new OMER pneumatic!!!

I agree, Lets see a pic of your cannon Pete

Here are some photos of the gun after I first rigged it to try it out.

Out of curiosity how much affective range do you get from the gun?

The gun is currently fitted with 6 metres of shooting line and makes that distance easily. That was the design specification, to shoot fish at 6 metres with high shaft speed at the target. No time for evasive action by the victim! The guns are made to order, so you specify what you want it to do. For shooting Tuna you need the longer 1.3 metre model, this one is only 85 cm. I am lucky to be able to see 6 metres down here! The gun is made of titanium in order to withstand the pressure and has a 9 millimetre barrel shooting an 8 millimetre spear.

wow cool innovative gun, interesting as I am awaiting the Omer, do you have some info regarding this gun PGP, if so pm as I wish not to hijack this thread...or perhaps a review on this gun in the farter section is in order.

that things looks 2 deadly however, I still can't comprehend how u managed to squeeze 1000 + PSI in there or better yet charge & fire such a powerful weapon what kind of HOLES do you PUT ON FISHES BRO! do you EVEN LEAVE MEAT on THEM! lol any ways...

I like it but i was expecting something rather long for the PSI mentioned above. cheers!

There was a link to the schematics for these hydropneumatic guns on here awhile back. Basically you use that big lever to use water to compress the piston. As I recall the shaft either seals the barrel - or there is a piston with a one way valve - I've seen another design that uses the shaft as the 'pump'.

Interesting!

How much does that lever offset the weight of the gun?
Besides that id love to own one of those they look the part of a killer

To answer some questions posed above.

The "Black Sea" gun has been made in barrel lengths from as small as 50 cm up to 150 cm, the operating pressure is not constrained by the length of the gun. The gun is initially charged from an air cylinder as no hand-operated, tube type pumps reach 1,000 psi plus. As the gun is a "non-consumptive" design, it loses no air pressure during shooting. Loading is physically possible because you are using something like a hydraulic car lifting jack; multiple swings on the rear mounted lever move the large diameter annular piston that slides forwards in the air space between the inner barrel and the outer tank in progressive increments.

The longer model Aquatech guns are mainly export-oriented as not much need for them in their home waters. They are shown on http://aquatech1.narod.ru/index1.html where the smallest external hydropump gun (rear lever model) currently on offer is the "Black Sea 1000x9", but they can build whatever size that you want, within reason. Check out the web-site, it has an English language version for most of the web-pages, you need to read them, that is what I did. It is not rocket science! There is a very good description there of how the guns work.

Any fish shot with them display the customary holes, you only use these guns where the situation requires it. I still have and use all my other guns as cycling the "Black Sea" gun for follow-up shots is slow, although you can opt to shoot with less power and hence less lever strokes. An interesting side feature is that it will shoot a shorter shaft than the standard one that came with the gun as the spear is not released when you pull the trigger, instead it unleashes the column of water that drives the shaft from the gun. The gun will need less water injected to propel a shorter shaft, so finisher shots could employ a second short shaft carried just for this purpose.

Shafts have a rear mounted "O" ring, that is what keeps them in the barrel. For that matter a short pencil tip shaft (no flopper, no line) could be fired for the full length of the gun provided you could shove it right down the barrel, sort of like an underwater bullet. You would not want to count on getting it back though!

more pictures

I think you remove the grip assembly to charge it. The idea with this gun is to make it a sort of pneumatic euro-gun. So, while the rear grip does extend the length without increasing power - it also makes the gun easy and intuitive to aim and absorbs recoil without muzzle jump. It is sort of an extension of the Cyrano/spark Direction - with improvements in ergonomics and - if what they say about the materials in the piston is accurate - speed and power. The long muzzle is because that is where the power reducer is - its done my twisting the muzzle to open or close vent holes positioned along it. I've never thought power reducers were all that important - but this is a more fail-safe solution.

Thanks for finding those pictures!

Back in the eighties GSD manufactured their "Punto" pneumatic speargun. The rear handle twisted off and detached from the rear of the gun leaving the forward barrel with an exposed port in the centre of the connection boss which had two big radial lugs to lock it up in the handle. You pressurised the gun by screwing the hand pump into the rear of the detached barrel which had a concentric air reservoir just like a Sten. The inlet valve stem was also the push rod that fired the gun and was located on the central axis. Now you might think that every time you shot the gun that air would bleed out via the inlet valve, but when the handle was locked up an "O" ring sealed plastic piece reduced the volume in the area where this push rod was activated keeping the air in, well most of it anyway. I only mention this Punto gun because the new Omer pneumatic speargun would have to work the same way. Question is how does the Omer's trigger operate an actuator that pushes a pin that would usually be on the forward barrel section's central axis when the trigger rod would have to be at the periphery of the rear grip section? When I first saw this new Omer gun I wondered if it was a mock-up, pneumatic speargun's are not cylindrical tubes for nothing, the best pressure resisting shapes are either spheres, cylinders or a combination of both. If they are something else then air pressure will be trying to turn it back into a cylinder again as tank wall stresses will not be uniform!

Another problem I have with this projected Omer pneumatic gun is reduced air reservoir volume if it has that tapered body front and rear. Remember the Omer "Skorpion", it suffered from the same problem and it was only tapered at the front! For good speargun power you need a low compression ratio as then you can load higher initial speargun pressures. Large air reservoir capacity means a lower compression ratio. If the gun has a high compression ratio then the initial chamber pressure has to be lower in the gun or you would never latch it as the pressure rises rapidly as the shaft is pushed down the barrel to cock it. That is why the Mares Spark is a better gun than the Cyrano, getting rid of the nose cone's snout increased the gun's air reservoir capacity and put more buoyancy into the front of the gun. Mares re-branded the Spark as the Sporasub Stealth, it is the same gun.

Giving away air reservoir capacity may have trade-offs in improved gun handling by having a slimmer barrel/body profile (less lateral movement drag), but I have never really found much difficulty in aiming my Sten compared to my Cyrano.

Just for the record the Punto also had a power reducing muzzle, twisting and pushing it back closed off the muzzle relief ports and created barrel hydrobraking which slowed the shaft. As the barrel came off so easily the Punto guns came with three barrels and three spears of different lengths, but what you really needed was two more handles having shelled out for essentially three guns!

All I know about the trigger mech is that it goes in through the rear of the barrel - instead of at a right angle. It'll be interesting to see.

Certainly looks good to my eyes, I just hope it works as well?

Well if the "Airbalete" has a reduced reservoir capacity due to the hydroformed tapered body at both ends then they should make it a "Mamba" type system, that will restore the gun's power by regaining what is normally lost during water braking through the muzzle ports if the barrel is flooded in a standard pneumatic speargun. That way the gun does not need to use higher internal air pressures, it can make do with a lesser charge. The sleeved muzzle can be used to provide hydro-braking by allowing the barrel to flood after spear insertion (as a means to reduce shooting power), but first it would need to seal tight with the ports closed off to enable the vacuum barrel condition to develop during "Mamba" style loading. Any leak at the muzzle ports when closed off and the barrel's vacuum will gradually suck water in which would not be desirable for shooting at full power.

With these changes the Omer "Airbalete" would be a useful gun which could sell on its increased manoeuvrability, if that was true. The original "Mamba" speargun had a smaller tank diameter (35 mm OD as against 40 mm OD), that allowed a more manoeuvrable gun which retained its power by using the pneumo-vacuum system, which is what the "Mamba" system actually is. If there is no patent on it then Omer can go ahead and use it themselves. Plus they can build a better muzzle while they are at it to reduce piston impact during vacuum barrel shooting, there is always the possibility of the barrel to muzzle threads being stripped by being hit repeatedly in a modified gun originally designed to shoot with flooded barrels.

I agree Foxfish

A typical O'mer[de] gadget imo: attempting to re-enter the airgun market with flashy design but back to the future technology (wet barrel!). :rcard After the Mamba, Kara-yo, Poseidon dry barrel innovations this attempt appears quite absurd to me ...

Cheers, ulysses

P.S. Sales of Stealths, Sparks, and Assos - that technologically have not changed for more than a decade - have soared since and because the dry barrel kits were introduced. Most reborn 'airgunners' will not be impressed by an allegedly novel power reducer (first thing to be removed on Stealths, Sparks, and Assos) and a band-gun handle.

Well Omer could offer the "Airbalete" gun as a tri-power version. Maximum power with muzzle ports closed and a dry or vacuum barrel, reduced power with the barrel flooded and muzzle ports open and low power with barrel flooded and muzzle ports closed. Now that would be something new! Tri-power pneumatic spearguns in the past used variable throttles inside the gun or a combination of the air reservoir partitioning system and a throttle, e.g. the Mares Titan.

Omer may have to do a deal with Mamba or devise their own interpretation of the dry barrel loading system.