What 2 pounds of mahi can win

Here are a few progress pictures on Keith Love's tuna gun. He won last year's Louisiana Freedive Tournament - beat me out with a couple 1 pound mahi's - who me bitter? . Na, just giving Keith a little grief. I had promised to make a gun for the winner so here it is.

72" tuna gun
5/16, 11/32 or 3/8" shaft
6 bands
Not a single screw

Left to do:
Handle and bottom line release
Line anchor
Shooting line groove in muzzle

The carbon at the muzzle is over 1/4" thick and the band holes don't go straight through, they start high and dip down below the shaft and come back up on the other side. The hole farthest back is a little lower. Since that band is loaded first it serves as a platform helping to keep the others in-line.

The track is black G10 - big thanks to 3DPro for the heads up on this material. It is perfect for this type of fabrication because it can be glued in place and its thermal expansion the same as the carbon, unlike other plastics which must be allowed to move independently of the rest of the gun.

it look really nice...:thumbsup2:

Weight fully rigged with 3/8" shaft will be right around 16 pounds.

Yes the handle and line anchor will be pinned.

I did the band holes in stages.

(1) Shape the internal blank and cut straight holes through it (these holes form the bottoms of the finished band holes).

(2) wrap over 1/4" of carbon around the muzzle area of the blank using both uni and biaxial fabric and sleeves. If you look in the photos you can see that the muzzle area is a little wider than the "regular" forward part of the gun. This is due to the extra carbon around the muzzle area.

(3) Plane top of muzzle area back down to height of track using jointer.

(4) Drill angled holes through the carbon that tie into the horizontal holes using mill.

(5) Cut band change access slots using sliding table jig on table saw.

(6) Shape mouth of holes for band lay and to remove sharp surfaces using dremel and hand sanding.

Here are a couple pictures of the handle for this gun. Jeff and I have been working (mostly Jeff working) on it for a while. Here's what I like about it:
(1) Self-resetting bottom line release. Moving the shooting line to bottom of the gun reduces the chance of it tangling with the bands.
(2) Adjustable length rod between the line release and the trigger. This makes tuning of the release timing much easier.
(3) Delrin slide trigger to cut down weight, prevent misfire due to bumping the butt of the gun, and to have a low friction slide.
(4) Slide trigger rides on bushings again to reduce friction and to prevent squeeze of assembly during insertion into the gun, which could affect freedom of trigger slide.
(5) VERY easy to fit into gun. Just route/mill pocket for it, drill through gun and assembly at front and back of assembly. and install pins in drilled holes.
(6) AR-15 style handle using standard handles available at gun shops. User can pick from numerous available handle styles to meet their personal preference.

This is not for every gun, as the bottom line release will be impacted by reel placement, but I'm excited about it for large guns which will not have a reel installed.

We are looking into having a batch of these produced. If you are interested, shoot TinMan or myself a PM. We don't know yet what the pricing will be, but we will work to make it reasonable.

Here's what it looks like inside. You can see that the forward rod is held in place with a set screw. That's what makes it easy to tune the timing of the forward line release so that it lets go just before the trigger mech fires.