I have had a mid handle for many years and would like to obtain a new one in New Zealand. Pro Dive no longer import them. I am also looking for spare sprung steel shafts if any one has any. I have emailed the factory in Brazil but haven't recieved a reply. Any help would be appreciated.
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Cobra Mid Handle Pneumatic Spearguns.
- Thread starterGazz
- Start date
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.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Cobra is kind of out of business. They're just franchising their brand name for some odds and ends. Air guns, however, are no long manufactured.
I am resurrecting this thread because it has a bearing on my search for info on the similar looking "Mako-Sub". The guns are too similar in the handgrip area not to be from the same designer, maybe the "Cobra" mid-handle pneumatic is a later effort from a successor company.
My initial examination of the "Mako-Sub" suggests that it suffers from water braking in the barrel. The plastic muzzle has two long rectangular apertures in the sides of the tapered nose cone that you might mistake for muzzle relief ports, but they are forwards of where the piston actually stops at the constriction imposed by the muzzle's reduction in barrel diameter. Relief ports have to be behind the restriction, not in front of it, so those long side slots in the muzzle actually do nothing for minimising water braking in the barrel. That is probably why these guns seemed relatively slow shooters. Construction of the "Mako-Sub" gun is light compared with other guns of the same period, however there are some interesting innovations when you look inside the back of the gun as it does not use the standard 90 degree sear tooth to hold the piston's tail. The faces on the piston tail are angled to push the sear tooth aside as soon as the latter is unblocked from moving.
I note that a rear handle pneumatic gun, using the same style of handgrip as the mid-handle Cobra, is their "Comanche" model, basically a Brazilian "Sten", but with a high mounted inner barrel tube and an integral reel just forwards of the grip handle. That reel mounting seems to be a defining characteristic of these Brazilian pneumatic guns as the "Mako-Sub" has exactly the same layout. Unfortunately my "Mako-Sub" gun's reel is missing, but the curved tracks in the handgrip where it locks into place show that it was most likely a standard fitment.
My initial examination of the "Mako-Sub" suggests that it suffers from water braking in the barrel. The plastic muzzle has two long rectangular apertures in the sides of the tapered nose cone that you might mistake for muzzle relief ports, but they are forwards of where the piston actually stops at the constriction imposed by the muzzle's reduction in barrel diameter. Relief ports have to be behind the restriction, not in front of it, so those long side slots in the muzzle actually do nothing for minimising water braking in the barrel. That is probably why these guns seemed relatively slow shooters. Construction of the "Mako-Sub" gun is light compared with other guns of the same period, however there are some interesting innovations when you look inside the back of the gun as it does not use the standard 90 degree sear tooth to hold the piston's tail. The faces on the piston tail are angled to push the sear tooth aside as soon as the latter is unblocked from moving.
I note that a rear handle pneumatic gun, using the same style of handgrip as the mid-handle Cobra, is their "Comanche" model, basically a Brazilian "Sten", but with a high mounted inner barrel tube and an integral reel just forwards of the grip handle. That reel mounting seems to be a defining characteristic of these Brazilian pneumatic guns as the "Mako-Sub" has exactly the same layout. Unfortunately my "Mako-Sub" gun's reel is missing, but the curved tracks in the handgrip where it locks into place show that it was most likely a standard fitment.
The Mako Sub, also from Brazil, wasn't a late effort, but as parallel one. There were some interesting ideas like the sliding reel (an idea not shared by Cobra, but copied by Divecom on the Creta Pro band gun, and more recently, Dessault Quattro), the best one being the acentric barrel, much easier to aim, contrary to Cobra's concentric barrel. The rest was al amalgam on bad ideas (the muzzle) and solutions copied/adapted from Cobra's.
The rear-handle Mako model was a version of the Foca (seal in Portuguese) model, after the short-live Moréia (that looked like a product of a Soviet design studio :head
. The Foca had a concentric barrel and a design that allowed a modular assembling in factory. That is, from the same parts (except barrel and chambers lengths), you could make a full length (145cm) mid-handle or a short rear-handle one.
The full length Foca was very popular among professional spearfishers and fresh water spearos, who upgraded its muzzle and piston system with a custom designs made by a now-deceased local speargunsmith, Gilberto. After that pimping the gun became very reliable.
Anyway, the Foca and the Mako-Sub was taken away by the onslaught of euro band guns and the passing of Gilberto.
The rear-handle Mako model was a version of the Foca (seal in Portuguese) model, after the short-live Moréia (that looked like a product of a Soviet design studio :head
. The Foca had a concentric barrel and a design that allowed a modular assembling in factory. That is, from the same parts (except barrel and chambers lengths), you could make a full length (145cm) mid-handle or a short rear-handle one. The full length Foca was very popular among professional spearfishers and fresh water spearos, who upgraded its muzzle and piston system with a custom designs made by a now-deceased local speargunsmith, Gilberto. After that pimping the gun became very reliable.
Anyway, the Foca and the Mako-Sub was taken away by the onslaught of euro band guns and the passing of Gilberto.
Here is a pic of the Sea Bear line of guns, all have low/high power adjustment. Interestingly, the Sea Bear air pump has the same threads as the Nemrod.
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Thanks for the responses, but if you also look at my other post on the "Mako-Sub" gun I am really after some advice on stripping it down. Twisting the rear air tank (with rear bulkhead already removed) in order to unscrew it had the upper plastic centre grip section creaking ominously while held in a padded jaw vice, so something makes me think that it may be held by something else that I cannot see. Of course some idiot might have glued it on with epoxy when he could not find the right size "O" ring. It appears that the lower handgrip section is held on by some overlap with the tank to the upper plastic receiver at its rear end. If I can get that handgrip off then I am in business.
On the Seabear the hand grip is held at the front end by a single screw, then you pull the grip down to free it from the metal receiver where it is engaged by a small lug on the top of the grip. The Seabear is a simple gun, like the "Mako-Sub" the shock absorber is built into the piston and not the muzzle. For its size the Seabear must be one of the heaviest spearguns ever made, thanks to the stainless steel barrel tube. Anyone who thinks that they are a great gun has not lugged one around underwater for several hours! Pumped to maximum the trigger is very hard to pull causing difficulty in aiming. When people speak of the gun's Soviet military connections I have mental pictures of frogmen wielding them as clubs in desperate hand to hand combat on shore, that would appear to be their strong point rather than their shooting ability.
On the Seabear the hand grip is held at the front end by a single screw, then you pull the grip down to free it from the metal receiver where it is engaged by a small lug on the top of the grip. The Seabear is a simple gun, like the "Mako-Sub" the shock absorber is built into the piston and not the muzzle. For its size the Seabear must be one of the heaviest spearguns ever made, thanks to the stainless steel barrel tube. Anyone who thinks that they are a great gun has not lugged one around underwater for several hours! Pumped to maximum the trigger is very hard to pull causing difficulty in aiming. When people speak of the gun's Soviet military connections I have mental pictures of frogmen wielding them as clubs in desperate hand to hand combat on shore, that would appear to be their strong point rather than their shooting ability.
Without wishing to spoil a good story, the reality is that the "Seabear" pneumatic speargun is not a military weapon adapted for sporting purposes, but is actually an item of sporting equipment designed as such. The military connection is that the gun is manufactured in a plant that also produces military equipment, the plant's name is "Pirometr" and that is what the "Seabear" speargun is known as in Russia. A "Sea Bear" is actually a "Polar Bear"; the new name for the gun was probably a marketing decision by the "Most Atlantic" distribution company that supplied the guns to the US market in the mid-nineties.