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All About Guns What's your weapon of choice, and why? Discuss the beloved speargun here!

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Old 11-20-2018, 06:59 PM   #16
popgun pete
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

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Originally Posted by doyenofcastle View Post
just have a question maybe not related to that gun quality but shape ,so why speargun made in japan/Australia/USA in square or rectangular cross section shape ?not all but majority choose the stick shape as my previous Ukrainian buddy always describe it ,usually the square shape will have more resistance in maneuvering than other shapes for example oval or round , the beauty of wood come out when we shape it to something with combination of different cuts and levels ,art of shaping the wood made the gun different from the aluminum barrel .
I can only suggest that early guns were produced rather quickly and the emphasis was on making the gun as simple as possible in many cases with not much thought given to the gun's actual appearance, however there were certainly much more rounded guns produced in the early days such as the “Carbine” shoulder stock spearguns.

Such guns produced results as can be seen here with Australian spearfishing great Wally Gibbins and his timber shoulder gun and catch.
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Old 11-20-2018, 07:19 PM   #17
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

As for the hand made "Nakaoka" speargun, we are lucky to have the image shown earlier as every trace of those guns has totally vanished from the Web. What really needs to happen is someone in Japan has to do some research in the seaboard provinces and engage with the older generation who will know of these craft-made underwater weapons as for sure they were made in some quantities as the rollerguns are covered by intellectual property patents. WWII may have taken out the relevant patent records during the numerous bombing raids carried out on the Japanese mainland.
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Old 11-20-2018, 07:25 PM   #18
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

Here are my notes from March 2011 on the Nakaoka speargun.

While we are discussing Japanese spearguns there was a Japanese English language web-site for "Nakaoka" spearfishing equipment which was viewable on-line a few years back. The "Nakaoka HB2 model" speargun was made from teak and had a rear wooden pistol grip handle configuration. Most unique feature was the thick timber barrel which was split horizontally running from the trigger mechanism right through to the muzzle. That produced a thin deep slotted groove on either side of the gun barrel at about the mid-line of the stock. These long side grooves were necessary because the spear shaft ran in a totally enclosed track located out of sight between the upper and lower halves of the rectangular cross section stock! The spear tail was fitted with a horizontal plate with short rearward curved fins, like the fletch of an arrow, whose tips projected out of the narrow grooves on either side of the gun and served as shaft tabs. The slim, round section rubber drive bands were terminated by flat metal (think of a paper clip shape) loops that hooked onto these projecting fins. The rubber band strands were trussed together in pairs to form a separate rubber loop for each metal loop end, there being two rubber loops used on either side of the gun to hitch onto the projecting metal fin tips. So the grand total of rubber band strands was eight, with them being formed into four looped pairs tied together with cord at either end. One end was tied to the metal strap muzzle frame, basically an anchor point, and the other end was tied to the flat metal loop. The split muzzle thus had two band loops tied to a metal frame on the top half of the timber barrel and two band loops tied to a separate metal frame on the bottom half of the timber barrel, with one loop on either side of the gun and thus essentially being tied to the four front end corners of the bifurcated timber stock. This strange band anchoring arrangement allowed the fletched shaft tail to clear the barrel without fouling on the band anchor positions at the muzzle and when tensioned up the combined action of all of the rubber bands held the two halves of the split barrel together because the top loops on either side pulled down on the muzzle and the bottom loops on either side pulled up on the muzzle. The stored shooting line ran along the flat top deck of the gun through some metal rings before being deployed. The spear tip was a double long tine fork oriented vertically so that when sighting along the barrel you could see the upper tine projecting up into your sight line. This was necessary because the spear was buried inside the timber stock, being somewhat like a pneumatic gun in terms of aiming the gun. An optional five tine tip was available in the HB5 model, this model actually being referred to on the web-site as a "diving gun". Basically the HB2 and HB5 were the same gun.

Another version of the "Nakaoka" gun was built into a long pole and a pull cord operated the trigger mechanism in a remote fashion so that the user remained high and dry while standing on a raft and holding the rear end of the pole. Part of the raft fishing kit included underwater look boxes and submersible fish decoys (something along the lines of rubber ducks for duck shooting) which were designed to lure their unsuspecting fishy comrades to an untimely end.

This style of speargun was referred to as a traditional "Hiroshima gun" that had been manufactured by Nakaoka for 40 years (from memory this was back in 2003), but the web-site looks to have since vanished from sight. Price of the spearguns was around US $700, bearing in mind that every part was expertly crafted using traditional Japanese metal and woodworking methods. I had some saved images of the gun, but have yet to find them. I am sure Don saw these guns at about the same time, a guy in Japan had indicated their existence and provided the URL in an e-mail.
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Old 11-20-2018, 08:22 PM   #19
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

Searching Japanese web sites for spearfishing/raft fishing/fishing tools is a labyrinthine process, but I found this interesting speargun making website.
http://www.geocities.jp/koisan7/99_blank015.html

This one seems a bit more like the "Nakaoka" gun, called a sword gun which makes sense if you think of a sword in a wooden sheath, and then transpose that to a spear literally inside a gun stock.
http://www.geocities.jp/koisan7/99_blank100.html

Discussions in Japan on the legality, or otherwise, of using a speargun can be read here.
https://chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/tag/t...B8%AD%E9%8A%83

Last edited by popgun pete; 11-20-2018 at 08:50 PM. Reason: more info
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Old 11-21-2018, 12:24 AM   #20
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

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Originally Posted by popgun pete View Post
I found this interesting speargun making website.
http://www.geocities.jp/koisan7/99_blank015.html
[/url]
Interesting and high quality Bluewater speargun is displayed here that separates for transport purposes. Check out the craftsmanship in evidence where the gun’s front and rear sections are joined together to create a long gun and the associated reinforcing of the connecting faces.
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Old 11-21-2018, 12:36 AM   #21
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

From the same website (http://www.geocities.jp/koisan7/99_blank015.html) is a bifurcated timber barrel speargun of a similar type to the “Nakaoka” speargun, except that the band arrangements are entirely different. This apparently is the “sword style” of providing a nearly fully enclosed guide track for the spear shaft by burying it in the gun’s timber work.

In the "Nakaoka" speargun the multiple band anchors at the split muzzle contrive to pull the upper and lower halves of the timber gun stock together when the bands are cocked, as otherwise the barrel halves may separate slightly and lose control of the shaft. Side-slotted barrel guns are an old idea, in fact they date right back to an “elastic gun” that fired a short projectile that had nothing to do with spearfishing. The difference with those very early terrestrial use guns was that the side-slots stopped well short of the muzzle so that the upper and lower barrel sections created by the slots could not move independently as they may tend to do otherwise. An early speargun that may have influenced Japanese thinking on spearguns was the side-slotted barrel speargun of Yves Le Prieur who spent some years living in Japan. Le Prieur, who should be as well-known as Cousteau as he also was a prolific inventor, military man and one of the pioneers of diving across all disciplines; commercial, military and recreational diving. A patent image of his 1938 speargun is shown, it following on from his cartridge powered and famous "Nautilus" gun which Le Prieur is holding. Or should I say Commandant Le Prieur as he should be, like Cousteau, remembered for the military career in which he served his country. Later versions of the "Nautilus" gun were powered by compressed air, as can be seen in this video https://youtu.be/kn7DRUEKJlg
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Last edited by popgun pete; 11-24-2018 at 05:04 PM. Reason: more info
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Old 11-21-2018, 06:10 AM   #22
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

Note that the large flotation element screwed onto the bottom of Le Prieur's quad rubber loop (on each side of the muzzle) bandgun is made from “ebonite mousse” and can be removed which then makes it look more like a regular speargun. The spear is driven out of this gun by a sliding pusher element that has hooks protruding from the side slots in the metal barrel tube affixed to the top of the timber stock, these slots terminating at spring 12 which functions as a shock absorber to stop the sliding pusher element from crashing into the end of the slots. The band loops on either side provide in a sense an eight band drive to the sliding pusher element, but the elastic will probably be flat rubber loops or of a square cross section “borrowed” from some other application and not as strong as speargun bands used today.

Now it does not require too large an imaginative leap to swap the side slots for twin rails and have the pusher element run on them rather than inside a long metal tube with slots for the hooks to poke out of and if that is the case then the Japanese twin rail rollerguns date from after Le Prieur's bandgun which was patented in January 1940 and applied for in December 1938. Why I think this is a distinct possibility is that there is a monorail version of the Japanese rollergun that is even more closely related to the Le Prieur speargun concept.

Although rare this monorail version has a central brass rail replacing the twin brass rail system and a sliding carriage with side hooks runs on a flat top deck on the weapon's timber stock, but everything else is pretty much the same.

The Japanese rollerguns came in different stock lengths and had different spear diameters, some had in-built reels buried in the mid section of the stock, but by modern standards all are small guns in terms of their overall length and propulsive power (due to the flat rubber strap bands used on these guns).
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Old 11-21-2018, 06:50 AM   #23
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

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Originally Posted by kodama View Post
Thank you for pointing this out. I have spent quite some time in Japan both for work and pleasure and although I have not yet spearfished there my local friends always told me that it was only allowed with a pole spear. However I am sure you guys are right and what you describe makes perfect sense.

@ Pete would love to see a picture of those handmade guns you mention. I love Japanese made tools and use them daily. Their level of craftsmanship is hard to match. Please post them if you ever find them again.
Yeah, and even polespears are supposedly illegal in certain places now. But it can vary from one tiny little "precinct" to the next.
I actually built a Japanese inspired polespear for a trip to Japan and didn't get to shoot it much, but it's great fun to use. Later on, I took it to Indonesia and caught some nice dinner fish there. I made it so it fits in a fin bag (but still, in its assembled state, it's almost as long as the Japanese ones) and I will certainly bring it on my next trips, too.
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Old 11-21-2018, 07:31 AM   #24
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Re: Japanese spearguns (local manufacture)

I located a couple more images from the "Nakaoka" website, the HB5 five tine spear for the raft gun version of their Hiroshima speargun and a fish decoy with a gun barrel just intruding into the field of view.
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