Salvimar Voodoo V-Pro and Vuoto speargun review

  • Hey family,


    Recently I purchased 2 Salvimar guns. I got them for a very good price and when it was all said and done I paid 422$ (inlcuding international shipping) for both guns. So it came out to ~210 US a piece. This review will be on the V-Pro 105. The vuoto I'll review later.


    My initial thoughts: That this would be a sweet gun. Had some features like the rail being segmented towards the muzzle for easy swinging, handle looked super comfortable, a usable safety, and an included reel, plus the shaft seemed to be pretty innovative. Although right from the get go I didn't like the idea of the metal wishbones, if they performed ok I could handle it. Upon further investigation, I was sorely mistaken.


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    The first thing I did was take it get some reel line. The next morning I made the mistake of going out with this gun without pool testing first. The first time I tried to load the gun the metal wishbone slipped off the Torsion 2 shaft (90 degree notched sharkfin... WTF were they thinking!) luckily it didn't buzz me too bad. The next thing(s) occurred to me after i was able to get one of the two, 14mm bands to notch on the closest notch to me. I was going to have to pull the other band along that band, and hopefully not knock it loose, breaking a finger or something. It was a terrifying experience. I notched the second band to the rest fin, and went to pull it down to the other rear notch. IT WOULDN'T FIT. just plain and simple, it wouldn't fit. Upon looking at their catalog, it looks like they photoshopped the two bands pulled all the way back... one of the bands is just gone. The demo picture on the other side shows one band on rest, the other all the way back. I guess they couldn't get it to fit either....


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    So i notch up the rest notch and furthest back, use the conventional muzzle modification they used, and dive down the 50 or so feet to the bottom. Where I am met by the stupidest mutton. At about 7 feet from me, just giving me its broad side all day. I point, aim, and fire. WHOOOOOOO! the spear does a BARREL ROLL (like in the movie wanted) around the mutton. I was very upset and frustrated. I later learned it was the order in which you load the bands(have to do rest/upper notch first with this muzzle), so I can't hold that against it too much.


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    I ended up taking it to Dan later that night. He was really awesome about everything. We tossed the factory bands/wishbones and set it up with two of Dan's 14mm bands set to 300% with Dyneema wishbones. He also hooked it up with green inserts :D



    I also ended up getting a 6.5 carbon steel shaft. Needless to say it looks pretty badass at this point.


    I was able to get in the pool this afternoon to test fire it a couple times. The bands Sat nicely in the rear notches. My fear of losing fingers while loading has dissipated completely, which is really nice. The gun has some kick(compared to the pneumatic, but that's to be expected), shoots nice and fast , and above all straight. I loosened the tensioner on the reel and when fired pulled about 6', shaft and mono included from muzzle to tip 19'. Pretty darn snappy.
    Overall the handle is fantastic, mech seems tight, safety is really nice. Barrel seems solid. the gun is useless without new bands and shaft though. Without Dan's help I'd be in a bad place.


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    i was able to have my roomie take a 1/8th slow mo vid of me firing the new setup. The shaft is hard to follow, but even in slow mo it's pretty quick.


    http://vid865.photobucket.com/…22_134021_zps14cbd25d.mp4


    Salvimar clearly has some issues when it comes to delivering practical, safe band guns right from the factory. I even did some research; they used to provide true sharkfin and pin style shafts! If you're going to use the 90 degree wire sharkfins, at least pair it with Dyneema wishbones! It just didn't make a lot of sense... Or at least slant the notches to provide resistance from slipping!


    With the above modifications I'm really happy with the gun. :)

    Edited once, last by Liquid ().

  • Sweet looking gun. I like the streamlined handle and the color choice. Nice review too. You did well upgrading it and getting rid of those "finger whackers" . Post some impaled fish when you put her on good use.

    I'm a Speardiver, not a freediver

  • Some of you know I have special feelings for Salvimar from way back http://spearfishing.world/fins…-foot-pockets-review.html. I've seen the Voodoo speargun before and it crystallized in my mind that Salvimar is a company that makes gear to look unique, with complete disregard for functionality. I really can't fathom it, if I had those resources to make new gear possible I'd work miracles.


    Anyways back to the Voodoo gun and to clarify some points. The bands come with the finger remover type metal wishbones. To make it worse the loading tabs on the shaft are made of smooth wire with the back rise being perpendicular to shaft. This makes it very easy for the even metal wishbones to slip off, and Spectra wishbones impossible to use.



    Even if the metal wishbones could be made to sit securely on the tabs, they are not articulated, so the bands don't stack on the tube, rather they're spread out wide increasing the profile of the gun making it inconvenient to carry.


    The special Salvimar flopper requires an O-ring to keep it closed. After every shot the O-ring ends up somewhere down the spear or even on the shooting line. It's a PITA to have to work it back up to the flopper and into position. After a few shots the tendency is to lose it altogether. Once the O-ring is gone the flopper will open and due to its design will not close from the momentum of the shaft leaving the gun, thereby severely affecting the trajectory of the shaft. I would never use a shaft with this kind of flopper.



    Bottom line is shaft and bands go into the scrap bucket so expect to replace them if you buy this gun.


    The line routing on the Voodoo muzzle is absurd/complicated, I don't even want to get into it. Again change just for the sake of change. The muzzle has a "special" shape that does stack the bands neatly if you load them in the right order. But in reality bands will stack correctly with any decent muzzle.


    The broken up track profile really makes me laugh.



    Even if it were to have some miniscule beneficial effect on tracking, which is what the marketing claims and I seriously doubt, when the bands are stretched they completely cover this area :dumb:



    The Voodoo handle is comfortable :@


    The reel is dinky.


    A few days after getting the Salvimar Vuoto pneumatic speargun, Liquid needed a new shooting line slider as the original one broke after a only a few practice shots. I've never seen any other slider do that. On close inspection the plastic material looked to be too soft for this application, and the overall design of the slider not robust enough. We replaced it with a conventional slider and spring for easy shooting line routing, as the shaft came without a spring and the gun without a muzzle bungee.


    The Vuoto is supposed to have a vacuum/dry barrel system. All I saw was a little flat O-ring inside the muzzle. I don't believe this gun has true dry barrel functionality.


  • The flopper concept was interesting. They just didn't ring out some details to make it practical. Good Call out on that one Dan.


    There are some changes they could make, let see if they figure it out. On other hand they might have made boxes of parts and not interesting in modifications.

  • The Salvimar "Vuoto Air" has a rubber seal or vacuum cuff shaped like a hat installed in the muzzle, the "brim" of this hat being clamped between the front and rear sections of the muzzle. The top of this hat carries an opening with a sealing lip that runs on the spear's cylindrical surface. Main problem is the sealing lip has to avoid the shaft stop diameter at the tail end catching on it as the tail exits the muzzle. As there is some water inside the muzzle before you insert the spear, the idea is that this water helps push the sealing lip open just as the step at the shaft diameter change hits the lip.

  • At first glance that drawing may give the impression the muzzle is quite complex. In reality the only thing different about it from a conventional pneumatic muzzle is the part "vacuum seal" which the rubber washer I mentioned. The only other thing is the screw-on cap that keeps it in place, it unscrews by hand. Pete, do you believe this makes the Vuoto a dry barrel pneumatic? I doubt it.

  • I have yet to actually sea test the vuoto, as I've really fallen in love with my modified(thanks again Dan) V-pro. Once evil gets the boat back up and running I'll take it out. It does shoot fast. I have some slow mo footage shooting it. I'll post it when I get a chance.

  • It is more than a rubber washer. The actual dynamic sealing lip is internally moulded at the entrance to what is basically a short rubber tube which in turn is terminated in the broad rubber flange at the rear end. This rubber vacuum cuff seals on the thin inner metal rim of the muzzle, hence it is basically a cap in terms of how it seals to the muzzle by being a press fit on that inner rim. The front metal part of the muzzle holds the cuff in place during the shot, otherwise it would pull off. I have a Russian "Taimen" that is very similar, but there the clamping of the rear flange of the vacuum cuff creates the seal in the muzzle body as there is no inner rim in the "Taimen" muzzle. While the sealing lip holds up the inner barrel develops a vacuum when you cock the gun. It is not truly dry as a small amount of water is trapped inside when you first insert the spear tail and the sealing edge takes up. That small amount of water is necessary to lubricate the inner barrel as otherwise friction would burn the piston seals during the shot.


    The system works as the rubber tube part of the cuff allows the sealing lip to stretch circumferentially, whereas an "O" ring doing this job has no ability to stretch. Vacuum barrel guns that use "O" rings for the sealing job in the muzzle use bare tail spears as they have no stop and hence no radial step on the spear tail. An exception is the vacuum barrel systems that place the "O" ring on the spear instead and not in the muzzle, they can use spears with tail stops. A well known system is the "Tomba" that is an aftermarket muzzle/adaptor, there being a number of versions of it over the years.

    Edited 2 times, last by popgun pete: more info ().

  • The "Taimen" plastic grip handle is a clamshell molding which contains a polyurethane flotation element, so there is no way that a tethering point could be anchored on the grip handle butt, however there may be a way to anchor off the rear of the receiver. The "Taimen" shooting line anchors on a carabineer attachment at the muzzle.


  • Here are some rear handle cross-section photos showing how compact the inner workings of the "Taimen" are. It is this lightweight but very strong construction that makes the "Taimen" speargun a good "floater" when usually spearguns of similar dimensions are dedicated "sinkers". A rapidly traversing, elevating and aiming speargun, the "Taimen" enables the quick reflex shooting of targets of opportunity.



  • I have proposed an alloy in-line rigging eyelet for the "Taimen" which screws into the air inlet valve's hand pump thread. Thus if a PV850, PV1000 or PV1200 "Taimen" speargun is used on a very big fish then the gun can be released and a rig line with torpedo float will follow. The "Taimen" handle has no inner bracing strut, hence the butt of the handgrip offers no attachment points.

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