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Confessions Of A Dark Side Disciple (or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Oleo)

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Diving Gecko

shooter & shooter
Jun 24, 2008
1,698
461
188
As you some of you know, I don't have the privilege of living near the ocean - well, at least not one that is diveable.
Also, in China, where I live, I am not allowed to have spearguns, so I store my guns with a friend in Thailand and spear once or twice a year on vacations in that region.

I took up spearfishing only a few years back but decided for various practical and personal reasons to devote myself to pneumatics - I am a nerd at heart and love that they are intrinsically a bit more complicated and as I would travel with them to do any kind of spearing, I wanted the most powerful I could get in the smallest package.

Around New Years, I took some weeks off and headed back down to Thailand, picked up the guns and spent a bit more than a month on various islands in the south of the country.

Here is a list of the issues I ran into, some are not really related to the spearguns:

  • Most guns leaked. My own fault as I used a custom made carbon fiber outer tank. I managed to fix them with copious amounts of teflon plumbing tape. Obviously not a long-term solution
  • Line Release on One Air slipped. Again, it was already a non-perfect modification of mine that needed a bit of re-work. I added material to the part of the line release that was being held by the trigger as that part was too thin. I made a cement out of beach sand and super glue and sanded it down. I used a small piece of grinding stone that I carry for sharpening spears for the sanding. Worked a treat
  • Seac Pump thread stripped! While pumping the old Mirage on the boat, I manage to cross thread the pump badly. It could have been the end of the Mirage on that trip as it later lost all its air through the pump valve. In the beginning, I kept it alive by using the Omer to Mares pressure gauge adapter as an adapter for the Omer pump. Later on, I managed to repair the pump by cutting off the damaged part with an angle-grinder. Near perfect, though rough, repair
  • Mirage pump valve leaked. I changed the o-ring in it (for the second time) and it held air after that
  • Fiber optic sights tore off the Mirage. I had made a pair of fiber optic sights and the front sights got torn off on my very fist shot. My attachment sleeve was badly designed, I suspect. Later on, I glued the sight in place on the tube with superglue and it seems solid now
  • One Air pump seal disintegrated. The otherwise nicely made Omer pump lost its seal and:
  • One Air gun leaked completely when pieces of the broken pump seal got jammed in its pump valve. I took apart the valve, cleaned out the rubber bit and then moved the seal from my other pump to the One Air pump and pumped the 120cm gun back up to 29 bar. Not a lot of fun
  • STC Piston and Shock Absorber cracked on Mirage at 26-28 Bar. Not exactly sure what the pressure was at, perhaps even a tad lower, but I busted the piston as well as the shock absorber. I then cannibalized my MediSten for its Vuoto Muzzle and its Sten piston
  • Vuoto Muzzle shock absorber o-rings busted. When I came back to Bangkok and took the Mirage apart I found that 3 out of 8 o-rings had cracked - one had disintegrated partly into small pieces
  • Someone stepped on my One Air while it was in the bag and broke the cam mount. That can happen and I just mounted the cam on my mask for when I took that gun out
  • I lost 3 out of 4 shaft protectors (I always loose those)
  • And two pairs of flip flops…
  • Cracked LCD on iPhone AND Sony pocket cam. I dropped the phone on a concrete floor while in an airport loo;-) and the Sony pocket cam took a beating when the three-wheeler motorcycle I was a passenger on decided to tip over into a ditch. I was lucky with the Sony as it is the only pocket cam with a built-in popup viewfinder so though the LCD was dead, I could still shoot through the viewfinder
  • Got cuts, blisters and some reef cut allergy, so had to do antibiotics. Remember to always travel with meds and consider getting Crocs vs. flip flops to better protect your feet as cuts don’t heal when in the water the whole day
  • Battery almost dead on Suunto D4 dive computer. It would have been OK as I traveled with a spare and I know how to change them myself. Point is, if you dive for hours every day for a month - it will drain the battery a lot
  • Strap on D4 breaking, as they still do...:-( Supposedly, Suunto's last batch of the original straps are better... I'd say probably not much though this last strap did hold up a year more than the first one
  • iPhone cable died which is worse than it sounds since I could not charge it nor log onto here until I found a new cable;-) (Though the screen was almost unreadable, I used the phone as a hotspot)
Some of you may see this as a warning against pneumatics. Some may use it to beef up their case that these guns are prone to failure. And while it is true that, besides dead rubbers, pretty much everything can be repaired on a band gun with things at hand that is not the case for us.
I think my bandgun friends' guns "broke" exactly as much as mine did, maybe more, but the difference was that their fixes were easier. There were many broken wishbones and a guy with an expensive Beuchat roller almost lost his whole intricate rubber setup when the wishbone broke and the rubbers tore off the gun. We spent 30 mins looking for the rubbers and luckily found them on the surface way down down current. As he didn't travel with extra rubbers - the gun was brand new - he would have been in a bad place had we not found them.

So, I am still a strong believer in oleos. For long trips away from tool boxes, spare parts and workshops we just have to plan a lot more ahead and be prepared to improvise. And had I kept my guns stock I would likely have had much less trouble. So, to me the pneumatics, even on long trips away from civilization are still my weapons of choice.

And specifically, after this latest trip, I have now made up my mind to simplify my travel setup. I will try to only travel with similar guns in different lengths and have as many parts as possible interchangeable between the guns. And I will always travel with extra pistons, shock absorbers, o-rings and possibly an extra pump and pump seals.

But I am also setting out to lightening my setup. I will save a bit of bulk by going from four to two guns (two Mares Mirages). And I will likely also get a 1.5mm suit instead of my 3mm which will enable me to drop some lead too.
 
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...we should take into account that you have chosen one of the most powerful and problematic gun....
 
...
  • Line Release on One Air slipped. Again, it was already a non-perfect modification of mine that needed a bit of re-work. I added material to the part of the line release that was being held by the trigger as that part was too thin. I made a cement out of beach sand and super glue and sanded it down. I used a small piece of grinding stone that I carry for sharpening spears for the sanding. Worked a treat.
...
Very interesting reading Diving Gecko!
I saw the image of your modified LR and I was wandering what it was made of ...
It seems that Vuoto shock absorber (using O-rings) is nor very reliable. I read about same problems on Italian forums.
 
...we should take into account that you have chosen one of the most powerful and problematic gun....

Hehe, true Danilo, true...
But actually, the One Air pump seal coming apart was very surprising and honestly, what pissed me off the most. A lot of the other issues were my own fault, so that is fine. But imagine, I had not been this nerdy and only traveled with that one gun?
A lot of people would not be OK with pulling a pump valve apart and even if they did, they would still have needed a new seal for the pump or new pump to not ruin their holiday if that gun was the only one they had brought. But maybe that was a freak accident.

But granted, cross threading the other pump for my Mares guns in eagerness on a bumpy ride on a boat was as stupid a mistake as one can make. And without a doubt the tank leaks were my own fault too.
Not so sure about the broken pistons though. A Mares Sten can take 30 bar and though both STC and Vuotos are made compatible with Stens, it seems like they can't take nearly as much punishment as I thought. Obviously, very few people can load a 13mm oleo higher than 22-25 bar, so maybe that's what they were tested to
 
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Very interesting reading Diving Gecko!
I saw the image of your modified LR I was wandering what it was made of ...
It seems that Vuoto shock absorber (using O-rings) is nor very reliable. I read about same problems on Italian forums.

Yeah, the line release itself was made of some left over carbon fiber plate I had glued together, but one end had been sanded too thin. The beach sand + a slow superglue worked almost perfectly though it was still too rough, so a bit too much starting friction on trigger pull. I'll make a new one at some point.

The whole issue bascially started with Spora-Omer making the line release too short for all the mono this gun can shoot.
 
Very interesting reading Diving Gecko!

It seems that Vuoto shock absorber (using O-rings) is nor very reliable. I read about same problems on Italian forums.

Here's the Vuoto (I also cracked on seal after not that many shots, but had spares):
MARES MIRAGE_DISASSEMBLY_44_1600PIX.jpg

In reg. to the Vuoto Shock Absorber, I wonder if using softer o-rings could help?


Here are some pics of the Seac pump thread repair. There is plenty of thread left still:
SEAC PUMP REPAIR_01_1200PIX.jpg


SEAC PUMP REPAIR_02_1200PIX.jpg
 
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slider or free shaft?
You mean when the Vuoto seal broke?
That was when it was still on my Sten with a slider. I wouldn't expect it to break on a freeshaft.

When the o-rings broke, it was likely in the Mirage, which is run as a freeshaft.
 
....for a 7mm shaft the shank is as large as 8mm or even more....I usually reduce the diameter to mm 7.5 and I make shank with
mm 7.25 hole...don't worry if the shank is well made it won't stack against the shank and the sealer would bless....
 
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That carbon fibre tank is compounding your problems as you need to pump your gun up so often. If you are doing a lot of pumping then you need to lubricate the moving seal in the hand pump or it will fail sooner rather than later from the friction in the pump barrel bore, especially as the pump barrel gets hot with adiabatic heating, as does the rubber seal on the pump rod. When removing the hand pump from the gun it is always worth looking into the well of the inlet valve to see what is in there, usually there will be a few tiny beads of water (condensate) and maybe an oil film if you lubricated the "O" ring on the nose of the Mares hand pump, what you don't want to see is bits of rubber pump seal.

Interesting to see some of the Salvimar shock absorber "O" rings snapping, this tends to happen when "O" rings are over stretched circumferentially, but in that muzzle application they should just be squeezed together. I note that in the original photos of the "Vuoto" muzzle cut through in section the shock absorber had a metal anvil with seven "O" rings rather than the eight "O" rings with a plastic anvil. Maybe these thinner "O" rings tend to ride up over each other as rubber shock absorber sleeves show marks towards the rear end indicating that the rear end expands more than the front, so possibly the rear rings stretch and snap if they are not sufficiently confined radially. With the rubber sleeves the rubber expands radially with the piston impact, with the "O" rings the gaps between them are reduced as the rings are flattened longitudinally, but that assumes the rings cannot expand outwards and yet water between them has to get out as water is incompressible. Another possibility is that instantaneous water pressure build up inside the shock absorber is busting the rings in order to get out as the rings form seals on the adjoining surfaces.
 
Hey Pete,
In reg. to the pump seal which broke it was actually for the pump for the one gun that did not have a CF tank. It was for the Sporasub One Air when I was taking it from 26-29 bar. But maybe most of the damage has happened earlier but it's been a while since I have had to totally refill that gun and not on this trip. From then on, I did actually start dropping a bit of oil in the pump.

If water is the reason the o-rings break in the Vuoto muzzle it should be easy to make an escape path for the water. Either by cutting/sanding a small channel under the rings or by drilling a few tiny holes. The seal at the muzzle will be more than happy to expand and let out water, I would think.
 
As you some of you know, I don't have the privilege of living near the ocean - well, at least not one that is diveable.
Also, in China, where I live, I am not allowed to have spearguns, so I store my guns with a friend in Thailand and spear once or twice a year on vacations in that region.

I took up spearfishing only a few years back but decided for various practical and personal reasons to devote myself to pneumatics - I am a nerd at heart and love that they are intrinsically a bit more complicated and as I would travel with them to do any kind of spearing, I wanted the most powerful I could get in the smallest package.

Around New Years, I took some weeks off and headed back down to Thailand, picked up the guns and spent a bit more than a month on various islands in the south of the country.

Here is a list of the issues I ran into, some are not really related to the spearguns:

  • Most guns leaked. My own fault as I used a custom made carbon fiber outer tank. I managed to fix them with copious amounts of teflon plumbing tape. Obviously not a long-term solution
  • Line Release on One Air slipped. Again, it was already a non-perfect modification of mine that needed a bit of re-work. I added material to the part of the line release that was being held by the trigger as that part was too thin. I made a cement out of beach sand and super glue and sanded it down. I used a small piece of grinding stone that I carry for sharpening spears for the sanding. Worked a treat
  • Seac Pump thread stripped! While pumping the old Mirage on the boat, I manage to cross thread the pump badly. It could have been the end of the Mirage on that trip as it later lost all its air through the pump valve. In the beginning, I kept it alive by using the Omer to Mares pressure gauge adapter as an adapter for the Omer pump. Later on, I managed to repair the pump by cutting off the damaged part with an angle-grinder. Near perfect, though rough, repair
  • Mirage pump valve leaked. I changed the o-ring in it (for the second time) and it held air after that
  • Fiber optic sights tore off the Mirage. I had made a pair of fiber optic sights and the front sights got torn off on my very fist shot. My attachment sleeve was badly designed, I suspect. Later on, I glued the sight in place on the tube with superglue and it seems solid now
  • One Air pump seal disintegrated. The otherwise nicely made Omer pump lost its seal and:
  • One Air gun leaked completely when pieces of the broken pump seal got jammed in its pump valve. I took apart the valve, cleaned out the rubber bit and then moved the seal from my other pump to the One Air pump and pumped the 120cm gun back up to 29 bar. Not a lot of fun
  • STC Piston and Shock Absorber cracked on Mirage at 26-28 Bar. Not exactly sure what the pressure was at, perhaps even a tad lower, but I busted the piston as well as the shock absorber. I then cannibalized my MediSten for its Vuoto Muzzle and its Sten piston
  • Vuoto Muzzle shock absorber o-rings busted. When I came back to Bangkok and took the Mirage apart I found that 3 out of 8 o-rings had cracked - one had disintegrated partly into small pieces
  • Someone stepped on my One Air while it was in the bag and broke the cam mount. That can happen and I just mounted the cam on my mask for when I took that gun out
  • I lost 3 out of 4 shaft protectors (I always loose those)
  • And two pairs of flip flops…
  • Cracked LCD on iPhone AND Sony pocket cam. I dropped the phone on a concrete floor while in an airport loo;-) and the Sony pocket cam took a beating when the three-wheeler motorcycle I was a passenger on decided to tip over into a ditch. I was lucky with the Sony as it is the only pocket cam with a built-in popup viewfinder so though the LCD was dead, I could still shoot through the viewfinder
  • Got cuts, blisters and some reef cut allergy, so had to do antibiotics. Remember to always travel with meds and consider getting Crocs vs. flip flops to better protect your feet as cuts don’t heal when in the water the whole day
  • Battery almost dead on Suunto D4 dive computer. It would have been OK as I traveled with a spare and I know how to change them myself. Point is, if you dive for hours every day for a month - it will drain the battery a lot
  • Strap on D4 breaking, as they still do...:-( Supposedly, Suunto's last batch of the original straps are better... I'd say probably not much though this last strap did hold up a year more than the first one
  • iPhone cable died which is worse than it sounds since I could not charge it nor log onto here until I found a new cable;-) (Though the screen was almost unreadable, I used the phone as a hotspot)
Some of you may see this as a warning against pneumatics. Some may use it to beef up their case that these guns are prone to failure. And while it is true that, besides dead rubbers, pretty much everything can be repaired on a band gun with things at hand that is not the case for us.
I think my bandgun friends' guns "broke" exactly as much as mine did, maybe more, but the difference was that their fixes were easier. There were many broken wishbones and a guy with an expensive Beuchat roller almost lost his whole intricate rubber setup when the wishbone broke and the rubbers tore off the gun. We spent 30 mins looking for the rubbers and luckily found them on the surface way down down current. As he didn't travel with extra rubbers - the gun was brand new - he would have been in a bad place had we not found them.

So, I am still a strong believer in oleos. For long trips away from tool boxes, spare parts and workshops we just have to plan a lot more ahead and be prepared to improvise. And had I kept my guns stock I would likely have had much less trouble. So, to me the pneumatics, even on long trips away from civilization are still my weapons of choice.

And specifically, after this latest trip, I have now made up my mind to simplify my travel setup. I will try to only travel with similar guns in different lengths and have as many parts as possible interchangeable between the guns. And I will always travel with extra pistons, shock absorbers, o-rings and possibly an extra pump and pump seals.

But I am also setting out to lightening my setup. I will save a bit of bulk by going from four to two guns (two Mares Mirages). And I will likely also get a 1.5mm suit instead of my 3mm which will enable me to drop some lead too.
 
That was a hectic trip. I cannot believe how much bad luck you had!
Haha, yeah - I seem to have crammed a full year's trouble into a month's. It's OK though. I had a working gun every day and got fish. Learned a lot too. Both gear, preparation and hunting wise.
 
Hey Pete,
In reg. to the pump seal which broke it was actually for the pump for the one gun that did not have a CF tank. It was for the Sporasub One Air when I was taking it from 26-29 bar. But maybe most of the damage has happened earlier but it's been a while since I have had to totally refill that gun and not on this trip. From then on, I did actually start dropping a bit of oil in the pump.

If water is the reason the o-rings break in the Vuoto muzzle it should be easy to make an escape path for the water. Either by cutting/sanding a small channel under the rings or by drilling a few tiny holes. The seal at the muzzle will be more than happy to expand and let out water, I would think.
Yes, water could get out through an internal groove or channel running longitudinally where the "O" rings sit provided it had smooth edges. I was surprised to see the "O" rings snapped and one chewed up into 5 pieces, but it may have snapped first and then been chewed up later. Possibly the reason for the breakages may be something entirely different.
 
Interesting read Gecko.

I confess i ditched my Omer Airbalete getting the feeling it was too fragile.

My favorite gun is the ever reliable Asso 115 with a Tomba f714 kit. Only issue i had was a piston bushh came loose. an easy fix.

Keep it simple!!

I now use a seac hunter 115 (better 2mm trigger) with the Tomba f714 kit (and sometimes a Tomba 800 kit). Never any drames, deadly accurate and kills everything i shoot at!

I have a carbon 1.3 gun that i cant shoot anything with (it is stock). The issue arises from recoil and over power. Something well setup oleos don't suffer.
 
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