Mares Cyrano Evo HF 90 review

[ufc1972]

Hi all.
I had been looking for long time to see any reviews on the new cyrano but could not find any and now
that I finally have my new gun I though I would rough review
Please keep in mind I am no expert but I own two Mares Sparks and two Mares Cyrano's plus the new one.
I will be comparing the new Cyrano 90 to my old Cyrano 970
Here is some info. The HF was at about 22Bar
The trigger is much much nicer on the HF, lighter and less movement.
The HF seems much quieter.I thought is was amazing quiet. But then remembered all my other pneumatics are around the 27 bar so the HF only being at 22 obviously helps with the noise,
Better balance, the nose is not as heavy as my old 970
The power reducer is way better to use (lighter to move) and one thumb is all that it needs to be moved.
The handle on the gun seems a little thin but once in the water with gloves on it seems good.
I am note sure what it is but for some reason I am way more accurate with the new HF. The raised section along the top of the barrel seems to help with aiming. I have only fired 11 shots from the gun but am yet to miss a fish. (they were not big fish either that I was shooting at). I have never had a gun that I have shot so good from the first time I have used it. The combination of the better trigger and the barrel is what make it so easy to shoot straight I think.
The barrel seems fairly scratch resistant and the overall feel of the gun is that it is of good quality and has a nice modern feel to it.
The piston does feel to have much less resistance so it does seem to be easier to load . My old cyrano was very very tight when new.
The ports on the front of the muzzle are a much better shape which would help the water escape better but who knows how much performance this improvement would give. Maybe 2-3% at a wild guess.

If I had to have a really wild guess how much more power the hf has with it low friction piston, better water exhaust ports and the more open air ports in the gun I would guess that it may all add up to a 5-10% gain of the old gun. Also the low friction piston I think would mean that you can have a little higher pressure on the gun with the same loading effort. The HF 90 actually measures 93 while my old cyrano 970 is 97.

The shaft supplied with the gun seems good but perhaps a little on the soft side compared to a hi quality shaft. The weight of the shaft is 290 Grams which I personally think is a little light for the gun.
I have a 7.14mm shaft that is about 5cm longer that weighs 330 grams which will make the gun a bit harder hitting I think ,although it will not be as well balanced then.

Overall I absolutely love the new HF.
But this only lasted a few days.

I went out for a quick spear today. I increase the pressure to about 27 bar to see how the gun would perform. Still fairly quiet, the trigger is a little heavier but much still better then my old cyrano.
Shaft speed seems good but will be putting that heavier shaft on soon to try.
The big problem today was that the gun almost shot through my hand.
I have a habit of after I load my gun I rotate the shaft so that the flopper is in the exact same position for each shot, this may be a bad idea but never had a problem with any other gun. When I did this today the gun discharged and the line release was torn off. I did not touch the trigger. So the release did not activate.
Please note when the gun was at 22 bar this was not a problem. But the extra pressure in the gun and the fact that the gun has a lighter trigger must mean that the movement of the piston from me rotating the shaft caused it to misfire.
As I am in Australia I am doubting that they will have spare parts so with my luck i will now be without my new gun for a while. What makes it worse is that I sold my 970 just last night and I was planing on spearing this weekend. My other guns at 70cm and 55cm

I really really hope Mares Australia get the parts to me quickly.

So anyone with a new Cyrano HF be careful if you do what I did and turn the shaft to line up the flopper.
Also keep in mind that with the great new lighter trigger comes the increased risk of a misfire.

 

[tromic]

Intersing review. I suppose the trigger sensitivity could be adjusted - not to be so sensitive. But rotating a shaft after loading is always risky and dangerous!

 

[ufc1972]

Intersing review. I suppose the trigger sensitivity could be adjusted - not to be so sensitive. But rotating a shaft after loading is always risky and dangerous!

Yes I will stop the habit of rotating the shaft for sure and may adjust the trigger sensitivity to not be as sensitive but
I do really like the light trigger though,

 

[Diving Gecko]

Hey UFC,
Thanks so much for the review.
One of the Danes from our local forum will be pleased to read your review.
And strangely enough, just before reading your post, I emailed Jegwan to talk to him about the fact that I had two misfires in exactly the same way as you - while turning the spear in its locked position.
It never happened before and I did not change any of the parts involved. But I did increase the pressure from around 17-18 to 20 bar on a 13mm Seac Hunter.

BTW, I was thinking that the power regulator should be harder to manipulate in your new gun as the piston of the regulator is now a bigger diameter and as such is under great force. How was the power regulator when you took the gun up to the same pressure as your other guns?

Pity about the spare parts, hope you'll be sorted out soon.

 

[ufc1972]

Hey Gecko. I think the power regulator might be a little harder now but it is still really easy to move compared to my other guns.
Makes changing to low power is way quicker which should save my shafts when should small fish in front of rocks.
Also in my review I forgot to say that the new loader fits a pencil point shaft good but does not fit a tri cut point very well at all.
Also the gun came with two good quality bungees, good mono shooting line and a nice line side. (Mares race slide, I think they call it)
the shop that I bought it from said that he has had complaints about the new line slide breaking mono. I have inspected my mono and the line slide does seem to put stress on the mono. I recommend getting the new line slides from Marko.
As I said the biggest improvement I think would be a slightly heavier shaft with a tri cut point ( I think the tri cut point do penetrate a little better but with more damage and an approx 12% heavier shaft would help on the longer shoots at bigger fish)

My Mares spark 70 has a 255 gram 7.14 mm shaft. The factory shaft was a 7mm 225 gram. I think the 10% + gain in shaft weight really helped with penetration. That plus a tomba line slide and 1.1mm mono line. Correct me if I am wrong but a 7.14mm shaft would mean that there is just a tiny bit less water in the barrel which cannot hurt and I have it at about 28-29 bar so there is plenty of shaft speed.
Is the EVO HF worth the price tag. Well in Australia the answer is a big yes. The Cyrano 970 sells for around $399 and the EVO HF 90
sells for around $489 with a reel, good bungees, better shaft, spare mono shooting line, 3 loaders, nicer bag and 2013 good looks.
But this is all dependent on if the new gun is as reliable as the old.

 

[Diving Gecko]

Ah, a change from high power to low power (flicking the power regulator forward) could be easier. If I understand the system correctly, there shouldn't be any pressurized air acting on the regulator as both the forward and aft department of the barrel is under the same pressure. That leaves the forces on the regulator to be the spring, o-ring friction and possible friction on the metal rod travelling through the handle. So, maybe the spring is less hard on an Evo HF and perhaps the o-ring has less friction (compression) when it is pushed into its seat.
I do think think the regulator is pretty hard on a Seac Hunter with 20 bar (equal to 28 bar for 11mm guns) but I also noticed the o-ring has quite a bit of compression going into its seat.
But if all this is true, I still think that, theoretically, if you flick from low to high after a shot - and before loading - you should have more force acting on the regulator.
But I think it would not make sense to do that. Even if you knew you were going to shoot at high after re-loading, it is cool to have that easy loading feature that comes from having it at low.

All this could be completely wrong, I am sure Pete or Tomi will chip in if it is.

The cool thing is that the gun sounds solid!
Our Danish forum is down at the moment, but as said, I do know one spearo who just ordered the same gun and he'll be thrilled to hear this.

 

[Diving Gecko]

Hmm, I might have my brain wired wrong. I guess for going from Hi to Low, it helps the more powerful the spring is.
Anyways, I might have to recommend this gun to any friends looking for a good oleo

 

[popgun pete]

The practice of rotating the shaft should not fire the gun if the piston is latched unless the sear tooth is pushed down by the piston tail's mushroom head turning. The sear lever works like a hook unless Mares have changed it. Pulling the trigger lifts the rear end of the sear lever and that depresses the front end which lowers the sear tooth thus releasing its grip on the piston tail. If the trigger sensitivity screw is wound up too far then it causes the trigger transmission pin to hit the bottom of the sear lever and start tipping the sear tooth before you have even commenced loading the gun, something you don't want as at a certain angular position of the sear tooth away from 90 degrees the loaded up mushroom tail can simply push the sear tooth aside.

If you want to rotate the shaft then you do it before you release full loading effort on the loading handle and before the shaft rebounds back against the sear tooth. There is always a slight rebound action in any speargun. It is not really worth worrying about turning the flopper around, the shooter introduces more variability in aiming. On very long shots it has an effect, but so do a bunch of other factors that are not easily controlled.

Rigging the shooting line on the gun before muzzle loading is a recipe for damaging the line release, I always do it after muzzle loading and with the safety applied, the only real reason for having a safety on a speargun. I think that you should return the gun and report exactly what happened, the gun will be under warranty. Spearguns are made to be used by a range of users with varying capabilities, so need to be relatively "foolproof", but there may be an assembly problem at Mares. I once pulled a gun apart to find a component reversed, but I will not be mentioning any names, it did not cause a problem immediately.

If the Mares "Cyrano Evo" has a much larger transfer port then the power regulator control knob should be slighter harder to switch to low power, but it depends on whether it is a scaled-up piston plug or something else entirely. I don't know anything about the internals of the new gun at this stage, I am waiting for someone to pull one apart. Any performance improvement should be down to the barrel sliding piston's seals and the airflow restriction changes made with that new and larger transfer port.

 

[ufc1972]

Going by the Mares promo video on youtube the mushroom head on the piston has "New rounded shape for better release"
which does seem to make for a better release but obviously limits how much the sear tooth can move before for discharge.
Which is all really good unless you have a bad habit of rotating the shaft like me which at the higher pressure must have just been enough to release the sear tooth. I think all Mares need to do is have some big writing in the manual saying do not rotate shaft when the gun is loaded. Although when the gun was at about 22 bar the problem to not occur is was only when the gun was at 27 bar.
Also now that I am thinking about it I was trying to keep fairly still and quiet at the time and loaded the gun very slowly so I may not have rammed the spear in hard enough for the sear to lock in all the way. Not likely but possible I guess.

 

[Jegwan]

I think that could be possible. Another factor that changes with the pressure is the momentum possible to transfer from the piston tail to the sear tooth due to the friction - it could be a combination of both.
The force to area ratio between the piston tail and sear tooth increases with the pressure and if the area on which it works is reduced.

The performance and type of oil in the gun or a foreign body could also be an issue together with the above - possible; but not very likely either.

Best thing is to follow Pete's advise: "If you want to rotate the shaft then you do it before you release full loading effort on the loading handle and before the shaft rebounds back against the sear tooth".

- and let Mares have a look at the gun...

Jégwan

 

[ufc1972]

Yes I don't think I will be rotating the shaft again.
Found out today that as I suspected they have no parts in Australia
and it will be a 4 weeks for them to come in. Then at a guess another week
to get it fitted and sent back to me. My one time of the year I get a few weeks off on holidays and won't
have my new toy. Sold my cyrano 970 the day before the Evo broke too so only have my 70 cm and 55cm guns.
Yes I know I am a cry baby.

 

[Jegwan]

Argh! Sorry to hear that. I understand that makes you cry...
Gives you a change to borrow (or buy) another gun..
Jégwan

 

[ufc1972]

Yes I would like another gun (a 110 evo HF) but my wife will kill me if I buy another gun so soon.
She was sick of me telling her how cool the new gun is and how all our conversations would revolve
back around to spearfishing and now she is sick of me whining and complaining.

Its taking all my restraint to not pull the gun apart and make a line release myself.

 

[Kuya]

OP, knowing what you now know, would you still buy the gun? Sounds like it was great until you turned the shaft and had a misfire.

 

[ufc1972]

Honestly I absolutely love the gun. But as I learnt many years ago, when a new model of anything comes out don't be the first to buy it. Give it time to see if there are any bugs or things to look out for. But I didn't take my own advise in this case. I just wanted it really really badly. If I can get the line release fixed in a reasonable time and there are no more problems then I will be very very happy. But
I just picked up the gun then and it looked like oil is seeping out from where the handle meets the barrel. There was only a tiny bit but it did look like oil. Not sure what is going on with this. I wiped it off with my fingers so will see if it comes back in a few days.

 

[ufc1972]

Just did a really rough fix for my gun. I used a pink plastic cloths peg as a line release and some electrical tape. Actually looks like it will work ok. Looks funny and will be a bit slower to load the shooting line but I actually think it should work ok. Will post some pics if it works ok after I try it out. Might get someone else out of trouble if the same thing happens to them and Mares does not have parts handy.

 

[ufc1972]

Good news. Mares Australia is going to replace the gun when they get there next shipment of guns in which is only about 10 days
away. So will have it for my holidays.

 

[Gazz]

Thanks for the review.

I rotate the spear on all my guns and have never had a missfire.

Where in Australia are you diving? its a pity they aren't bringing the 120 model out here.

 

[ufc1972]

Hi Gazz.
I live in Hervey bay QLD so mainly dive around here. But the vis in not normally great and I don't get much spare time to get out much. Hopefully over Xmas the weather will be ok and I will be able to get out a bit. Going to hopefully spent some time around Double island point near Rainbow beach to. Would like to try the East side of Fraser island but think the 90cm may be a little to small for there. So would like to buy a 110 soon if the 90cm does not have any more issues.

Beside the danger factor with the misfire the broken line release does not look easy to change which will be a pain if the there are more missfires and broken line releases. Would really like to see what needs to be done to change it and have a spare one on hand, just in case.
If anyone has any info on what is involved to change the line release on the new Evo HF please let me know.

Also I checked where the barrel meets the handle and it does look like just a tiny about of oil is coming out.
When the new gun gets here in the next week or so I will see how this one goes.

 

[tromic]

Here is a solution for line release:
http://forums.deeperblue.com/attachments/img_2791-jpg.31366/

Line Release