I don't know how I've missed this thread. I worked for Cobra Sub for seven years, from the late 80s to mid-90s. I was friend of the founder and his family.
Export-import was one of my jobs there. Our best customers abroad were Venezuela (via the former Venezuelan champ Claudio Scrosoppi) and, far behind, New Zealand, by ProDive-NZ. Few guns were also sold to a chap in Mackay, QLD, to a Panamian company and to Europe, via Cressi, in the late 60s-early 70s.
The company almost went bankrupt few years ago. It's barely keeping the head out of water now. Its domestic market share is less than 10% now. That's for a company that, at one point, was the largest diving equipment manufacturers in the Southern Hemisphere.
Contrary to my good Brazilian-Alaskan buddy Stangelove still thinks, even in the Northeast the Cobra airgun went out of favor. Up to 5 years, Cobra still ruled in our freshwater spearos, but we're seeing more and more rubber euroguns there too.
As for the factory working pressure, it depends on the model. But it's not as high as modern rear-handle airguns. The Ataque (57" overall length) was 18 bar = 17.8 ATM = 260 PSI. In competitions we used half of that. And for bigger fish hunting, sometimes 300 psi.
But these gun are considered obsolete today. They shoot 51" 8.6 mm diam. shafts. They were good when average fish was heavier and slow. That's why some people use in fresh water in Brazil.
