Lanara bands

[david1963]

Hi all my wife bought me a Lanara Predator 40 gun a couple of years ago, second hand.

The bands are starting to crack and will need replacing shortly, all other parts of the gun appear to be OK. I have tried looking on EBay and other parts of the internet and have not found the bands for sale. Went on the Lanara website and found the bands but the site appears not to be working.

Is there any one here who knows of a shop preferably in the UK where I will be able to get a set of bands or is the another way of sorting this problem out that I have not thought of, hope to hear from you soon Dave.

 

[Old Man Dave]

Never heard of that gun. If it's a euro ie 40cm gun then I'd bin it as it is of no practical use. If it's a US 40 inch gun then that's another matter.

If you need to you can make your own bands. Give us some more info and we'll help you, preferably post a picture.

Dave.

 

[david1963]

Unable to post pictures as the kids have been playing with the camera.

I think its a euro gun as the maker is a Greek firm.

The gun has one pair of bands 145mm overall length with a plastic screw fitting on each end 95mm between these 18mm diameter.

The gun has an overall length of 585mm and a shaft of 632mm handle is at the rear.

Hope this information is of some help towards solving my problem if there are any other questions please ask and I will try to answer, hope to hear from you soon, Dave

 

[Old Man Dave]

Okay you've got a 40cm euro band gun. Never seen or heard of one that short. 60cm is normally the shortest band gun made. To be honest it's a toy. A dangerous toy but a toy. Rubber guns that length don't work. The 60cm guns are designed for fishing in near zero visibility and/or shooting fish in holes/caves. A 40cm gun would not be poweful enough to shoot a decent fish at any range of more than a few inches and you risk wounding fish instaed of catching them. Rubber guns in short lengths don't work because you cannot stretch the rubber to a sufficient length to store the required energy. There are lots of technical reasons why/how this all works but take it from me a 40cm rubber gun is not suitable tool other than for use as a handspear. Very short guns exist although they have a very limited use but they are all pneumatically powered rather than rubber powered.

None of the sites I looked on stocked rubbers for a 40cm gun. If you really want to persist then you might be able to fit a loop band which is easy to make instead of the screw in bands. Depends on the muzzle of your gun. You can buy adaptors to convert screw in bands to bulk rubber tie on bands. DeeperBlue member Mr X. has some imported from the States.

Any solution will cost you money which in my opinion will be wasted. Buy a Cressi Comanche 75cm or 90cm gun, or a beauchat of similar size. They cost as little as £50 if you get the right deal and full price is less than £90 over the counter brand new.

Sorry to be negative and totally ignore me if you wish but in my opinion don't try to shoot fish with a 40cm rubber gun.

Dave.

 

[david1963]

Well I must admit its not really what I wanted to hear, however neither do I want to fail and give up due to poor equipment or more importantly injure fish needlessly. Thankyou for the advice and suggestions, are you able to recomend a shop and thankyou for taking the time to help, Dave

 

[Old Man Dave]

Click on "shopping" at the top of the page and enter the DB shop. Look up spearguns. There are a lot and very good prices but check out shipping (it's from Spain). Other internet sites are Apnea in Jersey, subprof in spain and Scubaland in france - google them. Also check out the link for our UK sponsor of FOM it's in the July FOM link in my signature below.

Also you can use the search button above to look up info on the forums about different guns.

There are some good Irish spearo's on DB but I assume they are based south of the border. Still you could ask questions on the Irish 2010 thread.

Dave.

 

[bobdonny]

hi dave,

i'd suggest making new bands yourself (may need a few modifications)

then head to west or east and take a trip with some other spearo's and see the difference with their spearguns

enjoy

 

[bobdonny]

give these guys an email?
E. LANARA & Co - SpearFishing Equipment Industry

 

[peacenluv]

40 is quite a short gun and is really only good for close range hunting. beuchat makes entry level band guns as short as 35 now, though 50 and 60 are more common. So maybe a factory beuchat band might work?

 

[Mr. X]

OMD's response comes from years of experience.

I bought bulk rubber from Spearitco.com, The worlds largest selection of Speargun Bands and Do-It-Yourself Spearfishing Supplies, you can buy from their website and they also sell on eBay (their website is cheaper). The rubber is fresh and good.

Does the spear have a trident tip? Is it cheaply made, plastic handle model or something fancier? Perhaps as OMD suggest you could use it for similar applications as one might use a hand-spear. Perhaps for flatfish or close-in shots. Fish do sometimes come in very close but it sounds like OMD thinks it would not have enough power to do even that job properly - it would be a shame to maim a beautifu bigl bass, for example. Those scales can be quite effective - big mullet especially, its like plastic chain-mail! The gill-plates too.

If you get something else - maybe a 75cm speargun - after a while you might figure out a niche role for you little gun. It's tempting to minimize costs but you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a decent speargun, that might well last you a life-time. You'll get a lot of use out of a 75.

 

[david1963]

Thanks for all the input, I really think the best for me is to save up and buy a larger gun that will do the job well.

I like the idea of a special gun for flat fish but with my luck I'll spot a nice fish take aim and then have the bass of my dreams swim past. At that point with a larger/better gun I at least have a choice although I'll still probably miss.

I think its save up and wait for a better gun. As I said before I want as quick and clean kill as possible, thanks again for the help Dave.