• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

beuchat arka and circular bands

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
L

liberte

New Member
Feb 21, 2008
70
3
0
I have an arka, great little gun. I tie my own bands for an ab biller gun that i have and was wondering if there would be any negative effect of using one band in the hole for the second band on the muzzle. my bands that are on it aren't done yet. I also just ordered one of the mako predator guns and would like to be able to use bulk rubber for all my guns. does anyone do this, no use threaded bands in the intended spot and just use one circular rubber?
 
so no replies so far
i know there are the little plugs that screw into my muzzle and allow me to use bulk rubber and make bands. just wondering if i can save myself a buck by only using the circular band. would it cause the gun to fire any differently? anyone done this before.
 
Hello,

I have a old Beuchat... Marlin super metal (probably from the 80's or 90's). Its about a 90 cm shaft. I had many types of band setups on it.

Originally I bought the gun with a single 16mm screw in type band. It worked well enough until the rubber dry rotted... however it was way under powered.

Since my Beuchat had a muzzle that would except a single screw in type band and/or a loop band (had a muzzle that had both hookups) I decided to go the cheap route and use a very fat piece of 3/4" single loop band with some wire wish bones. This setup was a much improvement in power and I could reload it quickly.

Next I decided that I wanted to try more power (why... I don't know since I had more than enough power for most fish that I hunted). I wanted to keep my setup cheap so I replaced the original muzzel with an AB biller muzzel used on there metal guns (if your gun has a 1" tube the biller metal guns will fit). This setup I used two 16mm or 5/8" bands (can't remember what I bought) and some solid metal wish bones. I also replaced the orginal shaft with a Riffe finned Euro shaft, with an Omer double barbed tip. This setup isn't so "cheap" after I re-read this (probably sunk 80 to 100 bucks into a 40 dollar gun!).

Anyhow... I did not notice any real difference in accuracy with any of my setups (single screw in band, single loop band, double loop band). The single loop 3/4" band was really fast loading and packed a punch. The double loop bands packs more of a punch and is only alittle longer to reload. All setups I can nail a fish at 10 feet or more almost everytime.

Experiment... by bulk rubber and wire wish bones work pretty well (smooth out your notches). If you don't want to invest in a new muzzel or can't find something compatiable a single 3/4" band works well.

later,
Johnny G.
 
Reactions: Mr. X
cool, thanks. experimenting is my plan, i think i might add the jbl rail to the gun with some epoxy and maybe change out the muzzle, or leave the muzzle and just roll with a single 3/4" band/.
 
Good post Johnny! Probably not such a bad investment, rubbers needed replacing anyway and sounds like you learnt a lot from it. I found it difficult to commit much money to my first spear gun having never tried spearing (and of course, you might loose it while learning). I tried to find an inexpensive gun at first but after a while of looking a learnt a little bit more and figured that perhaps I should bite the bullet & buy a decent middle of the range gun which had all the features I was looking for/thought might be important but didn't really know (I bought a Rob Allen aluminum railgun). In hindsight it was a very good choice (although not the perfect size for the UK perhaps), as I got a bass first time out and was hooked. It didn't take long to appreciate the soft dyneema wishbone - couldn't understand why anybody would use anything else! I liked the idea of bulk rubber, that it could take a second rubber, the rail and the heavy duty hardware - but none of that is really used for the small fish, small guns and poor viz we have in the UK - but could be handy abroad (as would the slightly longer than optimal length). I choose a much shorter, lighter gun when I choose my next spear gun, to suit my local conditions better - but that comes from personal experience & preferences that I find seem to change over time.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…