itch only curred by a steel fish piercing.