Bluewater Pneumatics - Pros and Limitations

[fr0sty]

Yes, that's the plan. Have gone for wahoo before, but was unsuccessful with connecting on the shots. I would like to do this hopefully more and therefore the research into the gear.

 

[Diving Gecko]

If I need to take 20-25 ft shots on ~70lb tuna, would the 130 predathor be able to since you said it couldn't go up to the higher pressures? I was also considering a 120/130 inverted roller for the same purpose. Worst case, I would probably still get a 155 classic setup wooden gun.

If that’s from the tip of the spear, those are extremely long shots.
I’d say my heavily modified “Evo Mirage” could possibly make it to 20 feet but I never tested penetration on that gun. And that runs about 30-40% more pressure than you will be able to load a Predathor at.
And still, my take gut feeling was that I’d rather have a 8.5-9mm shaft but the muzzle parts won’t allow that.

So, if I had to guess, I think the lighter shafts from the airguns will suffer at those distances. Now, 15-18 ft, I think you can do. But you also have to find some low profile slide rings and even best if you neck down the slip tip shaft so you can use a smaller slide ring at the front, too.

Predathors are cheap, at least in Europe, for the power you get out of them. So, you could consider asking Tomi/Marko to make you an EasyLoader or consider making a pulley loader like the one I did. The EasyLoader controls the shaft better than my solution but if you run the Predathor at 28-30 bar, you can still control the shaft well enough with a pulley loader. Above 30bar, even on an 8mm shaft it starts getting a bit more tricky. And for the stock Vuoto muzzle I’d stay a bit under 30bar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[popgun pete]

Another gun you could consider is the “Alpha C1”, either the cylindrical tank or the Bazooka version with fattened front end. That is a 14 mm inner barrel gun with plenty of horsepower, but you have to be able to load it as you have a lot more to push against. But before you do any of that find out what it is like to shoot big fish that don't want to hole up on the bottom, but instead will make a run for it. The best way is to tag along with experienced divers, after explaining what you are looking to do.

 

[fr0sty]

20-25 ft I think is from the person, so a few feet closer than from the tip of the gun. With this information, looks like pneumatics are probably not ideal for me as it appears I'd need to make quite a few mods on top of the unfamiliarity with these guns. Thanks for all your help and hopefully some others can find the information useful!

 

[marco15499]

20-25 feet away is too much for any speargun. Remember that you'll be shooting a moving target. Even if the effective range of the speargun (with decent penetration) is that far, the time that takes the shaft to reach the fish after you pulled the trigger will make you miss all your shots.

Whatever fish you're shooting, you must get as close as you can. And if you don't get close enough, don't pull the trigger.

 

[popgun pete]

My extended loader from Pelengas arrived yesterday, although it took two months to get here having been held up somewhere in Australia Post as it had reached here in March according to the tracking. You can see it is an adaptation of their stainless steel loader, but with the ends bashed with some tool to flare the ends of the tubing T-handle to prevent cutting of the rubber bungee.