Cyrano v Mimetic

[devondave]

Please help , I need a hole fishing gun and have a choice of these two :-
Mares Cyrano 55 for £120 or
Mares Spark Mimetic 55 for £140.
I have a Cyrano 850 , which I quite like , and was wondering what the difference , if any , is between these guns . Also , does the Spark have the spear-carrying hole and clip , because thats a handy feature on the cyrano .

Any experience or views greatly appreciated .

Regards ,
Dave .

 

[popgun pete]

The Mares "Spark" was sold for a short period as the Sporasub "Stealth", but it is exactly the same gun as Mares had the ownership of the Sporasub name for a period before selling it on to Omer. I only mention the "Stealth" as these spearguns were heavily discounted to get rid of them once the Sporasub name was sold. All guns use the same rear grip body originally developed for the "Cyrano", so the "Spark" will have the spear tail carry hole in the front of the trigger finger guard, but unless Mares have changed it recently the muzzle section will lack a carry clip for the spear shaft like the "Cyrano" muzzle has built into its front line hook.

The air tank tube is longer on the "Spark" as it has a standard length nose cone at the muzzle end rather than the long snout of the "Cyrano", so it has greater water displacement and might float after spear discharge if you pack the hollow handle space with plastic foam. The "Cyrano 550" does not float even if you do fill the handle with foam, I know because I have tried it. If you could not care less whether the gun floats or not then the "Cyrano" will be the better buy at those prices.

When I use my "Cyrano 550" I tuck the gun under my arm while administering the coup de gras to my latest catch, but I would rather the gun float than head to the bottom. I do not know if the "Spark 550" floats, it may not as the handle floods as the space in the narrow tube which the outer grip slides over is intended to hold the loading bar. You will already know this as you have a "Cyrano 850". I carry the loader on my wrist, so no need to keep it in the butt of the handle where it can be pulled out without you knowing it. So then filling the handle with foam is no loss in functionality (styrofoam will do and you can easily replace it or remove it). If the "Spark" floats as is then your options are completely open as to how you carry your loader. Floating issues only occur with the shorter models, the longer models all float like corks.

I doubt that fish think much one way or the other about a camouflaged barrel, but it is the latest "underwater look".

 

[Spear0Joe]

Dave, you could save yourself some money and buy a 60 rubber gun and put a 20mm rubber on it.

Joe

 

[devondave]

Thanks guys , Pete your encyelopedic knowledge of pneumatics is astonishing .
Joe , it's too late for me , I've been drawn to the dark side , there can be no going back now , ( join us , you know you want to really ) .

 

[Spear0Joe]

I was only trying to save you some money in the purchase and in the long run mate! I cannot see the advantages of using an air gun, higher maintainence, more costly, opposed to a band gun which rarely ever breaks and is so much easier to repair if it goes wrong?

 

[spearheads]

Im with joe on this one. I know you have your eyes set on an air gun, but band guns so much cheaper, you can get 2 or 3 60cm band guns for the price of 1 air gun!, There wont be much point putting a mamba system on a short gun like that as its only gonna be used close range in holes or low viz.

I have a 100cm Mamba, used to like it, but now its chucked in the back of the garage to rot lol. It leaks air, mamba sytem takes to much time to reload, its loud, anoying to keep on a flout, harder to aim im my opinion ( i know someone will say its all practice but i missed alot fish practicing ) if something breaks on a band gun you can get just about any gun part on apnea now for like £10.

Cheers

 

[devondave]

I was only trying to save you some money in the purchase and in the long run mate! I cannot see the advantages of using an air gun, higher maintainence, more costly, opposed to a band gun which rarely ever breaks and is so much easier to repair if it goes wrong?

Saving money is good , but having neat toys is better .
The main advantage of hole fishing with a pneumatic is you can shoot it beside or even slightly behind your head if needed .
Don't know how often they go wrong but taking them apart to mend or just fiddle with is not too difficult . ( Join us , Joe , join us . . . )

Matt , I don't want three little band guns , I want a small pneumatic , ( we needs it , we does ) .
How much for the mamba ?

 

[foxfish]

I just dont know where you guys get your info from!!? - Noisy! Leaks air! HIGHER MAIATANACE!!!! "?"
I have 20 year old air guns that work perfectly fine & have never had any form of mechanical maintenance, just new spears & line.
I have mamba kitted guns that are very quite & completely trouble free - I have band guns too & love them but air guns have there place & as a hole gun cant be beaten.
The safety factor is always important & when fishing in holes, air guns are much safer.
To start with you can hold the gun anywhere along its lenth, you can fire an airgun when it is close to your body without fear of bands whipping your face, hands or arms.

 

[spaghetti]

Simon sez get a Mares Jet 58, equal and indentical (only the commercial name is different) to the old legendary Mini Sten. A lot cheaper than both Spark and Cyrano. For such a short gun it's the way to go.
You can find it here Mares Jet Air. Fucili Fucili, Scubastore.com, Comprare, Offerta, immersione or in many other places.

Short bandguns are nice too and have their points in favour, especially if you're used to bandguns in general. But if you need the PUNCH (packing great shock-power in a very compact weapon, not range but shock power) nothing beats a short pneumatic. The Mares Jet comes with an 8mm shaft: that's a real punch!

 

[Spear0Joe]

Well spag, I was spearfishing one day using a pneumatic, which just happened to pack up, luckily my mate lent me another gun! I have used band guns since and have never had a problem, very accurate, alot quieter and generally alot easier to get on with! you know im right spag!

 

[spaghetti]

Well spag, I was spearfishing one day using a pneumatic, which just happened to pack up, luckily my mate lent me another gun! I have used band guns since and have never had a problem, very accurate, alot quieter and generally alot easier to get on with! you know im right spag!

The first time I shot a bandgun, the trigger jammed, while I still have a Mares pneumatic bought in 1993 that never failed and still kills fish.

I used to be an airgun man in the past, and even when I was young, single, unemployed and lucky enough to go spearing everyday for years and years, I never had any accident with airguns: they never let me down.

Then I discovered bandguns and started to love them more and more. I ended up using a mix of guns for a period: short air and medium/long band. Now I'm almost all for bandguns, but my 17 years old 1993 Mares Medisten is the only gun I really love, the only one I'd shoot a big conger with no worry. :martial

 

[popgun pete]

Poking around rocky or coral reefs can slice the taut band open on your cocked band gun like it was slashed with a razor blade if you happen to accidentally catch the muzzle on the edge of a hole, I have had it happen more than once, that is why I now only use a pneumatic for a hole gun. (Murphy's law seemed to dictate that the newer the band the more readily it was cut!)

Strange, but in all the decades of pneumatic speargun ownership I have never had a problem with my guns except when something actually wore out after a very long period of use. Fixing them was not that difficult, just commonsense really. It pays to read the instructions and study how the gun goes together. Even if the manufacturer no longer supplies the exploded parts diagram you are bound to find it on the Web these days, even for the "Cyrano". The guys who assemble these guns in the factory are no different to you or I, if they can put the gun together than you can certainly pull it apart. However, as Spaghetti says, you could use a pneumatic gun for many years and never have to do anything to it in terms of opening it up, but a band gun owner will have gone through a whole bunch of bands in that time.

If you believed all that people said about pneumatic guns being such a problem then why have so many been manufactured and sold? Just check the serial number count on the pneumatic spearguns you look at in the shops, thousands have been made and are still in use all around the world.

 

[devondave]

Just ordered the Cyrano , thanks for all the help .

 

[baubaugene]

3 powered speargun

I am looking for a speargun that has 3 powers. If anyone knows of any please let me know.

 

[popgun pete]

Pneumatic spearguns with 3 shooting powers are no longer manufactured as far as I know, but the Mares "Titan" mid-handle pneumatic spearguns were tri-powered. They used an internally partitioned air reservoir to offer "high" and "low" power in exactly the same way as a Mares dual power "Sten" (or its clones) operates. "High" power was with the partitioning bulkhead fully unplugged and "low" power was with the bulkhead plugged. A "medium" power option was obtained with the bulkhead only partially plugged as the plug had a conical nose that throttled the bulkhead's air transfer port opening by leaving part of the cone sticking through the port rather than being fully withdrawn from it. The power selector was a cursor moving in a gate with an additional forward position to give three settings rather than the usual two positions seen on modern pneumatic spearguns.

There have been pneumatic spearguns with even more power settings achieved by using a continuously variable throttle opening or a series of progressively smaller air transfer port sizes that were switched into position by rotating a control dial, however each shot regardless of the power selection requires a full reloading effort afterwards, so a lower power shot wastes some of your loading energy. That always happens when the speargun uses a throttle system to control the power of the shot.

Too many control variables can confuse your estimate of how the gun will shoot, so manufacturers have restricted the options to high and low, that way the gun is very predictable once you have become accustomed to using it at a set chamber pressure.

The new Alpha C1 pneumatic speargun is said to have a range of shooting powers, but it appears to have disappeared from the web-site where it was first spotted by Spaghetti a few weeks ago. We are all waiting for it to reappear.