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Mares Cyrano Evo HF

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

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2013
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Hello everyone,
Hoping somebody may be able to put me on the right track. I’ve had a Mares Cyrano Evo HF 90cm for a few years. Never had a problem. Yesterday it fell over onto the ground, and the line release, and the power control lever broke off! I have searched the net and there is very little information on Mares labs for repairing same. I think the closest one away from me is Cairns, which is too far for me. The cheapest option for me, I think, is to purchase the parts and do it myself. I do all my own work with my pipe and timber guns. Anybody know the best place to get these parts? Is there a manual, or video on pulling down and repairing these guns? Thanks for reading. Cheers. Darryl
 
This thread might help, as a start anyway.
Pneumatic dismantling: how to get inside
 
Hello Darryl and welcome:).
Good to hear your Evo has served you well and pity about the accident.

I do have a very, very good shop for spares and he should be able to sort you out. He's in Italy though. But dropping a few small parts like that in a padded envelope hopefully wont cost much. He ships fast and his English is quite good, too.
Edosub is the name of the shop and it's run by... Edo;-). He has served me well many times and it seems like the people here I have recommended him to have been happy, too.
His site is in Italian but you can use google translate. But here's a few links to get you started:

Line Release (The newest one is in stainless. Perhaps they are interchangeable and maybe he will sell you one of those)
Power Regulator (The whole rod with the front end. Perhaps he has a rear part only. Ask him)
O-Ring Set (I would get 1-2 replacement o-ring sets, so you can do a full service now that you will be taking the gun apart. These are for the 11mm barrel version. Check to see that the OD of your barrel is 16mm, then they will work for you)

Edo also replies pretty fast on email or find him on skype or Facebook (links in the top right hand corner of his website).

We will walk you through the disassembly once we get to that point, but it's pretty straight forward and that gun is actually pretty nicely put together. Popgun Pete (a fellow Aussie) has a good write-up somewhere here on how to take a standard gun apart. Can't find the link right now, but he will probably chime in soon enough. ([EDIT] Haha, I just see that he posted while I was writing this essay)
This should be much the same as though your gun looks swank on the outside - nothing substantial has really changed on the inside for the past 40 years or so;-).
The main rule is to make 100% sure your gun is fully depressurized by having the power regulator in the full power position when you press the pump inlet valve open. On your Mares, that's the forward position. You may also have to make a little homemade tool to unscrew the pump inlet valve. But we can get to that later.

But can you share some pics of what exactly broke? The power regulator is a small piece of 4mm stainless steel rod with a 90 degree bend in it and a plastic knob on the end. Did just the knob come off?
Come to think about it, perhaps it is best if you take the gun apart before you order parts. Just to check if everything else looks alright? You could check the piston and the shock absorber, too as the do take a beating.
 
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Thanks Guys. On reflection, perhaps you’re right in pulling the gun apart before ordering. It looks as if the power regulator has snapped off inside the barrel as I can determine a sheared edge where it has broken off. I was not sure of the inner attachments, and what it was connected to. If I pump a small amount of air into the gun, I can hear the air escaping from the affected site. I had already depressurised the gun, fortunately, before my mishap. My line release is snapped clean and I have easy access to it. I was thinking I could maybe get away with superglueing it. It would be a good junction. Maybe others have tried this and had success? Or would I be better served changing it whilst the gun is dismantled? I have attached some photos. The last one is of the reel. They are very flimsy, and I was thinking of getting rid of it anyway. I have measure the ID of where the shaft goes in and it is 11mm. Is this correct with your measurements for the O-rings
IMG_20180825_143340.jpg
IMG_20180825_143522.jpg
IMG_20180825_143935_711.jpg
?
 
Superglue falls apart in water, you can get a clear epoxy glue that will be better than superglue, but that cracked reel part should be replaced. You can replace the sheared off control knob, it screws into the power selector shaft. You will need to get the broken off threaded piece out of the selector shaft's threaded rear hole.
 
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Thanks Pete. I do have epoxy on hand. To get to the selector shaft, do I need to access the handle, as in taking out trigger mech and opening back end? Or just accessing front part?
 
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Thanks Pete. I do have epoxy on hand. To get to the selector shaft, do I need to access the handle, as in taking out trigger mech and opening back end? Or just accessing front part?

You need to take the gun apart, then the front part of the regulator rod pulls straight out of the handle. But as Pete says, it's another matter whether you can actually get the broken piece of male thread out of the front part. The whole assembly was about 11 euros in Edo's shop.

I don't think I would bother gluing the line release, either.
I am actually not sure how to get the release out of the handle. The bushing it sits on has a female thread. Perhaps the bushing is just pushed in and the thread is there to insert a tool into for pulling it back out?
 
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Awesome. Thanks Gecko. Shall follow Petes steps in pulling the whole thing apart. What have I got to lose? At least I’ll have intimate knowledge of the gun. Might play around with the line release and have a look at removal/insert.
Once I pull it down and see what damage is done, I’ll hit up Edo. Thanks for that hook up! Will keep you posted. Thanks mate
 
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I would be interested to see the "variator" which is piston that plugs the partitioning bulkhead. In the "Cyrano Evo", according to the Mares graphics , it has a spring and some fore-aft movement with respect to the control shaft. I have never seen one, but here is what the graphics seemed to suggest. It is a way to lengthen the stroke of the plug beyond the actual travel of the selector shaft because the plug can move on the shaft as well as being pushed and pulled by it. The small illustration on the lower right relates to the Mares image directly above it, the blue rectangles represent the seal on the piston, the thin black outlines represent the forward motion of the piston and the heavy black outlines represent the piston moved back. Bear in mind that the piston positions overlap due to the length of the piston body, thus the rectangles are defining position of leading and trailing edges for the "variator" pushed forwards and rearwards by air pressure changes as the gun is cocked or shoots..
variator.jpg
 
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Thanks for the animation Pete. I now have some idea at what I’m looking for. Cheers. Will keep you posted.
 
I would be interested to see the "variator" which is piston that plugs the partitioning bulkhead. In the "Cyrano Evo", according to the Mares graphics , it has a spring and some fore-aft movement with respect to the control shaft. I have never seen one, but here is what the graphics seemed to suggest. It is a way to lengthen the stroke of the plug beyond the actual travel of the selector shaft because the plug can move on the shaft as well as being pushed and pulled by it. The small illustration on the lower right relates to the Mares image directly above it, the blue rectangles represent the seal on the piston, the thin black outlines represent the forward motion of the piston and the heavy black outlines represent the piston moved back. Bear in mind that the piston positions overlap due to the length of the piston body, thus the rectangles are defining position of leading and trailing edges for the "variator" pushed forwards and rearwards by air pressure changes as the gun is cocked or shoots..View attachment 52456

My Cyrano 1.3 version handle does have the spring but the plug doesn't move on the shaft at all. Actually, I have no idea what the spring is doing on the gun? Perhaps, it is there to soften the backwards "push" that comes from the air pressure when you open from low to high power? But I actually feel it is too strong and I even suspect it could hamper the airflow on the high power setting as it pushes the plug really close to the air transfer bore.
I was honestly thinking of getting rid of it for that reason. What do you think Pete? (I was gonna post about it later in my ongoing Evo Mirage thread anyways).
That spring is on one of my other guns, too but can't recall if it's the Sten or the Hunter.

So, apart from the spring and one other thing, the regulator is as most others (except for Magnum/Salvi). BUT it does have a 9mm bore - which is also in that 3D animated video from the launch of the gun. That might actually be a real world improvement - if the older, smaller one does indeed throttle the air flow. Another point on that - Mares, in that same video, say they upped it to 9mm from 6mm...? I know this is splitting hairs, but I am fairly certain most bores are 7mm, not 6mm.

And yes, there's an incredibly simple non-return valve in there, too. Just a molded rubber plug. No springs, no ball bearing balls nor o-rings. I'll try to snap some pics of it all one of these days.
 
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Awesome. Thanks Gecko. Shall follow Petes steps in pulling the whole thing apart. What have I got to lose? At least I’ll have intimate knowledge of the gun. Might play around with the line release and have a look at removal/insert.
Once I pull it down and see what damage is done, I’ll hit up Edo. Thanks for that hook up! Will keep you posted. Thanks mate

Forgot to say, that the 11mm inner bore means that you do have the 1.1 version of the gun (I don't know if they made the 13mm, or 1.3, back then), so you should be good to go with the o-ring set I linked to.

I actually did make my own line releases for two other guns, but if you go down that path you really have to dial in the exact point where it releases in regards to the trigger pull. If it releases too late, the line release will be ripped in two from the pull of the shooting line. I don't know if it can be even worse such as in not breaking but instead working as an anchor point for the shooting line and then the shaft boomerang back towards you...
And if it releases too early you might have mono coming off too early, though I guess that's not too bad.

The way I dialled mine in was to put very little air in the gun (perhaps 3-5 bar), latch the piston in - but without a shaft (only shooting the piston) and then rig a rubber band to the line release. Now, I would pull the trigger very, very slowly and notice if the shot (piston) went off before or after the line releases. To help in this, I even used my smartphone on the slowmo video setting to film it and review it right after. That way, I got it dialled in so that it releases just before the shot but no any later than it has to. Of course, you need to repeat this enough times that you feel certain you got it right. Make sure you use very little pressure otherwise you risk busting the piston on the shock absorber during these dry shots.
 
Wow! I don’t think I’m quite up to that level as yet. Think I’ll stick to the manufacturers Release. Maybe in time I can attempt something like that, but , I’ll get more acquainted with my gun first. Have you got a photo somewhere of your work?
 
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My Cyrano 1.3 version handle does have the spring but the plug doesn't move on the shaft at all. Actually, I have no idea what the spring is doing on the gun? Perhaps, it is there to soften the backwards "push" that comes from the air pressure when you open from low to high power? But I actually feel it is too strong and I even suspect it could hamper the airflow on the high power setting as it pushes the plug really close to the air transfer bore.
I was honestly thinking of getting rid of it for that reason. What do you think Pete? (I was gonna post about it later in my ongoing Evo Mirage thread anyways).
That spring is on one of my other guns, too but can't recall if it's the Sten or the Hunter.

So, apart from the spring and one other thing, the regulator is as most others (except for Magnum/Salvi). BUT it does have a 9mm bore - which is also in that 3D animated video from the launch of the gun. That might actually be a real world improvement - if the older, smaller one does indeed throttle the air flow. Another point on that - Mares, in that same video, say they upped it to 9mm from 6mm...? I know this is splitting hairs, but I am fairly certain most bores are 7mm, not 6mm.

And yes, there's an incredibly simple non-return valve in there, too. Just a molded rubber plug. No springs, no ball bearing balls nor o-rings. I'll try to snap some pics of it all one of these days.
Well that is a surprise as watching the animation it looks like the nose of the piston moves, but it must be the back piece as it carries an "O" ring seal too. The effect is to have the airflow opening increase by that flow moving the free-floating part of the piston, which means the tunnel bore in the power regulator partitioning bulkhead is long in a thicker bulkhead. Many times I have looked for someone to open their "Cyrano Evo" up, so here is a chance to find out exactly what those parts look like. I did not want to buy a "Cyrano Evo" just to pull it apart! I would buy a "Cyrano 1.3", but none are available here when I last looked and I don't really like the Mares family of handles in the current range of band and pneumatic spearguns. P.S. Restrictive practices stop overseas stores shipping Mares pneumatic guns into Australia as the Australian Mares distributor wants to keep that business to itself. Unfortunately it is not currently bringing in the: “Cyrano 1.3"
 
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Wow! I don’t think I’m quite up to that level as yet. Think I’ll stick to the manufacturers Release. Maybe in time I can attempt something like that, but , I’ll get more acquainted with my gun first. Have you got a photo somewhere of your work?

It was just a longer release for a Sporasub Air and then I put a Salvimar line release on a very old gun. But they are very different from yours. It was more about how if you do wanna make your own, you just need to make sure it releases before the piston;-)
 
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Well that is a surprise as watching the animation it looks like the nose of the piston moves, but it must be the back piece as it carries an "O" ring seal too. The effect is to have the airflow opening increase by that flow moving the free-floating part of the piston, which means the tunnel bore in the power regulator partitioning bulkhead is long in a thicker bulkhead. Many times I have looked for someone to open their "Cyrano Evo" up, so here is a chance to find out exactly what those parts look like. I did not want to buy a "Cyrano Evo" just to pull it apart! I would buy a "Cyrano 1.3", but none are available here when I last looked and I don't really like the Mares family of handles in the current range of band and pneumatic spearguns. P.S. Restrictive practices stop overseas stores shipping Mares pneumatic guns into Australia as the Australian Mares distributor wants to keep that business to itself. Unfortunately it is not currently bringing in the: “Cyrano 1.3"

Isn't the local distributor flexible or customer minded enough to add a pneumatic gun to one of their orders for you? I know a local distributor in Asia who will put in custom orders like that - he just adds it to his next big order though that's for Salvimar. Of course, the lead time is longer but you get what you want.
 
The local distributor is someone that Mares "find the nearest dealer to you" comes up a blank.
https://www.mares.com/en-AU/partner-locator/

Mares have had some changes over the years for their Australian distributor. "Airdive" were good in the early days under Jim Agar, Cape Byron Imports were OK, but unresponsive to the market, then Mares fell in a hole. Then some unknown picked it up. You cannot obtain an exclusive dealership and then think that the money will just roll in without doing anything, but sadly that is where we are now. Unfortunately the same happened with Salvimar, spearfishermen were crying out for pneumatic spearguns, but that fell on deaf ears. When trying to import Salvimar pneumatic guns themselves from overseas they were blocked by the arrangement with the local distributor. Eventually the local distributor woke up and imported pneumatic guns themselves, however you have to ask what it takes to be a distributor as there have been some poor choices over the years.

P.S. Spearfishing is a dirty word here as far as most dive shops are concerned, they are very scuba oriented and see spearfishermen as little better than axe murderers. Fortunately this situation has now mellowed somewhat, but spearfishing is still regarded as a marginal activity here thanks to a very strong "green" lobby who would like to see spearfishing, if not all recreational fishing, banned.
 
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I just ordered a "Cyrano 1.3" from DiveStock (in Estonia) whom I have purchased from before, when Mares Australia could not be bothered bringing the items in.
 
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The local distributor is someone that Mares "find the nearest dealer to you" comes up a blank.
https://www.mares.com/en-AU/partner-locator/

Mares have had some changes over the years for their Australian distributor. "Airdive" were good in the early days under Jim Agar, Cape Byron Imports were OK, but unresponsive to the market, then Mares fell in a hole. Then some unknown picked it up. You cannot obtain an exclusive dealership and then think that the money will just roll in without doing anything, but sadly that is where we are now. Unfortunately the same happened with Salvimar, spearfishermen were crying out for pneumatic spearguns, but that fell on deaf ears. When trying to import Salvimar pneumatic guns themselves from overseas they were blocked by the arrangement with the local distributor. Eventually the local distributor woke up and imported pneumatic guns themselves, however you have to ask what it takes to be a distributor as there have been some poor choices over the years.

P.S. Spearfishing is a dirty word here as far as most dive shops are concerned, they are very scuba oriented and see spearfishermen as little better than axe murderers. Fortunately this situation has now mellowed somewhat, but spearfishing is still regarded as a marginal activity here thanks to a very strong "green" lobby who would like to see spearfishing, if not all recreational fishing, banned.
I know what you mean. I live close to Byron Bay....I think that is self explanatory enough!
 
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