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Old 06-24-2016, 07:09 PM   #1
stillkotd
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50cm pneumatic vs band video

OK... so this guy clearly knows NOTHING about spearguns. But he shoots two 50cm guns into ballistic gel, and the result is pretty amazing. So just in case anyone wants to argue that a short band gun is more powerful than a pneumatic, you could show them this.

https://youtu.be/FqPyBpuPb9E

Last edited by stillkotd; 06-25-2016 at 09:08 AM. Reason: Edited for clarity.
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Old 06-24-2016, 07:14 PM   #2
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

I looked up the specs for 200 pumps on the Cressi SL. He fires it charged to about 20bar/19.7atm/290psi.
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Old 06-25-2016, 03:27 AM   #3
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

Haha, yeah - the dude knows nothing and perpetuates the myth that pneumatics loose air from shooting. Let's get that out of the way: THEY DON'T. (Unless they have a leak).

That said, I do think you made a typo saying singled banded guns under 100cm are more powerful than pneumatics. They are obviously way less powerful. I would say in any length a single band gun will struggle to beat a similarly sized airgun.

Also, if you make the test more of an apples to apples one, which people rarely do, and actually match a pneumatic and a bandgun on the length of the spear, the pneumatic will come out ahead even more. A 70cm bandgun shoots an app. 20cm shorter spear than a 70cm bandgun and it is way smaller, too. So, I would argue that a 70cm bandgun should be held up against a 90cm airgun...;-).

Anyways, I am, as is pretty obvious, very much a pneumatic shooter;-).
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Old 06-25-2016, 03:37 AM   #4
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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Originally Posted by Diving Gecko View Post
I do think you made a typo saying singled banded guns under 100cm are more powerful than pneumatics. They are obviously way less powerful.
I may have not been clear. I was trying to say that up to about 100cm, pneumatics are more powerful. I fixed the wording now, I think.

My gun is a 100cm Salvimar Predathor, by the way. Love pneumatics.

Last edited by stillkotd; 06-25-2016 at 09:09 AM.
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Old 06-26-2016, 12:22 AM   #5
Diving Gecko
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

Ah, sorry, I re-read your message and yeah, not a typo. I get it now, haha.

Yup, I love air, too. Have pimped all my guns with carbon fiber tanks and vac muzzles and even just finished a custom Mares Mirage 125. That gun only ever came in 100cm as it largest size. Have a Mirage 80, a Sten 70, a Seac Hunter 70 and a One Air 120. I only ever owned one, second hand Omer T20 (?) bandgun but now, it's in a friend's summer cottage and prolly hasn't speared a fish in years, haha.
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Old 06-26-2016, 05:07 AM   #6
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

For sure an air gun will be superior at those very small sizes ... there just is no room for a rubber band to contract properly. For longer guns I think that things are reversed. An air gun carries a lot of luggage with it at the back of the shaft ... this will quickly slow things down once you reach over one wrap of line. Another thing I worry about with air guns is how they perform at different depths. Does it shoot the same at the surface than say at 60 feet ... I am thinking that the compressed air has less compression at depth? I guess a regulator can adjust for that. Also what is the vaccum thing or mamba (or something like that) that is suppose to dramatically improve performance.

By the way ... I also thought that air guns lost some air every time you shoot it !!! Thanks for the information that it doesn't. I see the same thing with Air Conditioning compressors where people think that adding Freon gas is part of the maintenance ... of course it is not and if you need to add Freon gas to an AC unit or even a refrigerator, you need to fix the leak and not just add gas.
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Old 06-26-2016, 05:37 AM   #7
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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Originally Posted by spearq8 View Post
For sure an air gun will be superior at those very small sizes ... there just is no room for a rubber band to contract properly. For longer guns I think that things are reversed. An air gun carries a lot of luggage with it at the back of the shaft ... this will quickly slow things down once you reach over one wrap of line. Another thing I worry about with air guns is how they perform at different depths. Does it shoot the same at the surface than say at 60 feet ... I am thinking that the compressed air has less compression at depth? I guess a regulator can adjust for that. Also what is the vaccum thing or mamba (or something like that) that is suppose to dramatically improve performance.

By the way ... I also thought that air guns lost some air every time you shoot it !!! Thanks for the information that it doesn't. I see the same thing with Air Conditioning compressors where people think that adding Freon gas is part of the maintenance ... of course it is not and if you need to add Freon gas to an AC unit or even a refrigerator, you need to fix the leak and not just add gas.
I would think you loose 1bar per ten meters, not much of an issue when you are at anywhere from 18-25 bar or more in preload.

About the stuff on the back of the shaft. A lot of work is happening now on making tiny sliders in stainless and titanium. I would say the drag now should be very comparable to 2-3 shark fins. Can't be much more.
Have a look here:
https://forums.deeperblue.com/thread...45#post-957923

My personal, uneducated guess is that a vac muzzled airgun with a good slider should be very competitive at least up until 120 sizes. Again, that actually only corresponds to a 90-100cm bandgun if we compare the shaft lengths. Which, as mentioned above, I think is the right thing to do.
I would be very surprised if any 90-100 cm traditional bandgun can outshoot a vac muzzled 120 airgun.
Someone needs to test that

Last edited by Diving Gecko; 06-26-2016 at 06:19 AM.
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Old 06-26-2016, 06:00 AM   #8
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

OK, so about the vacuum muzzle.
Let's start the other way around with a non-vacuum muzzled gun, aka. a traditional airgun.
When loading a traditional pneumatic, water will enter the shooting barrel and fill the void between the shaft and the inner walls of the barrel. This water will obviously need to be expelled during the shot and this robs the gun of energy. People have tried different mods to help alleviate this loss in power. Most basic is to make the port holes in the muzzle bigger.

Later on, manufacturers introduced an 11mm ID shooting barrel (vs. the traditional 13mm ID). This helped reduce the loss of power simply because the space between shaft and barrel wall is smaller so there is room for less water. (11mm guns have to be loaded with higher pressures to have the same level of power because of the smaller area of their pistons. Not really an issue, though, as they are built for it).

But the real solution to the power-loss issue is to make sure no water enters the barrel in the first place. So, a vacuum muzzle is basically just a seal built into the muzzle that seals around the shaft. It is called a vacuum muzzle from the slight vacuum that will build in the shooting barrel as you load and move the piston from the muzzle end to the sear.

It is believed to increase the power by 15-20%, maybe more depending on who you read, and will give a quieter shot, too. You can decide to cash in on the whole power increase or split the difference and get a bit of power increase but at the same time lower the pre-load so that the gun becomes easier to load.
(I think most air spearos pre-load the gun to the max that they can load it against.)

Mamba was on of the first commercially available after market vac muzzles. Now, there are many more: Vuoto by Salvimar, X-power by STC, Seatec makes one, LGSub makes one, too. And then there are made to order beautiful ones from Tomba (Croatian son and dad team) and UBL (Ukrainian mad titanium-loving genius based in Cyprus) - these are very competitive on price, too. They all have design differences but I don't think there is any real-world differences in their performance.
I think, as you rightly point out, a lot can be gained from better designed sliders and people are doing exactly that these days.

Hope that made sense:-)

Majd, if you are curious about the basic performance of this system, the easiest and best bang for the buck way into it is buying a Salvimar Predathor Vuoto. That gun comes with the vac muzzle already.
The loading can freak some band guys out, though. Basically, you pull the spear into the gun and all the while, until you reach the sear, the gun is basically wanting to shoot. So, keep you gun away from your face when you do this...;-)

Last edited by Diving Gecko; 06-26-2016 at 06:11 AM.
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Old 06-26-2016, 10:05 AM   #9
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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Originally Posted by Diving Gecko View Post
OK, so about the vacuum muzzle.
Let's start the other way around with a non-vacuum muzzled gun, aka. a traditional airgun.
When loading a traditional pneumatic, water will enter the shooting barrel and fill the void between the shaft and the inner walls of the barrel. This water will obviously need to be expelled during the shot and this robs the gun of energy. People have tried different mods to help alleviate this loss in power. Most basic is to make the port holes in the muzzle bigger.

Later on, manufacturers introduced an 11mm ID shooting barrel (vs. the traditional 13mm ID). This helped reduce the loss of power simply because the space between shaft and barrel wall is smaller so there is room for less water. (11mm guns have to be loaded with higher pressures to have the same level of power because of the smaller area of their pistons. Not really an issue, though, as they are built for it).

But the real solution to the power-loss issue is to make sure no water enters the barrel in the first place. So, a vacuum muzzle is basically just a seal built into the muzzle that seals around the shaft. It is called a vacuum muzzle from the slight vacuum that will build in the shooting barrel as you load and move the piston from the muzzle end to the sear.

It is believed to increase the power by 15-20%, maybe more depending on who you read, and will give a quieter shot, too. You can decide to cash in on the whole power increase or split the difference and get a bit of power increase but at the same time lower the pre-load so that the gun becomes easier to load.
(I think most air spearos pre-load the gun to the max that they can load it against.)

Mamba was on of the first commercially available after market vac muzzles. Now, there are many more: Vuoto by Salvimar, X-power by STC, Seatec makes one, LGSub makes one, too. And then there are made to order beautiful ones from Tomba (Croatian son and dad team) and UBL (Ukrainian mad titanium-loving genius based in Cyprus) - these are very competitive on price, too. They all have design differences but I don't think there is any real-world differences in their performance.
I think, as you rightly point out, a lot can be gained from better designed sliders and people are doing exactly that these days.

Hope that made sense:-)

Majd, if you are curious about the basic performance of this system, the easiest and best bang for the buck way into it is buying a Salvimar Predathor Vuoto. That gun comes with the vac muzzle already.
The loading can freak some band guys out, though. Basically, you pull the spear into the gun and all the while, until you reach the sear, the gun is basically wanting to shoot. So, keep you gun away from your face when you do this...;-)
I tried a friends Sporasub one air 110 and was so impressed I will be buying one for myself I think it has the STC muzzle? I had aimed at a piece of kelp and when pulling the spear back up found a stoned fish on the end! Hadn't seen it, must have been behind the kelp 6 or so metres away.
I noticed the line was attached through a hole in the shaft behind the flopper, no slider.
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Old 06-26-2016, 10:56 AM   #10
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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I tried a friends Sporasub one air 110 and was so impressed I will be buying one for myself I think it has the STC muzzle? I had aimed at a piece of kelp and when pulling the spear back up found a stoned fish on the end! Hadn't seen it, must have been behind the kelp 6 or so metres away.
I noticed the line was attached through a hole in the shaft behind the flopper, no slider.
Yup, the One Air has a slightly modified system designed by STC. Good to know that it is modified as it doesn't share parts with the regular STC system.
It is indeed what is called a naked shaft or freeshaft (not to be confused with the freeshafts used by some scuba commercial hunters with no shooting line at all.). I actually like to just call them front-tied shafts as there is less confusion that way.

The One Air is likely the pneumatic in production with the lowest recoil as it is a pretty beefy gun. I am sure you already noticed the quiet, swoosh-like and buttery smooth shot from that gun, right?

I have a front-tied mono on my Seac Hunter 90, too. The Sten and the two Mirages are with slider setups. I am still not sure which I like the best. There are arguments for both systems and the jury is still out.

One would think, that the front-tied spears lacking a slider would have less drag, but at least one test points to it being very equal. Supposedly, the added length of mono running almost the full length of the spear equates to a slider in drag. Some say the front-tied mono is less precise also, but I have taken and landed very long shots on my One Air 120.
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Old 06-26-2016, 10:57 AM   #11
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

A few years back I bought a small old pneumatic (50cm, I think) with a thick shaft from someone in CA. Used it several years (without having to recharge it once) at the jetties to shoot sheepshead and mangroves when the water was clear. Didn't have to recharge it once. I did not like using it in murky water as it seemed to hit harder and had more range than the 40in 2 band aluminum gun I had at the time. I loved the accuracy and how the short spear just went straight through those fish
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Old 06-26-2016, 11:08 AM   #12
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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Originally Posted by Diving Gecko View Post

The One Air is likely the pneumatic in production with the lowest recoil as it is a pretty beefy gun. I am sure you already noticed the quiet, swoosh-like and buttery smooth shot from that gun, right?

.
Yes it had virtually no recoil, and a very nice trigger, felt similar to the trigger on a band gun. Another pneumatic I tried was I think a salvimar vouto which had a much stiffer trigger, I thought I had the safety on at first.
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Old 06-26-2016, 11:40 AM   #13
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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Yes it had virtually no recoil, and a very nice trigger, felt similar to the trigger on a band gun. Another pneumatic I tried was I think a salvimar vouto which had a much stiffer trigger, I thought I had the safety on at first.
Yeah, Salvimar is a tad old school on the triggers, I think. Air pressure, geometry, friction and trigger pin thickness decide the trigger pull and while most manufacturers have gone to 1.5mm trigger pins, even Salvimar's newest Predathor guns have 2mm triggers (still better than than the older standard of 3 mm). Let's say the pressure, friction and geometry between brands were the same, a 1.5 trigger pin at 25 bar would have a pull of 451gf. A 2mm trigger at the same pressure would be close to double at 800gf.

As a side note, I have custom triggers in my Mirage guns @1.4mm which was a much needed modification as that gun can run higher pressures than most traditional guns.

A One Air gun has a 1.5mm trigger and I really like the handle and the feel of the trigger, too.
Actually, the One Air and Airbalete handles are not the most efficient handles on an airgun as the shooting barrel stops in front of the handle. On a traditional design the shooting barrel runs the whole length of the handle and thus gives you a gun with more barrel length for the same overall length, but the One Air is still a somehow a very good gun;-)

Last edited by Diving Gecko; 06-28-2016 at 01:01 AM.
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Old 06-26-2016, 01:31 PM   #14
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

I might get a Sporasub Air One gun to test. Everything Sporasub does I like ... hopefully Omer has still kept quality up with Sporasub. My first 3 spearguns were all air guns ... but man that was too many years ago. I do remember having some problems loading the guns and would have to go to the beach to load it. But I was much shorter then and now shouldn't be a problem.

Still ... will power be affected with an air gun as you dive to say 60 feet? It would make no sense to test it in the pool at 5 feet and then find out that at hunting depths things are totally different.
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Old 06-26-2016, 11:52 PM   #15
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Re: 50cm pneumatic vs band video

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I might get a Sporasub Air One gun to test. Everything Sporasub does I like ... hopefully Omer has still kept quality up with Sporasub. My first 3 spearguns were all air guns ... but man that was too many years ago. I do remember having some problems loading the guns and would have to go to the beach to load it. But I was much shorter then and now shouldn't be a problem.

Still ... will power be affected with an air gun as you dive to say 60 feet? It would make no sense to test it in the pool at 5 feet and then find out that at hunting depths things are totally different.
Again, personally, I would think you loose 1 bar of compression per 10m of depth. But a One Air will be loaded with 25-30 bar, so it would be in the range of about a 10% loss.

The One Air share its handle with the Airbalete, which is a nice gun, too - but it didn't come with a vac muzzle but an aftermarket one can be fitted. Some find the Airbalete hard to aim because of the tank shape, though. But I think it is for people who like to aim down the side of the gun - which is doable on many pneumatics.
Come to think about it, most of the parts in the One Air except the tank and the muzzle are shared with the Airbalete which is an earlier gun from Omer. And the handle is very much a Cayman handle for pneumatics.

Omer should have their own vac muzzled gun now, I think using the Airbalete/One Air handle.

Again, that handle, though nice and high set, actually robs the gun of a lot of barrel length. You can think of it as definitely not having a reverse trigger.

I like my One Air, but I don't actually find it super sophisticated in its build quality. Well, some things are nice but some are a bit rudimentary. As said, the handle is nice and the bulkhead where it connects to the front part of the gun is well thought out. But eg. the outer tank on the One Air is so, so put together. The front and rear has these sleeves that wrap slightly around the tank itself and it is a very minor detail but I always felt it was an easy way out. It would just have been nicer had it been flush. No impact on the performance at all and though it would seem to mess ever so slightly with the sight line, I am not sure it does in real world use. Just one of those things...

The tank on a One Air has three chambers but the two outer ones are actually just filled with sealant and don't add to the total reservoir volume, so though it looks like the tank is bigger, it is not in terms of compression ratio or air reservoir size. But it does add bulk do the gun, which is still nicely balanced as far as I recall.
I suspect you might have liked the idea about its zero recoil, but I haven't found recoil to be much of an issue on my other guns. I'll try to find some numbers for you in terms of their weight.

I would have shipped my One Air to you for testing, but it's not with me but stored in a different country.

If you are looking for the most pimped factory made gun, then look into the LG Revolution. That's a very interesting gun, too. Personally, I think they could have pushed it even more but it does have a higher set handle than most traditional guns and still the barrel runs the full length of the tank. I have never shot this gun but I am not so sure of the balance in the shorter sizes as I have seen a few pics of people adding buoyancy to them. If that's really needed on a brand new design, then someone messed up. But as said, I haven't fully verified this and it shouldn't be an issue on a longer gun. This gun uses a slider system, though.

Last edited by Diving Gecko; 06-27-2016 at 12:17 AM.
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