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Mares Bazooka usage

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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adventurer

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Dec 6, 2020
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I have an old mares, and would be thankful for some info.
1. I assume the little toggle switch is a safety...mine does not seem to be working. what position should be safe? Up towards top of gun, or down towards grip?
2. How many pump strokes for maximum power? Does this change as gun gets older?
3. Does anybody have a link to a users manual?
Thanks!
 
The "switch" on the side is the power regulator, forward and down in the gate is full power, second position and down in the gate is reduced power and right back is minimum power. The gate positions are numbered and are reversed compared to how they are in a "Mirage". This is because the power regulator pulls on a thin rod that pulls a metal plug with a conical nose that fits into a port in the brass power regulator bulkhead in the tail end of the gun. To stop gun internal pressure driving the power regulator forwards there are substantial coil springs surrounding the power regulator rod, ditto for the pull rod connected to the trigger. I don’t have a manual for the Bazooka, but you pump it up until you can just load it. They are a big gun to load and not much use in general spearfishing. Over the years little used Bazookas have come onto the second-hand market as few owners ever really used them after an initial burst of interest. I have seen some that looked like they never got wet with not a scratch or a hint of marine corrosion.
Mares-Titan-Bazooka-2.jpg
 
Another note on the power regulator. With zero air pressure in the gun the coil springs on the control rods make the regulator switch and trigger hard to move, they are intended to balance out against the air pressure in the gun once it is up to useable levels for shooting purposes. At first owners think something is wrong as the coil springs are much stronger than they are in the rear handle guns and in fact some guns don't have a biasing spring, just relying on air pressure inside the gun to push the power regulator to the rearmost and full power position, Only exception is the reversed power regulators used in the Salvimar pneumatic spearguns following on from the Scubapro Magnum.
Mares-Titan-Bazooka-1.jpg


The Bazooka is the longest gun in the Titan family, based on the same mid-handle used in all of them. The original Titan was basically extending the classic rear tank gun by adding extra tank volume in front of the grip handle while still maintaining a narrow front barrel. These guns were a sensation when they came out and Mares soon created extra models with full length tanks. At about the same time Nemrod made their full length tank guns with mid-handles in their Silver series.
Mares-Titan-1.jpg
 
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What got rid of these guns were the rear handle superlight pneumatic guns such as the Mares Sten which float like corks after the shot. This is because of their thin wall alloy tanks and plastic bulkhead parts which are much lighter than the components of the Titan series. Once spearing on scuba was banned in many places sinking after the shot guns were not so popular and were progressively discontinued.
 
Looks like i need to replace the O ring--it just hisses at me when I pump it up. It is a thirty year old Bazooka and needs a special wrench to get at that o ring. If this is a standard tool, what is it called? Or is it made by Mares, specific to their guns? I can not find an address for them online.
Thanks,

adventurer
 
The "Titan" family of guns is a bit different to the other Mares pneumatic spearguns. The rear tail cone screws out because it is threaded into the brass cup type bulkhead screwed on the end of the inner barrel. In other words the inner barrel does not run the full length of the gun. You use the metal loop on the rear of the tail cone as a handle to grip it with. The chrome plated inlet valve body screws into the rear of the plastic cone and needs to be removed with a tube spanner with lugs cut to engage the transverse slot in the inlet valve body rear face. However you can access the internal front face of the inlet valve if you screw out the rear tail cone first.

Make sure all air is out of the gun before you do anything as any pressure in the gun makes parts hard to turn and is also very dangerous as the gun can blow apart when you are least expecting it.
 
Here is the parts diagram for a "Minititan", the gun has a different nose cone, but the mid-handle and rearwards is the same for all of them.
MARES-Minititan 1.jpg
.
titan drawing parts list.jpg
 
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maybe you can see in these pics, my 30 year old bazooka is very different, with all the mechanism at the rear. The pistol grip is no longer there, but the safety and trigger work fine. In the diagram you sent there are many O rings. It looks to me like mine has only one O ring that I should be able to replace by unscrewing the brass lug at the rear.
My gun looks just like the smaller guns: a long tube with all the replacable parts at the rear end....nothing in the middle like the diagrams you so kindly sent.
Tom
 
That is not a "Bazooka", that is a "Sten" with the grip chopped off. What you need is a new rear handle.
it says Bazooka on the gun.....the grip is just for comfort, gun worked fine without it until the O ring started leaking. Anyway, I really appreciate all your advice...now I need that wrench to get at the O rings. Does the wrench have a name, or is it made only by Mares for their guns?
 
You need to look in the gun dismantling thread where instructions are given for the rear handle guns. Your gun is not a Bazooka despite the sticker someone put on it as originally it had a handle like this.
Sten handle.jpg
 
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The "O" ring kit for the Mares Sten is what you need. A gun in that condition should not be used as it is very dangerous without a handle, trigger or trigger finger guard.
 
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The "O" ring kit for the Mares Sten is what you need. A gun in that condition should not be used as it is very dangerous without a handle, trigger or trigger finger guard.

I agree with Pete. Even if you don’t want to spend the money on a new handle, at least make a trigger guard for that gun. Especially if you ever dive with a buddy. Shooting someone else is worse than “just” shooting yourself, which is bad enough as it is.

If you want to have a go at rebuilding the grip I think it can be done, too. I think there’s just enough material at the rear end that you could drill into and then add a bolt or rod to be used as base to build a new grip around out of epoxy putty, shapelock or wood.

Or, if you’re in Europe, buy a replacement handle from Edosub.it. Maybe a newer Sten would work as a direct replacement. He might know as he’s is quite knowledgeable. Maybe it’s even cheaper if you get one without the power regulator - unless you’re using that feature a lot, of course.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If you did have an accident then the authorities would come down on you like a ton of bricks for using a damaged gun in that condition, so either put a Sten handle on it (the grips come complete with all parts as an assembly) or scrap the gun and buy something else.
 
The Sten when it arrived in 1967 pretty well changed everything as it floated after the shot and the 40 mm diameter tank meant that it had a low compression ratio so you could use a higher start pressure in it. The classic guns have a higher compression ratio so the start pressure has to be lower. The compression ratio thread on here explains it in more detail. The Technisub guns have smaller diameter tanks until the Conquest Booster, but the Sten was pretty well established by then as was the Cressi--Sub SL clone of the Sten. I bought a MiniTitan to try out, but was disappointed in it, although it looked great. The Titan family of guns have thicker tanks so if they head for the bottom they will not get too banged up. The rear handle guns with 40 mm tanks are going to stay off the bottom after the shot, so can have very thin tanks.
https://forums.deeperblue.com/threads/pneumatic-speargun-compression-ratio.86054/
I have pulled all these guns apart so know how they are built. That brass cup in the back of the Titan guns made then sinkers, they are carried over from rear tank classic guns with a partitioned reservoir. I looked at a Bazooka, but realistically there was no way I could load one, at least not in a hurry. A local sports store had a Bazooka on the wall for many years, everyone looked at it, but it disappeared eventually. It had a metallized Bazooka sticker over the top of the Titan nameplate in the handle. Other examples have that sticker on the tank just behind the grip section.
Titan Mini.JPG

Titan grip.JPG
 
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