1950s French "Supergun" hidden band rollergun

  • This French rollergun was featured as part of an article on imported spearguns way back in March 1951. The gun was referred to as the "Supergun", but I don't know if that was its actual name or one conjured up by a local distributor of dive equipment. The operating principle is shown in a schematic which is taken from my series of "Basic Rollergun Diagrams". Note that the rubber bands retract back into the metal barrel tube when the gun is discharged and the adjustable position band anchor makes use of a slot in the bottom of the barrel tube to lock it off at various notches or "doglegs" located along the length of the slot.


    I have never seen one of these "Supergun" spearguns, but I expect that the gun was a "sinker" as the barrel tube must have flooded as the bands have to be able to move freely in and out of the barrel tube and off course there is that slot running for some length along the bottom of the barrel tube. Stylistically the grip handle appears to be from a manufacturer that may have also been responsible for the "Doublette", a speargun that was both a spring gun and a band gun in the same underwater weapon.


    From the forward position of the band anchor slots I doubt that this rollergun used any preload, but the same idea is at work that would be taken to more extreme levels in later decades. Here the alternate anchor positions weaken the shot.

  • I have asked a French speargun collector if he has ever seen one, or he may have one himself, so hopefully a photo may turn up of this "Supergun". I suspect that the barrel tube may not be cylindrical as it has to swallow two side-by-side rubber strands which were most likely threaded on both ends for the wishbone ferrule sockets and the band anchor sockets respectively. This gun will have followed on from the 1949 "Hurricane" lever action rollergun which required rollers to make the system of lever supercharging work. In the "Supergun" the rollers are there to lengthen the band draw on the gun which requires wrap around bands of a greater length than usual for a gun of its size. Back in the fifties this would be seen as revolutionary stuff for a market that was only just getting used to band powered guns as being competitors for the once dominant spring guns of the thirties and forties.

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