LG Manilu Revolution pneumovacuum speargun

  • Note that a step was later incorporated into the gun body for the revised grip handle to butt up against, as otherwise the two transverse fixing pins were all that held the handle on the gun as it recoiled backwards with the shot. Now the step in the gun body fully indexes the handle, which is snugged up into the gun body, rather than simply cupping it as the handle did before.

    The grip handle is machined out of plastic rather than being molded.


  • The LG Manilu "Revolution" has more metal in its rear end than the usual Italian rear handle pneumatic guns which are all descendants of the plastic ended 1967 Mares "Sten", except for the Omer and Sporasub "Airbalete" style detachable rear handle guns.

    However the LG gun floats horizontally at the surface with the top of the gun just breaking through it, so whatever weight is in the rear end balances out with the muzzle end and the gun body has a gradually tapered conical shape running both forwards and rearwards from the larger diameter mid-section of the gun body.







    loader click (gun is seen floating horizontally here)


  • Here I attempt to find the location of the trigger pivot pin and the position of the sear tooth. As far as I know there are no published layout drawings for the LG Manilu "Revolution" pneumovacuum spearguns, so one has to make an informed guess. Note that this is the earlier form of the LG pneumovacuum speargun grip handle, there being no indexing step to butt the handle frame against.


  • Trigger looks flimsy. Do you think it outperforms the conventional production pneumatic spearguns?


    On a side note, I dealt with the owner of LGSub Roberto Gianluca, I will not do business with him again. He talks a big game, but if you have a problem with the LGSub stuff forget about him acknowledging and fixing it.

  • There are a number of pneumatic spearguns with side mounted line releases now, the Mares "Cyrano Evo" being one of the first as was the Omer "Airbalete". They could suffer synchronization problems when the spear flew out of the gun before the line release lever had been fully freed which resulted in the latter being broken off. Another problem was the line release lever could hold the trigger partially depressed if the lever had not been swung back to the line holding position before attempting to muzzle load the gun. This often resulted in misfires with the gun shooting almost the instant after it had been cocked. The Salvimar "Predathor" is another sided mounted line release gun. No doubt LG claim their gun to be the best (it is an expensive gun), but as far as I know it has not been put to the test. Different guns suit different people, so which is "the best" can be rather subjective.

  • Trigger looks flimsy. Do you think it outperforms the conventional production pneumatic spearguns?


    On a side note, I dealt with the owner of LGSub Roberto Gianluca, I will not do business with him again. He talks a big game, but if you have a problem with the LGSub stuff forget about him acknowledging and fixing it.

    The LG Manilu Revolution gun's trigger swings down and back on a more pronounced arc as the trigger pivot pin is located further back than usual, however a short actuating stroke may minimize any excessive downward component. Usually triggers swing on a pivot pin located directly above the part on the trigger that you pull against, your pull effort then being more or less at a tangent to the arc. You can see this difference in trigger arcs as per the diagram at post #5.

  • Well although I do not really want, or need one of these, I purchased a near new one secondhand on eBay, a 62 cm which will be OK as the ends of the gun are what I am most interested in checking out. The gun floats butt down in a tub with the handle sitting on the bottom of the tub and right now I don't have anything deeper to sink it in, so it may or may not float after the shot in this size. Bigger ones surely do as there is a longer run of tank to provide buoyancy to the gun. First impression is the quality is excellent, but milling everything, including the plastic grip handle from stock, is needlessly expensive to do and makes the Manilu "Revolution" very expensive to buy. Especially when it is a single power gun, even in the longer sizes than this small version.

  • Here is an innovative “glow sight” on the muzzle end of the LG-Sub Manilu “Revolution” gun. A transparent red plastic tube picks up ambient light and illuminates the red dot which you see looking along from the rear end of the gun.



    However the idea is not without precedent as it has been discussed elsewhere, but the LG-Sub gun is the first production gun with it as far as I know.

  • Like many of us here I read all the material on the LG-Sub website when the Manilu “Revolution” guns first appeared, but had not revisited it for over a year. On just reading it now I find it considerably changed and revealing on-line what I had been wanting to find out by either buying a gun, or preferably waiting for someone else to do so.


    The LG-Sub Manilu "Revolution" is a Mamba type pneumovacuum gun as when I picked up the spear shaft the line side seemed rather sticky, so I lightly greased the shaft and then it moved much better, but I then realized that the line slide must contain a seal. There is another seal in the muzzle to bear on the outside of the line slide which is made of Delrin by machining plastic rod. Examining the gun closely I see that all the gun’s plastic parts, including the reel, bear no mold parting lines because the Italians have machined each and every part from solid plastic stock!


    Usually when you make plastic speargun parts you machine a highly expensive injection molding die once, maybe twice if you find that you have to change the die for some technical reason or a molding requirement. This mold manufacturing expense is your "set up" cost and after that and with the molding conditions (temperature and pressure) all sorted the parts are pumped out every time the injection molding die opens.


    On the Manilu "Revolution” you cut them all out with multi-axis milling machines, fabricating every part, including the removable plastic delrin cover on the spear tip! AND that makes for a very, very expensive speargun. Why do it? Well you can have surface detail which would not make parts easy to extract from a mold as the parts would foul, otherwise necessitating mold inserts that withdraw in a particular order during mold cycling to release them, but is that extra detailing really worth it? Personally I have my doubts, but there is no questioning the quality of those parts. As for the metal components I assume the same applies, but that awaits opening the gun up.

  • Happy New Year to you too Don and to all our colleagues on Speardiver/Spearfishing World.

    As for the LG-Sub Manilu "Revolution" it is a nice looking gun, but somewhat quirky in its construction and that is what you are paying for which makes it different to everything else. In my view a pneumatic speargun is a launching tube which directs a spear at a fish that I want to eat and secures it, provided the gun does that consistently with my brain in instinctive "auto shoot" mode as the firing solutions appear as fish travel and firing lines converge then I am happy. However if the gun is too expensive and there are other tools for the job at more modest prices that fit your hand and can be swung around just as well and are smooth shooters then it is hard to justify spending up big on what may be an orphan in terms of spare parts.

  • No safety on the Manilu "Revolution” which could be a problem if in the event of an accident investigators come looking for one. For those who scoff at such things Jay Riffe a few years ago stated that were it not for the safety on his gun it would have cost him his business when a diver accidentally shot his instructor in the back thereby paralyzing him. The fault was with the diver for not monitoring his gun, but when big dollars are at stake lawyers come looking for whoever has the deepest pockets to both pay themselves and the victim’s damages which could run into millions.

  • The Manilu "Revolution" spear is an integral tip tricut of 6.5 mm diameter for this 62 cm gun, something that I was not expecting as I thought that it would be at least 7.0 mm. That makes it the skinniest shaft that I own and makes me wonder what other shaft sizes are on offer. The guns have a 12 mm ID inner barrel, but apparently it was earlier 11 mm ID and then the bore was increased. If you look at early photos of the silvery body gun then it appears somewhat slimmer with a gradual curving taper running virtually from the mid-point of the tank to each end, but now the guns do not look so narrow gutted and it makes me think that they have been fattened up in the last year or so. The 62 cm gun only has a taper on the nose end which goes from 40 mm OD to 30 mm OD at the muzzle, running back to the rear handle it stays at 40 mm OD where the rear bulkhead that forms the top of the rear handle then tapers very quickly to the back end of the gun.


  • Found this description on

    http://www.spearfishing.de/pro…UB-Manilu-Revolution.html

    Airgun LGSUB Manilu Revolution

    • The Manilú Revolution is made in LG Sub workshop starting from solid material rods machined with 5-axis CNC tools. Only this way, by maintaining the highest standard on tolerances, LG Sub is able to guarantee the absolutely best performances, reliability and overall quality.

    • The speargun Manilu Revolution is delivered complete of vacuum head LG, Sigalsub spear and LGTWIST Reel!!

    • Anatomic grip made by carving a solid block of white Delrin by CNC, is composed by two parts that can be splitted easily for inspection. The grip has been carved also inside. The front of the grip is ready to receive the exceptional LG reel that comes in the package.

    • In solid aluminium Anticorodal 6060 (hard-anodized @ 15 micron), has been sloped laterally and backwards to achieve the best possible line of sight. The preload valve on the back of the breech is of extra-short profile and the thread is compatible with traditional pumps or adapters.

    • The mechanism is "reverse" type and allow 35mm extra of piston run that, together with the extra-short piston become 40mm extra. The lock is made in hard steel tempered in LG at 57 HRC. The result is an exceptional sensibility with minimum pressure on the trigger. The line release is lateral to the breech.

    • Trigger: made like precision shooting guns it allow a fine tuning from 65 to 75 mm of interaxis so to fit all hands and especially thick gloves. The trigger it's self is angled right or left to fit the shooter phalange position to achieve maximum comfort and precision.

    • Tube: Made in Anticorodal 6060 cold formed (not pressed) to maintain the best possible molecular structure of the metal. This tube has a conical shape calculated to maintain the best ratio of compression and has a diameter starting from 40mm in the back and ending to 28mm in the front. This allow also an exceptional maneuvrability in the water.

    • Balancing: each speargun is balanced in the water with it's own spear (a Tahitian spear) to get the best precision performances in all length and situations.

    • The barrel is 12mm internal and reduced to 16mm externally. The stability also under heavy loads is guaranteed by an internal centering support CNC made and placed between the barrel and the external tube.

    • Piston: Made from a full rod (not molded) it is calibrated for each barrel with a tolerance of 1/100 of mm and made with a self-lubricating surface that, together with the single gasket, guarantee the highest speed and fluidity in the shot.

    • Inner head: made also in CNC is extremely light and include the line supports and is ready for the fluorescent beads that help aiming in fast shooting situations.

    • Vacuum head: Even if it is made from a full aluminium block in CNC this part is only 20g in weight! A real record!! This head does not work as the traditional vacuum heads available on the market but it work with a special line-slider that is used as primary seal and that is set into the secondary seal of the head: the result is an extremely robust system, very resilient and that allow to replace the thickness of the spear without the need of tools or to open the head itself.


    My comments

    The vacuum muzzle is basically a revamp of the "Mamba" system where the line slide or slider carries the shaft seal and the muzzle has a seal that seals on the slider. Just by pushing on it the slider seems a bit tight on the shaft, but really that is best judged when wet. I put grease on the shaft so as not to damage the "O" ring, but have no idea what the original owner did with it. He tried to unscrew the muzzle and badly marked the anodizing without getting it to budge, however I have a very expensive chuck type tool with three flat jaws that should undo it, but I have to let all the air out first.

  • This is the vacuum barrel sealing system used by LG-Sub which consists of a slider machined from Delrin that contains a seal that runs directly on the spear shaft and a sealing ring installed in the alloy muzzle that the body of the slider seals on. The main advance is that these parts are very compact unlike earlier attempts to do the same thing, the difference being in the very accurate machining used to create the parts. The slider is also available in alloy instead of the plastic version shown here.


  • I found this image of an LG-Sub muzzle and nose cone that looks like it may be a replacement for other pneumatic gun front bulkhead components as it seems larger than the ones used on their own guns. The LG-Sub guns have 40 mm OD tanks that are necked down to 28 mm OD in a tapered nose end on their Manilu "Revolution" guns, however this example may be for a 40 mm OD tank front end as the nose cone, which is a machined component rather than molded, has a long taper section. Depending on the actual dimensions of the gun being converted to use this replacement nose cone and muzzle the gun's tank may need to be shortened by lopping a few inches off.


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