The pneumatic gun seems to start in France with this gun patented by Jean-Marie Ojard Chillet. It is a rudimentary gun with all the mechanical workings on the outside and is being patented during World War II when people are being fully preoccupied with many other things. I had thought that I would never see one until today when I saw the gun below which is shown as an unidentified underwater gun on the Frederic Dumas Museum website. If this gun really is the Ojard Chillet gun then this is a big find as it is the first patented underwater pneumatic speargun.. http://museedumas.fr/o/
If this was a spring gun then the barrel would be full of ports which are there for anti-suction purposes when the gun shoots, but as you can see there are none. The proof will be in the presence of blow off ports in the muzzle as this is a dry barrel speargun which you tip the water out of after you cock it, then valves at the muzzle keep water out until the gun shoots when the air being compressed in the forward barrel tube by the rapidly moving piston coming forwards blows out through the muzzle valves. The spear is a close fit in the bore of the muzzle end cap and a coil spring sitting directly behind acts as the piston shock absorber. Very unusual and an idea cut from whole cloth as the old saying goes. The speargun is a forward latching gun as most of the early guns were.
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