New LG

[popgun pete]

In case you are wondering, the circlip on the inner barrel allows you to line the inner barrel up by having something to hold onto when you do up the rear inlet valve body as there are no indexing lug cut-outs on the rear end of the gun's inner barrel. If you don't line it up the trigger transmission pin will not push on the bottom of the sear lever. Most plastic handle guns have lugs moulded inside the handle interior to match the cut-outs in the rear end of the inner barrel tube, but you cannot easily do that with a machined part. The sear lever pivot pin which protrudes either side out of the inner barrel does have some sockets to slide into inside the rear handle, but I don't think that they are an exact fit.

Note that the Mares tube spanner undoes the LG Sub inlet valve body, not surprising given that the guns use the Mares hand pump.

 

[popgun pete]

Here is a photo of the metal tail Delrin piston lined up on the sear lever's tooth. The piston only has a single "O" ring seal and has a knurled rear body section which may be to hold oil or to make it a slightly tighter fit. Pistons need to be long enough to not rock in the inner barrel, a problem with the very early Stens. If the muzzle tightly controls the spear then the piston is less likely to rock.

This is the Delrin grip handle which is held in place by two stainless steel pins. The sloped outer ends on the front pin which follow the angled contours of the handle made it a pain to knock out. I used a hollow nose needle punch to bite into the pin as if the punch skidded off it might damage the handle.

 

[popgun pete]

Here is the rear inlet valve body that holds the gun together along with the muzzle at the front end by serving as a clamp utilizing the inner barrel as a structural element. Unlike plastic rear body guns which seal by pulling up onto a large flat plastic surface inside the well of the rear handle body, the LG Sub guns being an alloy rear body need a rubber seal here. The inlet valve is held together by a tiny circlip.

 

[popgun pete]

When I first saw the reference to the machined alloy rear body I had thought that it may have functioned as the rear nut rather than the inlet valve body, which would have been very different. However once it was apparent that the inner barrel extended from one end to the other that meant the gun was of the usual construction and the sear lever pivoted on the inner barrel. The mention of a reverse trigger in one of the early articles on the gun was wrong, any increased working course of the piston is down to the short piston and the sear lever pivot pin being located further back in the gun. What allows that is a trigger that is longer in the fore-aft sense and short vertically as usually triggers swing below their pivot pin, but in the LG it swings from in front on a forward section of the travel arc.

 

[popgun pete]

The "Black Head" muzzle is the same overall length as the original muzzle, but only has one X ring which sits at about the same distance out from the face of the piston as the inner X ring does in the original muzzle. That distance is where the new metal muzzle is cut off because it is now front ended by a plastic cup that screws on the muzzle nose which has many port holes that are radially disposed. That means it is much easier to remove the X ring for replacement as previously you had to dig them out with an awl. The hydraulic lock between the two X rings during loading unless you tipped water out of the original muzzle first no longer exists as there is now only one X ring. The new front plastic cup acts as a holder to push the line slide in and when you load the gun the slider should be pulled back into the muzzle through the single X ring by the developing vacuum in the inner barrel. Actually I think you could achieve the exact same result with the old muzzle by removing the front X ring, however you would still have the problem of changing the X rings which will be damaged by doing so even if they had been still serviceable. Getting them out is not easy.

There are no blow-off valves in the "Black Head" muzzle and the front ports don't go anywhere, they are confined to the plastic cup, so they are partly decorative.

The new muzzle has a two part shock absorber that has a white plastic anvil instead of a single soft absorber sleeve in the original unit which acted as both absorber and anvil.

I bought two spare pistons to make the shipping cost worthwhile and the later version has dispensed with the rear knurling and is a touch longer. As I suspect that the 12 mm inner barrel "Revolution" is out of production these parts may have been specially made. If you want to buy one of these then get the 14 mm inner barrel "Supreme" as it fires a more substantial 7 mm or 7.5 mm shaft.

 

[popgun pete]

For those who are curious about how I undid the original muzzle when the original owner just had the spanner slip and tore up the anodized finish, I used this gadget which I bought many years ago at a hardware store closing down sale. They came in two sizes, this is the big one and the idea was they both replaced a conventional socket set. No one in his right mind would carry this lump around in a tool box, so it sat unused for decades in a cupboard. The muzzle was hard to budge as there was no grease on anything, they had assembled the gun with oil. Once the oil evaporates, no screw thread lubrication.

 

[popgun pete]

The LG-Sub uses a 1.5 mm diameter trigger transmission pin. As fitted when I pulled it out the innermost end was flat with an edge bevel while the outer end was slightly rounded. Where it pushes on the sear lever has been smoothed by additional machining. Once sunny weather arrives I will take some better photos, indoors the depth of field is too shallow as I have no control over the camera settings.

 

[popgun pete]

The rear end of the LG Sub gun is where the bulk of the manufacturing effort is so here are better photos of it done outside on a sunny day.

 

[popgun pete]

And photos from the front and rear of the rear body. Note the rear body is upside down in these photos and you can see the locating cup sockets where the sear lever pivot pin end projections engage in the inner walls.

 

[popgun pete]

Air breather holes in the inner barrel tube including an opening in front of the sear lever window that the sear lever pivots in. Note that the inner barrel tube is anodized in black all over after the holes and threads were cut.

 

[popgun pete]

As the LG Sub nose cone has two "O" rings mounted inside its inner bore in separate locating grooves they seal on this smooth section of the front end of the inner barrel. Most Italian guns have a machined annular groove with a circlip backing a plastic collar that provides a locating step for an "O" ring sitting on the inner barrel exterior to seal on the rear inner face of the nose cone, but here the sealing takes place inside the nose cone, not directly behind it.

 

[popgun pete]

As was expected to happen at some stage the branded parts of the gun have had the LG replaced with RG. The handgrip not only has been rebadged it has also been modified in the lower butt shape. With all components being machined from stock this would have required changes to the milling machine cutting programs. The tank stickers will also have changed, but I have not seen them.

 

[popgun pete]

And for completeness the right hand side of the LG handle. No photos yet of the RG update.

 

[popgun pete]

The new RG-Sub website is now up and running.

RGspearfishing – Prodotti e Tecnologie per la Pesca Subacquea

 

[popgun pete]

RG-Sub now offer a fill attachment with pressure gauge similar to the type of pump attachment produced by Salvimar. The RG-Sub guns use a Mares hand pump.

 

[Diving Gecko]

For those who are curious about how I undid the original muzzle when the original owner just had the spanner slip and tore up the anodized finish, I used this gadget which I bought many years ago at a hardware store closing down sale. They came in two sizes, this is the big one and the idea was they both replaced a conventional socket set. No one in his right mind would carry this lump around in a tool box, so it sat unused for decades in a cupboard. The muzzle was hard to budge as there was no grease on anything, they had assembled the gun with oil. Once the oil evaporates, no screw thread lubrication.
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Love this tool and it makes perfect sense. Once in a while I have had to use the 3-jaw chuck in my lathe to do the same, I think you have, too

 

[Diving Gecko]

Hi Pete,
Hope you're doing well.

I have been away from the forum for a few years but slowly catching up on other parts of it apart from my own recent resurrected Mirage build and found this thread again.

A huge thanks for the teardown as I have always wondered about the innards of the LG handle, lately more so. Reason being that I am setting out to do my own machined allow handle. Also, when I finally will get around to making my own CF reservoirs I will likely go to a bigger diameter piston, maybe even 15mm to be able to run lower pressures overall and increase the ratio between the shooting barrel and pumping barrel diameters to make the Mirage pre-loading even easier.

Back to the LG/RG:
The line release looked to sit very high in the handle so wasn't sure how it was engaging with the trigger.But it's more or less the same as other active line releases in that the trigger holds it in place until it drops down when pressed - except here, it's that "transfer block" that does the interaction, right?

I've seen somewhere, perhaps a review or some LG press material that this had a "reverse trigger" and that you were gaining about 30-40mm but the sear is very traditional, nothing reverse about it.

I was wondering how you feel about the Delrin as a grip material - I don't wanna be too critical, but it's a slippery material, right? It's known for its low friction. Obviously, they are machining a lot of texture into it, possibly to combat that?
It's a wonderful materal to work in though, super easy to machine, yet pretty tough as we know from some of the pistons made out of it. It's also not very heavy and it doesn't absorb much water so shouldn't expand which can't be said about unreinforced nylon.
LG has been making reels out of it forever, possibly not really "blue water sturdy", but nice for smaller reef fish and again, not that heavy. I have a few of them, one is still in use on my Pathos 100 though it was originally used on various pneumatic guns of mine.

On the plus side, LG/RG seems to be doing a good job of raising your grip as far up as possible in relation to the shooting barrel. That's a nice upgrade over e.g. a Predathor handle. And it's what I always aim to do on every grip/handle modification I have ever done. And it's also very much the intent with my alu handle along with more of a "reverse trigger".

And finally a correction. I said in this thread years ago that these reservoirs were hydroformed. Reading elsewhere it seems they are squished instead of expanded - the latter is what I think happens with hydroforming where you tend to start with smaller stock than the final part. It seems they may be doing the opposite as there are mentionings of compacting the material (tube) at the front leading to a tighter and stronger grain structure.

 

[FlotsamBob]

I purchased 100cm older version of this gun which was relatively low use hours with a damaged muzzle... Modded and swapped for a Vuoto muzzle and have been using it sporadically the past couple seasons so I have a verdict finally.
Excellent, balanced rifle. I find tracking even fleeting fish is now super successful vs my other even shorter guns - aiming is intuitive. The grip is my least favorite of any gun I have used as a lefty but that is mainly due to it being offset and tailored to a right handed individual. Delrin is indeed much too slippery with thick gloves but the light trigger makes up for it. Will draw up my own version and print it out in ABS to test eventually.

Line release had damaged the delrin sear surface on the trigger so was releasing all the time with a tight line wrap. Gun was most likely dropped on its side at some point to cause this. Hopefully the polished blob of epoxy I built it up with will hold!

 

[Diving Gecko]

I purchased 100cm older version of this gun which was relatively low use hours with a damaged muzzle upon... Modded and swapped for a Vuoto muzzle and have been using it sporadically the past couple seasons so I have a verdict finally.
Excellent, balanced rifle. I find tracking even fleeting fish is now super successful vs my other even shorter guns - aiming is intuitive. The grip is my least favorite of any gun I have used as a lefty but that is mainly due to it being offset and tailored to a right handed individual. Delrin is indeed much too slippery with thick gloves but the light trigger makes up for it. Will draw up my own version and print it out in ABS to test eventually.

Line release had damaged the delrin sear surface on the trigger so was releasing all the time with a tight line wrap. Gun was most likely dropped on its side at some point to cause this. Hopefully the polished blob of epoxy I built it up with will hold!

Thanks so much for sharing your findings.
Especially good to hear how much the slimmer reservoir helps as it's still on the list of things I want to try myself.

As for a 3D printed grip, I may have a few files of "ergo" grips that you could possibly play around with (mirror) and modify. They are 3D scanned from various custom handles. Problem is that 3D scan files are kinda hard to work with - at least for me. PM me if it has interest.

 

[FlotsamBob]

Thanks so much for sharing your findings.
Especially good to hear how much the slimmer reservoir helps as it's still on the list of things I want to try myself.

As for a 3D printed grip, I may have a few files of "ergo" grips that you could possibly play around with (mirror) and modify. They are 3D scanned from various custom handles. Problem is that 3D scan files are kinda hard to work with - at least for me. PM me if it has interest.

Excellent!
Will take contact.
I had planned to draw up the factory contact surfaces and adapt an existing 3D file as you suggest. Another project will probably steal the rest of this next month first!