Adjusting RECESSED floppers

[Kodama]

I would like to hear how you guys adjust a RECESSED flopper to stay upright after it penetrates the fish. I have been fooling around with pin adjustments and pinching the sides of the flopper as you would on a non-recessed flopper but the results are not ideal.
At the moment I really need to turn to my shaft around after I shoot a fish and let gravity help me to open the flopper. Obviously this is less then ideal and I always feel stressed about loosing fish, which did happen the other day...

I hit it really well but the spear bounced right of a rock behind the fish and came straight out again.
Looking forward to hear your ideas.

 

[sharkey]

I tune the floppers by pinching the sides. I dont like recessed floppers for this reason, it makes it almost impossible. I just received some new 6ft 5/16 spring stainless spears from Riffe to use in my small gun in an upcomming trip; Riffe now try to recess their floppers on these shafts, "FAIL" & I am a bit dissapointed that they have fiddled with something that had worked for decades. I am now trying to source replacements. I guess I will buy threaded shafts & sharpen, drill & pin them myself in future; one benefit is I can also fit stronger floppers when I do this.

 

[Bill McIntyre]

I just got an 8.5 mm Hunt shaft that looks really impressive. Instead of being recessed, it has a cone welded in front of the flopper to streamline the passage through the water and through the fish. And you can tune the flopper as usual.

 

[Kodama]

Thanks guys for your reply but it doesn't help me much. I have about five seatec spears with recessed floppers that are hard to tune. Have been playing around with one for a while but the results are less than optimal. It is easy on all my other shafts but on these there is little material to pinch and make them stay open.

Still hoping for tips.


Sent from the abyss

 

[Okis]

No experience in tuning floppers at all. Got RA spears and i guess i'm not looking forward to the day i have to tune the floppers on them.

Have you tried tapping the edges with a rounded hammer?

 

[Kodama]

No experience in tuning floppers at all. Got RA spears and i guess i'm not looking forward to the day i have to tune the floppers on them.

Have you tried tapping the edges with a rounded hammer?

Adjusting floppers is normally very straight forward and easy on a round spear.

Tried many things with mixed results. I have one spear where I managed to adjust it more or less but sometimes it doesn't open as easily as it should. This is because the pin itself is bent inside the hole. Getting in the water tomorrow and will probably keep using them as I have for the last two years.


Sent from the abyss

 

[Mr. X]

There are several good videos on this on YouTube. I posted a new thread on adjusting floppers recently with links to 3 videos that cover this, the details vary a little, such as just how tight should it be.

Speargun maintenance - check & adjust your spear floppers (a.k.a. barbs)!

I lost a couple of good fish on a single dive last year using my 90cm gun due to flopper issues. In one fish, the flopper failed to open at all and the spear pulled right out. On the other, I speared a good fish fairly deep and almost on the sea bed, the spear partially opened but then closed...

forums.deeperblue.com

I like Daniel Mann's video best, quite thorough; it also covers how to fix the bent pin problem mentioned above. Rob Allen's video is good and concise, he prefers a bit tighter fit. The NZ thread is also good. Tip: new pins can be made out from stainless steel bike spokes (I already have a pack of spares for my bike ).

My Omer spears have recessed floppers and I was able to adjust fine.