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One Air vs. Airbalete (w. dry barrel)?

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

shooter & shooter
Jun 24, 2008
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So, for a few reasons, I have started thinking about how the Airbalete compares to a One Air.
A fellow Dane asked me about this on our local forum and also, I could be interested in another gun.

I don't think it would be too hard to get an Airbalete w. dry barrel for the same money as an One Air.

I do have a One Air 120cm, so I know that one a bit by now but I have never even held an Airbalete. So, I am wondering about a few things.
I am probably most interested in a 80-90cm gun.
I have a Seac Hunter (face lifted Asso) in 90cm but you know, I might want to have an excuse to pass that or the Airbalete onto my GF

Balance in the water?
Though being quite neutral, my One Air is nose heavy.
I have heard that Spora was/is working on a new muzzle body which has more buoyancy but they were puzzled when I said my 120 was nose heavy - they feel it's "only" the shorter models.

Looking at pics of the Airbalete with its hydroformed barrel having more bulk at the front, I am inclined to think the Airbalete is better balanced. What do you guys say?

Weight/Bulk
My One Air is heavy.
I am sure it adds to the lack of recoil which is nice, but I am thinking it doesn't have to be that heavy...
Again, the Airbalete looks lighter by the pics.
Is it flimsy? How is recoil?

Compression
Did we ever come to a conclusion here? Is the compression pretty much the same as the One Air? And wasn't there even some talk that the One Air's compression rate doesn't take full advantage of it being a vacuum barrel?

Other Thoughts
Anything else obvious that I forgot about?
Especially if any of you have used both?
 
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yeah what about the handle placement, the airbalete has a far better placed handle, I think it is the only airgun that has this big benefit?
 
foxfish said:
yeah what about the handle placement, the airbalete has a far better placed handle, I think it is the only airgun that has this big benefit?
Click to expand...

AKAIK, the handles are placed in the same spot for those two guns. It is likely the exact same handle, just that one supposedly returns the line release by itself (Airbalete) and the other doesn't.

One Air to the left, Airbalete on the right
(pic from here: Test: fucile pneumatico Sporasub One Air | I love pesca sub | pesca sub, apnea, agonismo, eventi, attrezzature, interviste, racconti, foto e video di pesca in apnea)
 

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Ah yes I am behind the times or a bit sleepy this morning ! have some rep for my mistake LOL.
 
I did a airbalete review a few months ago
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98kHRdw7B2I]Omer Airbalete 110 Review - YouTube[/ame]

When shooting the gun was great, it was more nose heavy than my asso 115 but much lighter than any railgun, It shot very well but my asso had more range and power. Also I went through one piston an 2 shock absorbers in the year that I used it. Also the slider jammed on the butt of the spear.

You can pick up a asso or salvimar vintair 115 for peanuts, then throw away the power reducer, use some fork oil, get a decent spear, a tomba kit and you will be in the business cheaper than a airbalete or airone.
 
Thought I'd resurrect this thread ..... The one air / airbalete are pretty much the same gun mechanically - a few mods to an airbalete and you could have a dry barrel and free shaft if you wanted.
When sporasub introduced the one air there was lots of talk of an improved sight line and better ease of aiming ( personally if I consciously aim a pneumatic I can't hit a thing but just generally point and it can be pretty bang on).
Has anyone used both or got any thoughts on which has a more natural/accurate site line or is the difference in barrel form simply to differentiate the guns a bit more?


Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk
 
I think the improved sight line claim with the "One Air" was directed more at other pneumatic spearguns rather than the "Airbalete" which is basically the same concept, the former having an extruded alloy tank in place of the hydroformed tank which varies in shape along its length in the "Airbalete". Never confuse advertising claims with reality as improvements may sometimes be marginal, but the seller wants to differentiate their product offering in a way that attracts potential buyers. I would have thought the extruded alloy tank was more cost effective to produce over a long production run as the same extrusion can be cut off to different lengths for the various models in the "One Air" family.
 
How about the new "Airbalete Dry 12" my understanding is this replaced the "air one"
 
New product releases maintain consumer interest and generate free publicity such as people like us talking about them here. The "Airbalete XII" is probably calculated to fill another product niche without directly competing with the "One Air" due to the change in inner barrel diameter by moving up 1.0 mm to 12 mm, but it can use many of the same "Airbalete" parts without making any major changes. Seems a long time since it was last briefly discussed here, but I have not heard much about it since.

Well I just had a look for it and the gun seems to have a cylindrical tank which I don't remember when I last looked about a year ago. There is a comparison table on the same page with the different pneumatic models listed with respect to their features.

http://www.omersub.com/eng/airbalete12_eng.asp
 
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I think the one you may be thinking of was in the 2014 catalogue http://www.subprof.com/tienda/produ...nom=OMER+AIRBALETE+12+DRY+PNEUMATIC+SPEARGUN+
Tbh. I'm not sure I would notice the difference of a 12 mm v11 mm piston and the fish certainly wouldn't care.
Here in the UK the best option would seem to be an 11 mm airbalete with one of Markos muzzles on it. A quick Google and you can get spares readily available in the UK which can't be said for a lot of other pneumatic brands or 12 mm piston omer guns.
I'd like to use a one air and airbalete together though to see how the different barrel shapes compare, although granted there's probably more difference for marketing purposes than any real world user experience



Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk
 
The "One Air" speargun has a cylindrical tank if you ignore the side tanks which don't hold any pressurized air at all, if anything they just provide ballast and extra flotation to offset that additional mass in the longitudinally partitioned alloy tank tubing and a reel, if one was fitted. Bar the fact that it still had the flattened, elliptical look of the original "Airbalete" I thought that the "One Air" gun would be better with a simple cylindrical tank and it looks like that is what the "Airbalete XII" is, although the gun in this recent reference seems to have a wet barrel (relief ports are visible in the muzzle). Actually the gun is the "Air XII" now I look at it more closely, so this may not be the "Airbalete XII" after all which is/was a dry barrel gun with a hydroformed tank. If the market cannot support such a profusion of different models then there may be some rationalization of the product range in order to lower costs, but that is just speculation on my part as I don't know how their sales are going.
 
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