ALPHA C1 Pneumatic Speargun 14 mm inner barrel

Whereas most of the 14 mm ID inner barrel guns have now disappeared, such as the seventies and eighties Italian "GSD" models, there is still a big bore pneumatic speargun available today that uses a releasing valve system to shoot the spear. That is the "Alpha C1" pneumatic speargun, which is manufactured in Greece. It is a floater after the shot and has a power adjuster built into the rear butt which allows the releasing valve opening to be varied and thereby reduce the power of the shot. With the power reducer screwed right in the gun cannot shoot, so that can act as a safety device as well.

A photo of the gun showing recent changes, note that the grip handle can be placed at various positions when the gun is built, either as a mid or rear handle.

These schematic diagrams show how the "Alpha C1" pneumatic gun works. The gun uses its inner barrel as a hand pump with the muzzle switched to air pump mode which allows the gun to take in air through the muzzle ports. Pulling the trigger moves a rod that disengages a ball that locks the releasing valve and the gun then shoots. The "Alpha C1" can be charged to 30 Bar and has plenty of gun power if you are strong enough to load it at that start pressure.

There is a website for the Inalex "Alpha C1" speargun here: http://inalex.biz/
Guns are built to order, so you need to specify where you want the handle located on the gun when you select the length of gun that you want. Long range shooting and the handle is best placed at the rear; situations where you need to turn the gun rapidly the handle is best placed in the middle. Not a bad compromise is to go for a rear biased, mid-handle gun as you still have a long sighting radius and there is a projecting butt to brace with your other hand or help steer the gun around.

When selecting the grip handle position another consideration is the loading length as that determines the reach required to load the gun with a simple hand loader. Extension loaders can be used, in fact there is an extension loader available with the gun as an option.

Quote from Don Paul

Thanks Peter.:thumbsup2:

Cheers, Don

Well there is a new "Bazooka" for you Don, probably a bit more powerful than the old one from Mares!

Inventor/builder of the "Alpha C1" pneumatic speargun is Alex Orfanidis. He also has a vacuum barrel version of the same gun, in fact two versions as either the vacuum seals are in the muzzle or the vacuum seals ride on the spear shaft. Generally a powerful speargun does not need to use a vacuum barrel, but it helps when efficiency is required for a lower power gun to make the most use of the limited energy stored by the gun or able to be imparted to the gun by the user during muzzle loading.

Here is a video of the "Alpha C1" shooting over a long distance underwater. While it can slam its shaft right through the target a contemporary band gun can barely make the distance to the target. Gun power on display here as the "Alpha C1" is virtually a straight line shooter over this distance.

Alpha C1 Video

I don't know the shooting distance, but it looks a long shot underwater, maybe over 20 feet, or more. The guns use 8 mm diameter shafts and up for stopping power. Of course you need to be in good shape to load it, but nothing comes for free. Only comparable gun that I have used is my "Black Sea" hydropneumatic hydropumping gun, but it doesn't float, unlike this "Alpha C1" pneumatic releasing valve gun which does.

You would have to ask Alex as I don't see anything about that on his web-site: MODELS | Special Fishing Air Gun-Alpha C. Why use a 7 mm shaft when an 8 mm shaft already leaves the gun like a rocket?

Yes, Alex is originally from Russia, in fact Russia had, and still has, a strong gunsmithing culture for producing spearguns that were light years beyond what the State-owned factories churned out for the masses. However that has all changed in recent times as local production speargun development has been spurred on by the inroads of European/Chinese models which were not always to their liking and therefore they have set about making their own guns, such as the "Taimen" and the "Stalker". Because spearfishing is often done in silt or sand laden abrasive "soup" the inner barrels can wear out early, hence the use of stainless steel inner barrel tubes rather than alloy.

As for gun weight I never carry my pneumatic guns in the ready to shoot position, I swim with them held with my gun hand slightly rearward of mid-body and only when things look interesting do I put my gun hand on the rear grip. Another holding position is across my body with two hands on the gun in a variation of the soldier-at-arms position. I have used and shot pneumatic guns for decades as well as band guns, so the guns and their use are no mystery to me at all.

Then a rear biased, mid-handle can fill the bill, but until recent times such guns did not float, however a number now do, but you will not find them in the West. If in the "soup", or the "seaweed jungle", then I use my "Taimen" and that I carry ready to shoot as the gun weighs next to nothing, plus it uses a 7 mm shaft. The "Taimen" is discussed here at some length.

https://forums.deeperblue.com/…umovacuum-speargun.82933/

The snout on the original "Cyrano" makes the gun more nose heavy than it needs to be and a better gun is the "Steath/Spark/Sten 11" which are revamps of the "Cyrano", but with more tank length and hence water displacement. From memory the "Cyrano" loses 22 cm of tank thanks to that snout which is not pressurized.

Well I could no longer resist buying one so here is my "Alpha C1" which arrived a few days ago. The gun came very well packaged and had to be cut free of its flattened alloy foil duct tube/bubble wrap/corrugated cardboard wrappings which protected it from any relative movement of items, rubbing of parts and external impacts.

As you can see it was partially dismantled, the "skeleton" style alloy grip and handle frame clamps on the gun at any position so you can have a mid-handle or rear handle gun. The only thing you have to change is the pull rod length to match the grip position. This gun is going to be rear handle, so I selected a short pull rod.

The gun comes with two spears, a double flopper integral tip version and a screw tip version for hunting around the rocks.