Posts by popgun pete

Just to complete the SMG story I discovered that the New Zealand company was R.V. Crockett Ltd. They produced some guns from the parts they purchased from Tapmatic Corporation in the USA. The NZ guns seem to be the MKII MAGNUM versions which can use the later more powerful Grey SUB-AMMO and Brown SUB-AMMO with their stronger breeches and longer barrels.

You could make up your own SUB-AMMO if you purchased the SMG plastic sleeves and washers to use with .22 Ramset cartridges.

SUB-AMMO (Instructions)
SUB-AMMO SLEEVES are for use with .22 wadded blanks, Nos. 3 through 6, of the type used in powder actuated tools (manufactured by Ramset Speed Fasteners Company, Remington Arms, etc.)

LOAD-YOUR-OWN SUB-AMMO (only)
The blanks are loaded into the cup of the S.M.G. washer and then into the plastic Sub-Ammo sleeves.
For a permanent, waterproof seal apply a liberal coating of clear epoxy or plastic adhesive to the cartridge just prior to insertion. This bonds the cartridge to the plastic sleeve and prevents the possibility of leakage under pressure on deep dives.

SUB-AMMO GREEN for small fish, reef or cave shooting; SUB-AMMO YELLOW for medium fish at moderate range; SUB-AMMO RED for medium fish up to maximum range. Do not use with fibreglass spear. SUB-AMMO PURPLE for large fish at greatest ranges. Do not use with fibreglass spear.
To protect spear head do not use near rocks.

Maybe old age, nothing lives forever. Shell collectors sure put a lot of pressure on shell populations as everyone wants undamaged specimens and collecting them live makes achieving that aim more likely.

Speargun manufacturers often create a style or look for their guns which they try to retain in the later models throughout the years. "Taimen” in its early days began with a spring gun which shows where the current handle design cues comes from.

Actually over the years the trigger guard has been made much larger for just that reason. Diving in icy lake waters many Russian divers wear gloves or mittens. The last two iterations of the handle have been designed for use with gloves, the one below being the latest.

The grip handle on a "Taimen" is larger than you think, even on the earlier "round hole" trigger finger guard frame handles I could barely get my fingers around it. Getting rid of the thumb rest ridge helped in the next model.

Taimen are working on a store at Aliexpress. It is not fully working yet, but here is the link.

Taimen Store - магазин на AliExpress. Товары со скидками

This gun has also been discussed on another forum, although there seems to be much confusion in the earlier pages as to how it works, but on this page we can see a comment on the gun's cost by a user, Luigi Purreti.

Seawolf velair (novità) - page 7

pescasubapnea.forumfree.it

Il 95 in demoltiplica viene 760€ allestito di tutto, il v3 ( doppia demoltiplica) 840€. The (Velair) 95 in gear ratio is € 760 set up for everything, the v3 (double gear ratio) € 840.

What the v3 version is I don't know. The double gear ratio may mean extra pulleys or a second "pneumatic engine", but the Seawolf-Sub website is not very forthcoming on many details, which is understandable if they are still working on it.

The saddest part is people are being conditioned to think that low cost replacement has become a substitute for quality and durability.

I think it can be down to loss of expertise. Some of the long established brand name Dive companies had long term employees who were right there from the beginning and over the years accumulated a lot of knowledge as they learned from their mistakes and quickly found the right way to do things. They built up a lot of know-how in the organization and never rushed something new into production because they understood bugs needed to be sorted out before you sold anything. Those people have retired or died, their lifetime experience was never written down as if you wanted to know something you always asked them and the tendency was to think these people will be around forever. Taking their previous success for granted the next generation of employees figured it cannot be too hard and underestimated what has been lost. Years ago I was talking with a guy from Cressi-Sub and he said sadly no one in the company knew much about the old days or even their past history as the old-timers were now all gone.

The main problem with Chinese stuff is ignorance and a propensity for cutting corners, they will switch materials or finishes to lower costs with an alternative that they think will do the same job, only problem is some aspect they never thought of is then compromised and that pulls their product down. The plastics they use often have a hard feel, it was especially noticeable on the Omer pneumatic guns, so it was not such a big surprise when they were found to come from Taiwan.

The Chinese know a lot about manufacturing, but not a lot about spearfishing and only learned a bit more when they got the nod to make speargun parts for Mares and Omer. Plastic prongs that bust off, metal items that rust or are too small like line wrap releases on spearguns (all types, not just pneumatic) show that rather than ask the user they will just churn their next new idea out and see what happens in terms of sales. A reaction to this is some Italian companies now make a real feature of made in Italy on their products, stressing that includes manufacture and not just the design. Salvimar was one of the first to do this, but as they evolved from a components supplier to many other brands they realised the importance of doing the actual manufacturing.

The Chinese are bound to lift their game, but a lot depends on whether they think the market is worth pursuing. Their guns are cheap and by copying a proven design they got a foothold in the market, but whether the idea of say buying three of their guns over a period instead of buying one expensive European gun that will last just as long will be attractive to buyers has yet to be proven.

Just checking on eBay and some guns are being sold as a "Mirage Rayzor Enforcer" gun in various lengths. The prices asked are around that of more expensive models with a discount, so they are profitable for the seller who probably paid less than half that. One notable difference is the 8mm hardened spring steel shaft (brass coated then powder coated for extra strength). Now the line slide and stop ring during shots will make short work of that powder coating and the brass will make a nice galvanic battery with the steel of the shaft. That is what happens when you know zip about spearfishing.

ENFORCER PNEUMATIC SPEAR GUN | 70cm | NEW - Multiple Shots and Greater Power | eBay

ENFORCER PNEUMATIC Speargun 70cm. • Multiple shots without re-pressuring. • 8mm hardened spring steel shaft (brass plated then powder coated for extra…

www.ebay.com.au

Land and Sea Sports Australia distribute the Undersee range of spearguns (band guns) and for a period offered these same guns as the Undersee Javelin, although only the name "Land and Sea Sports" appears on the guns. They must have been reasonably popular as they are sold out and no longer listed on the Undersee website.

Found this thread when looking for something else. "Asso" means "Ace" and it is a Seac Sub spearfishing product. These "Asso" clones are made by Hang Fung Industrial in China (Hong Kong) and have been sold under a number of names since with different colour handles such as blue as well as red grips. I remember other grip colours as well, probably green and yellow, but have not seen them in recent times. They bear the name "Aqua Gear" when purchased from the Hong Kong company. Predictably the Chinese cut a few corners by changing the injection moulds to make the guns easier to assemble while simultaneously making some aspects more flimsy. The guns look like an "Asso", but their durability is suspect. The prices are very low at times, out of curiosity I bought a 90 cm Aqua Gear for 60 bucks brand new. Rock bottom price for a rock bottom product. I have never used it, but it has stupidly large sights front and rear which show some ignorance in actually using a speargun.

One innovation was to supply a push dagger in the handle butt on their later models, just why such a knife is considered spearfishing equipment I leave for others to contemplate.

A cheeky shot.

Nice gun. I see there is a thick loop to help drag the wishbone back. C4 orange rubber bands go well with the red and black twill pattern bodywork. The video gives a better view as the gun is rotated and past back and forth to see how the various elements fit together. The grey element forward of the trigger guard is a reel attachment position? It has several notches in it.

Why shoot one when you can shoot two!

Here is a Velair 65 being tested in swimming pool.

When the gun shoots the pulleys under the barrel drive rearwards and haul on the cable which acts as a wishbone to propel the spear. The advantages of a compressed air energy storage system is that it is more efficient than using rubber bands and when used in an Arbalete you can use both hands to cock it, something that you can rarely do with a conventional pneumatic speargun. The overall efficiency of the gun is lowered, but a large diameter piston can be used which is not possible in standard pneumatic guns and thus allows more force to be produced by the available pressure stored in the gun.

The video can be viewed here on the Seawolfsub Facebook page.

https://fb.watch/5XG_OgCdyB/

Some photos of the gun. This one is a Velair 95.

You can see the gun in action here.

Seawolfsub, who make rollerguns and inverted rollerguns, have been developing a pneumatic powered Arbalete. This gun is the "Velair" and instead of a rubber band battery it uses a pneumatic system whereby the cables are pulled by a rod connected to a piston which slides in an airtight barrel connected to a compressed air reservoir. The inverted rollergun cable and sub-pulley system allows the power stroke of the pneumatic drive to be half the length of the wishbone draw on the top deck. This pneumatic system is the reverse of a gas strut as pulling the piston and connecting rod out cocks the gun and the increased pressure with the system then cocked serves to drive the piston and withdraw the rod back into the barrel. Details are unknown, but the following diagram illustrates the operating principle.

Example.