I was thinking of adding pneumatic spearguns to the Speardiver line, so I ordered a sample speargun. These pneumatic spearguns are the very same as Pipin Fererra's Persistent line Stunner guns, and I'm pretty sure also the Seacsub Asso. They are meant to be economically priced functional pneumatic spearguns.
I asked a few specific questions and when I learned that the spear is not stainless steel and only comes with a screw on point, I asked for the gun to be sent without a shaft and only the hardware. My first speargun was a Mares Cyrano which came with a rusting shaft, I have memories of sanding that thing down before every dive and didn't want to relive them.
I went with a 110 because I figured that's the maximum length I can load without using an assist bar or a ladder. I was right, with the overhang I like the spear to have I'm just barely able to load it.
First impressions. The pump, loader, spring, sliding ring, and piston adapter were exactly the same as any other I've seen, which is a good thing. The shooting line was a joke, just like what you see in the pic. The plastic slider which is the shooting line attachment point, although at first glance looks identical to others, has very thin walls and is not adequate.
I was surprised by the safety, it's very simple and you can just pull it right out of the gun, it stays in there with friction. This is perfect by me because the first thing I do is remove the safety. The only real safety is loose bands, well not in this case.. just don't point the gun at anybody.
The trigger, line release, and other plastic pieces on my gun were ugly fluorescent yellow colored. Doesn't matter I suppose, when it comes to ordering quantity they'll make it any color I want, as well as the handle.
One small detail that I liked was that the water ejection holes on the muzzle were cut on an angle, this is something that with other pneumatic guns you have to modify yourself. Overall the muzzle is well made.
I prefer a side line release on a pneumatic, the bottom line release makes the shooting line stick out too far away from the gun, but it's simple and it works.
I had a 7mm stainless steel shaft for a pneumatic from before, as well as a nice ss slider for shooting line attachment. I also had a sliding ring for a 7mm diameter shaft but with an outer diameter to fit a 13mm pneumatic. This allows a 7mm shaft to be centered in a pneumatic speargun muzzle meant for an 8mm shaft. The piston adapter threaded on to my single flopper shaft without a problem. So as far as the shaft goes I was set. I like to use a bungee with a quick disconnect for the shooting line, this makes the spring on the shaft unnecessary as the bungee provides the stretch necessary to hook the shooting line over the line release, and then keep it there.
Next thing I did was cut of that little tab you see sticking up over the back of the gun (with the little hole in it). I don't know what it's for, maybe attachment of a float line, but I found it really messes up the sight picture, and I'm an instinctive shooter so you can imagine how high that sticks up. Then I cut off the same thing off the front end which gave me the same problem. Now the gun was more streamlined.
The next little annoyance was the trigger guard. The slot in it that's meant to accommodate the line release is cut unnecessarily far towards the handle. The edges of this slot are kinda' sharp and cut into the finger that grips just under the trigger guard. This was easily solved by grinding down the edges with a Dremmel.
Now I disassembled the gun and took some pics. The parts are the same from quality of material standpoint to other pneumatics that I've seen. The outer barrel has the same wall thickness, as does the inner barrel. O rings are in all the same places. The piston was nice and robust.