• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

new OMER pneumatic!!!

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
I think forum member Mark Laboccetta is the official Omer USA importer/distributor, omer.com - /O Communications. Although he chose not to import my main squeeze, the Omer XXV, so may be not. I would think he will though -- the airbalete looks pretty cool & probably tough enough & powerful enough for those big ol' US fish.
 
Mark has let me know the Airbalete is definitely coming to the states and will be available with a 7 mil shaft - for those of you with 'shaft issues'
 
Not sure but i've got one coming in the next shipment coming to Australia... hopefully in the next month or so apparently which i get to play with. should be interesting because to date i havent found a pneumatic that i like even a little bit (die hard band gun kinda guy) but we will see. if nothing else it is dead sexy so could always become a wall ornament.

DD
 
Reactions: foxfish
plz do tell i want to know how you would review this gun and make comparisons vs bang guns. Try to get a shooting range for what ever gun you decide to test if possible thanx!
 
Well whoever gets one of these "Airbalete" guns first I would like to know if it floats without the spear, with or without the reel fitted on the gun. A speargun that floats after the shot is very convenient, but it may be that the reel adds too much weight to the rear end of the gun.
 
I know it is to early to make any assumptions of any sort but i really want to hear some reviews about this gun. I am in the market for a new gun and i can lean in both directions air or band preff air due to all the hype amongst cubans and there air guns but that's just another story still i dont want a tube so i am very fond of this particular gun.

Pete what would you say the range for the Airbalete 110 would be ... aprox 15ft or less? 12-15 at the most?
 
there is a review of the Airbalete 110 on an italian forum, followed by 5 pages of discussion. I'll read it today and report some details later.
For now I only gave it a quick look and it says the 110 shoots straight and passes easy through the target 5 meters away (is it 15 feet?). The tester got a very positive impression.
More details later.
 
Ah sphagetti how are you my friend, this is some what of a good news to some i hope, thanks for the info would love to know what the person who reviewed the gun has to say about it and hopefully it is some what interesting not just stating how great the gun is but instead giving it a modest and sincere review. 5meters is about 16 ft btw and here is a short clip of the gun shooting.

apnea tribù: "AIRbalete"..vera innovazione!!

honestly after watching this i was a little biased. 1 because of the noise and 2. because of the recoil when it was shot. What are your interpretetions of this clip if any? How far would you estimate the target to be?

How would this gun stack up vs a band teak gun 120 cm long?
 
Reactions: spaghetti
Thanks for the vid, I note the spear in it isn't attached to any line so it's probably not a fair representation of it's power level.
 
Armando nice to meet you, mate.
My impression from the vid is that noise and the muzzle whip recoil are relatively low compared to other guns, but what can I say from a short clip? What impresses me the most is the fake fish for a target! I had heard of it before: Omer is selling a fake fish for target practice, at the price of 24 euro!!! rofl (it's available for mail order from scubazar.com online store)
Anyway the author of the review, Emanuele Zara, is one of the biggest experts of pneumatics in Italy. he tested the gun at a 28 atm/bar precharge, with a 7mm spear weighing 330 grams. A "mild" set up, not the top of the grunt you can get from the gun, he says, but just an average set up for hunting in the Med.
he says the shaft goes straight though the target from 5 meters with very low recoil and very low noise (I'm just reporting what he says).
He explains the "high" position of the trigger (not under the barrell, but behind it, on the same axis of the shaft) helps a lot the recoil control and the aiming (especially if you're more familiar with bandguns). He says that there are very low attritions and very low drag of the piston, so this helps loading, and the shooting is almost smooth as a Mamba due to low piston attrition (he says).
He complains a bit about the tracking: good but not as good as he expected with a thinner profile of the barrell.
 
Last edited:
armandozx the recoil doesn't look to bad to me, not compared to a band gun anyway.
I wont be ordering one until I find out if you can fit a mamba kit :t
 
Reactions: Mr. X

For an Airbalete 110 a range of 15 feet represents two line wraps plus the length of the shaft. Most pneumatic spearguns can shoot that distance, however a lot depends on the drag on both the shaft and the shooting line used as to how the shaft will be flying at that distance. A useful concept that you see quoted in the Russian speargun handbooks is flying range of harpoon and range striking target. It is the latter that counts as being useable to hit and skewer something with any degree of certainty. The faster the shaft exits the gun and the lower its drag the further it can fly before gravity has a chance to drag it down enough so that you will need to allow for the drop. I expect the Airbalete to not be a lot different to a Cyrano or a Stealth, a lot depends on how well the angled muzzle ports work in further minimising hydrobraking in the barrel. That will affect the shaft's exit speed and the gun's useful shooting range.
 
I think we all have high hopes for the new air gun - lets face it their design & technology has not really changed for decades.
We have had the dry barrel system as a add on accessory but nothing revolutionary from a major manufacturer, at least omer is giving us something slightly different.
I would like to see a new gun with a small diameter barrel mounted above the main air chamber - there are a few threads on the subject but i would have to search.....
 
A pneumatic speargun with the barrel on top of the tank has already been done. It was known as the "Air Ballett", rather a coincidence isn't it? A photo of the "Air Ballett" is attached. I am not sure of the manufacturing date, but it is from the early days. This "barrel on top" speargun layout has also been used in Russia (e.g. the hydropneumatic by B. Rasskazov) where all sorts of strange designs have been tried, however they are relatively recent weapons.

The relatively low cost of the pneumatic speargun today is due to simplification of the basic design and the use of lightweight materials including injection moulded plastic components. Part of that low cost is due to the use of the inner barrel tube as the main structural element, it clamps the front and rear ends of the gun together and enables a thin walled outer tank for the air reservoir. Depart from this arrangement and the pressure bulkheads have to be screwed on the ends of a thick-walled tank which can take screw threads being cut into it. Also the elbow connection from tank to upper barrel and the grip handle will all add weight and complexity, which translates to manufacturing cost. This "small barrel on top" design was made obsolete by the concentric tank arrangement which we are all familiar with today. Most important breakthrough was the floatability of the modern gun after spear discharge, achieved mainly by the lightweight parts and very simple design. Anything else will be a sinker, as were the pneumatic spearguns of the forties and fifties.

One gun that has the barrel close to the top is the Cressi-Sub SL (or Star) with its inner barrel mounted off-centre, it has a number of clones manufactured for different dive companies. Another gun that used this high barrel location was the Mares Mirage, this was necessary because directly below it ran a second barrel for pumping the gun up for each shot, 5 strokes of the lower barrel (10 mm dia.), then the spear was transferred to the main barrel (13 mm dia). The Mirage used 40 atm and needed the 10 mm dia. barrel to help shoot 7 mm spears as well as 8 mm spears, the gun was supplied with both.
 
Last edited:
Reactions: spaghetti and Jon
That's a good analysis Pete. However I think that while what you say is true there is a certain element of single track thinking and "if it aint broke don't need to fix it" mentality by air gun manufacturers. Placing the barrel on top of the resevoir increases bouyancy if it retains its diameter or alternatively the resevoir could be much smaller diameter for the same internal volume of air as the barrel is not inside of it and taking up space. Also the injection moulded ends can be any shape. That's the beauty of this type of manufacturing.

There are lots of other points both pro and con but personally i believe that it wouldn't be difficult to produce a gun with the barrel on top and I think it would be a winner. Most people, myself included are put off by the problems assosiated with intuitvely aiming an air gun. I'm talking long range guns here. Longer guns and mamba kitted guns especially.

Dave
 
Reactions: spaghetti
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…