Tigullio "Sagittario" pneumatic speargun

I recently received an older brochure (no date) on Tigullio spearguns and have attached some of the images here for interest. I have never seen the "Sagittario" pneumatic gun, so its inner works are a bit of a mystery beyond what the layout diagram shows here. It appears that it is a forward latching speargun as the balls (part 4) in the muzzle fit into (I assume) annular notches in the shaft of which there are three at varying distances from the front end of the shaft. So you change the power of the shot by inserting the spear further into the gun and locking it at one of these three alternative positions to vary the propulsion stroke of the inner barrel piston in each case. If this is how it works then the problem with such mechanisms is the shaft controlling balls (usually three) are exposed to saltwater and they gradually wear out, so the gun will not latch correctly when the balls no longer slide smoothly in the mechanism slots that control their positions, either held in tightly against the shaft notch (cocked to shoot) or retracted to allow the shaft to escape the gun during the shot. The front barrel appears to have a sprung loaded sleeve that slides back and forth which is released by pulling the trigger and this sleeve in turn controls the position of the balls in the muzzle. It seems a very novel idea, but it works better when the balls, which act as a collective sear tooth grouped in a ring arrangement around the inner barrel, are located down the rear end of the gun where they are inside the compressed air reservoir. That way the steel balls are always enveloped in oil such as they are in the GSD "Punto" pneumatic guns which have three balls inside the rear end of the air reservoir functioning as the piston controlling sear tooth. As the "Sagittario" has them located in the muzzle on the front end of the barrel (which floods when you cock the gun) its barrel sliding piston needs no tail.

Technisub had a "Drago" pneumatic gun that also worked the same way, but the three balls in the "Drago" (and the smaller pistol layout "Pulce" version) muzzle were controlled by a pull rod external to the body or tank tube and located on the bottom of the gun. On the "Drago" model you could slide the moveable plastic grip handle back and forth and lock it up at different positions on the gun body (and also onto the trigger controlled pull rod) so that you had the option of using it as a mid-handle or a rear handle gun. The "Sagittario" gun may be of a similar vintage to the "Drago", but until I saw this brochure I had never heard of it before. I am wondering if anyone here has seen one and knows anything more about them. The "Sagittario" was apparently produced as a TANA 34" (87 cm) and a SAFARI 46" (117 cm) model. No photo or diagram of the spears is shown, so we cannot see the triple notch spacing on the spear shaft.

Quote from Dan

I think the pneumatic guns of old are very cool looking compared to plain modern ones which all basically look and function the same. I've never used a vintage pneumatic gun so I don't know how the performance compares to a modern pneumatic. But the fact that without fail all the long time manufacturers changed to the same design has to be indicative that it's better. Look at Tigullio today.

http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg543/scaled.php?server=543&filename=rasspeargunthumblrg.jpg&res=landing

It makes me wonder why they were messing with those funky designs if today's pneumatic is so simple and probably more effective. The old ones look innovative, but maybe they were just copying each other as they seem to be doing today. I can't say precisely what my point is here. I was just surprised when I saw the name Tigullio because I had one of their current pneumatics a few years back. It was a short gun and performed like any other short pneumatic, not good for anything but a hole gun. But I don't see why the longer Tigullio models wouldn't have similar range to the mares, cressi, and seac pneumatics.

My guess is they were all searching for something technically different, trying to get a marketing edge or some bragging rights at the time. The general idea was that if something was built then it would sell, rather than checking first to see if anyone really wanted it. Hence the explosion of ideas that eventuated in a product offered for sale and a market that would buy it, trusting that it was going to work, otherwise why would it have been made? There was a much larger range of pneumatic spearguns around with a number of major and minor brand names all selling them, their engineering departments were all trying to outdo each other. The more complicated pneumatic guns, with many small internal parts, were probably still a production proposition back then with the low labor costs for assembling and checking these guns in countries such as Italy and Spain, but when the squeeze came on with spearfishing going into a brief decline, especially in the eighties as scuba diving and underwater photography really got going, the mainstream dive equipment manufacturers either dumped or hid their spearfishing lines under a different banner. That is when the wide diversity of pneumatic spearguns suddenly disappeared. The company accountants must have put a blue pencil line through the pneumatic speargun range of many companies thinking that it was uneconomic to continue their manufacture with spearfishing in decline. Band guns were cheaper to produce, so only the simplest to build pneumatic speargun layout survived (and as it turned out the best for how spearfishing has since developed). That and the ability to float after the shot, especially with more spearfishermen being freedivers, is why the "Sten" and its clones became the predominant form of pneumatic speargun (the others were all sinkers), although we now have the detachable rear handle Omer models as Omer sought to capitalize on its "Cayman" handle to entice some band gun users to the pneumatic gun world. At one time I remember serious speculation as to the continued survival of pneumatic spearguns as a type. Only the resurgence of spearfishing has saved the pneumatic speargun, plus the lower costs of Chinese sourced components made for European designs, for now that is. Pneumatic guns are sometimes cheaper to buy than band guns today, whereas once they were around double the cost of a band gun and going upwards from there, that is how much the situation has changed in modern times.

Tigullio is one of those brands that did not have the profile or distribution, outside of Europe, as say a Mares, Cressi-Sub or Technisub had. Technisub gear was sold by US Divers and that is what made it a familiar brand name worldwide, but when US Divers abandoned spearfishing Technisub guns were no longer a presence outside of Europe. Not much of the Tigullio range ever came here in the past, just the occasional dive product that a few shops had in their "odds and ends" section which stood out as being unfamiliar when you cast your eye over them. The Tigullio RAS pneumatic spearguns were the first pneumatic guns I ever saw from them, although my recollection is the hand grip had a rear offset or crank in it which is now less pronounced, but it may have been down to my viewing angle at the time. They were offered as a cheaper to buy alternative to the Mares "Sten" guns, as were the Seac-Sub guns which were very similar to the original "Sten" model. When I began my speargun research I soon discovered that Tigullio had produced guns in a greater variety than I had ever suspected before and every now and then another one comes up out of nowhere, like this "Sagittario". Before I put this thread up I searched the Web for any info on the gun and found absolutely nothing, even after searching using Google.it, which was surprising! I am sure a lot more pneumatic guns have "fallen through the cracks" which were once distinctive products and not "me too" clones of their competitors' offerings. Lack of spares, the loss of any local distributor and the thought of being stuck with an orphan caused sales to plummet and production eventually ceased once the product's demand in the home country evaporated in favor of more conventional models.

Here are some diagrams of the Technisub "Drago". This pneumatic gun dates from 1970 as that is when the patent was lodged in Italy. The muzzle diagram shows the ball (part 315) sear, there are 3 of them at a 120 degree spacing around the muzzle, but we only see one of them in this side elevation. Same concept as the "Sagittario", but a different control system operated by a pull rod (part 17) rather than a long sleeve in/on the front barrel. The various sliding muzzle sections allow the balls to move outwards when the spear shaft pushes into the muzzle and they only drop back when an annular notch in the shaft passes under their position. As the balls fall into the shaft notch a sleeve (part 122) passes over the top of them trapping them in position on the shaft. When you pull the trigger this sleeve is withdrawn, the balls move outwards and the shaft is released and then another smaller diameter sleeve (part 415) moves to trap the balls so that they do not fall out of the gun. Original versions of the "Drago" looked like the diagram, later models had a plastic shroud covering the muzzle to give it a more streamlined appearance.

An ambitious design, but it is much simpler to have different guns for use under certain conditions rather than one gun that does "everything" and involves some compromises. Notches in the front end of the shaft weaken it in a critical area and in the case of the "Sagittario" there were three of them. I expect that a 10 mm diameter shaft used in the "Sagittario" was to maintain some thickness in the shaft where the annular notches were located. Each notch would have had a tapered front section to allow the shaft to push further into the gun and move the spear up a notch as when pushed from the front the balls move outwards, but not when they are pushed from the rear, unless the trigger is pulled.

Much later I rejigged the patent's muzzle diagram to show how the three ball sear system works, so to complete that part of the story here it is.

If you want to see an actual "Drago" in pieces there is one opened up here with an analysis of the components: Technisub "Drago" pneumatic speargun | DeeperBlue.com Forums

Unfortunately no sign of a "Sagittario" yet to pull apart and explore its design in detail!

I chanced on another diagram for the "Sagittario" gun which shows the notched spears.

Quote from LunkerBuster

Very cool info Pete. Thanks for sharing

My pleasure to do it, but thanks for the appreciation! Unfortunately these guns must be rare as hen's teeth as even after 2,000 plus viewings of this thread not a peep out of anyone about locating an example of this quirky gun.