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Pelengas Pneumovacuum speargun

The gun floats when ready to shoot with the butt sticking up out of the water, but I expect that when fully spooled up with line it will not be quite so buoyant. Importantly it is slightly nose heavy for safety reasons as if a loaded gun floats then you don't want any submarine missile launches sending a shaft skywards!
 
This seems to be new Pelengas vacuum cuf..?
It has different shape from what I saw before.
1573376077395.png
 
It looks like they have added a bell mouth to the nozzle type seal, hence instead of an inwards protruding lip edge running on the spear shaft the movement is now through a section of short rubber sleeve that is necked down where the shaft slides through it. We will know more when we see one cut in cross-section along its longitudinal axis.
 
It looks like they have added a bell mouth to the nozzle type seal, hence instead of an inwards protruding lip edge running on the spear shaft the movement is now through a section of short rubber sleeve that is necked down where the shaft slides through it. We will know more when we see one cut in cross-section along its longitudinal axis.
Yes, your description is correct. But I am more interested in performance change - improvement. I would say this new design would be better than the previous. This might insure more reliable sealing and maybe longer life of the cuff. It has been sold on eBay for the same price as the older type.
 
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The "Varvar" sear lever catches on the pull rod after the trigger is pulled, so it is held from falling back until the piston is pushed back to reset it. That means unlike the Nemrod it does not require a slot around the pivot pin which is necessary to push the sear lever away from the pull rod's influence in the "Mariner" gun.
Varvar sear lever action.jpg

Nemrod Mariner Pneumatic sear lever reset.jpg
 
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With all these different models and constructions coming out over a relatively short period of time Pelengas make companies like Mares look like a bunch of slackers. The latter took years to release the "Evo" and made a mess of it and took even more time to fix it, yet once Mares was the pinnacle of pneumatic speargun manufacture. At least the "Sten" in its 13 mm original calibre has kept the company going, although it seldom gets mentioned on the forums.
 
I asked Pelengas dealers whether to pull the trigger when loading! They replied no, not necessary! This means that there is a third position of the sear, which is shown in the photo! The reliability of such a mechanism is low! Pelengas makes mistakes again! It is inconvenient and dangerous to load a gun with simultaneous pressing the trigger!
 
I asked Pelengas dealers whether to pull the trigger when loading! They replied no, not necessary! This means that there is a third position of the sear, which is shown in the photo! The reliability of such a mechanism is low! Pelengas makes mistakes again! It is inconvenient and dangerous to load a gun with simultaneous pressing the trigger!

I don't see from the video that the trigger must be pressed to load the gun...
As you push in the piston the sear lever locks.
This trigger design seems to me to be quite good and safe - safer that the classical Italian design (Mares, Cressi, Salvimar...)
 
In Nemrod is correct, reliable - In Pelengas Barbarian Pro is wrong, insecure!
 
I don't think you have to press the trigger, either. The circular spring keeps the sear "open" after you have pressed the trigger and then the rear of the piston pushes on the sear to close it. But that said, I still think the Italian triggers are inherently safer as the sear holds the piston even is the trigger pin is somehow "removed" from the equation. Not so in the Pelengas where the sear is unstable in the loaded position. Also, doesn't that tail end look like alu? I would expect the sear to scratch it, then.
 
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Davide I don't see that the sear is unstable..? It is locked in place with the sliding bar of the trigger mechanism. You can rotate the shaft and the piston after the gun was loaded and it would not accidentally shot.. But you are maybe right about the piston...I think too that it is made in aluminum..? First I thought it was made in titanium.. I saw pistons made in plastic entirely. They are common in russian/ukrain design...
 
In the video the camera shifts to look at the spring on the trigger end of the pull rod working. That spring pushes the pull rod backwards and holds the sear lever up after the shot. If the pressure inside the gun is increased it tries to push the pull rod forwards, but the spring has to be strong enough to resist this. In this Pelengas design that spring also has to work with the necklace type biasing coil spring on the sear lever. That means the gun’s operation depends on the correct strength of the respective springs being maintained. Once the pull rod slips over the tip of the sear lever the gun will not shoot, so then the trigger mechanism is locked.

A lock condition is always safer. Rocker sear levers don't lock, but they work as hooks with the pull on the hook passing under the pivot pin which creates a torque closing the hook, or at the minimum passing through the pivot pin.

Another unstable sear lever, i.e. one with an angled sear tooth, is the one used in the "Airbalete" and "One Air" which is blocked from releasing by a trigger controlled fore-aft sliding pin. The "pin" is the blue part with a step and window cut into it in the diagram below. It is a rather problematic mechanism if the step develops a taper because the force created by the piston tries to revolve the sear lever tail away from the step!
Airbalete or One Air mechanism.jpg
 
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It is likely that regulators will one day require all spearguns to have safety switches, or safety interlocks. To my knowledge all the Pelengas spearguns do not possess one, so in the interests of foreign sales thought should be given to adding a safety. If users in their wisdom later remove it then that is their lookout and if they are unlucky one day will have to offer an explanation to a judge for their actions, if their gun has accidently shot someone. It has happened!

Prosecution: Your Honor the Prosecution submits the weapon concerned in this fatal shooting case as People's Exhibit A.
Judge: Has the weapon been examined by an appropriate expert authority?
Prosecution: Yes, it has your Honor.
Judge: And has anything in particular been noted about this weapon?
Prosecution: The finding of the examiner appointed by the Court is that a safety device has been removed from the weapon.
Judge: Have a note to that effect made in the Court records. (With apologies to the writers of Perry Mason)
 
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In the video the camera shifts to look at the spring on the trigger end of the pull rod working. That spring pushes the pull rod backwards and holds the sear lever up after the shot. If the pressure inside the gun is increased it tries to push the pull rod forwards, but the spring has to be strong enough to resist this. In this Pelengas design that spring also has to work with the necklace type biasing coil spring on the sear lever. That means the gun’s operation depends on the correct strength of the respective springs being maintained. Once the pull rod slips over the tip of the sear lever the gun will not shoot, so then the trigger mechanism is locked.
....

Pete, please look again at the video more carefully...
I can not agree with you about what you said in Bold.
1. The pull rod does not holds the sear in position. The sear is hold by necklace biasing coil spring.
2. The pressure inside the gun does not push the pull rod. The pressure only pushes on the trigger pin in direction out of the gun - oposite to trigger action.
3. The spring on the pull rod has not to work with the necklace type biasing coil spring.
 
"Tries to push the pull rod forwards" seems pretty unambiguous. If pull operated guns like the "Titan" did not have biasing springs on the pull rod, including this "Varvar" gun, then the elevated internal pressure could fire the gun as the pressure would do the same thing as pulling the trigger. Usually sear levers are biased to swing closed, not open. The "Varvar" gun relies on the necklace spring not failing as if the sear lever flops forwards with the piston not at the rear end of the gun then the pull rod will imprison it and prevent the piston being hooked by the sear lever. You would then have to pull the trigger to cock the gun, so that is what I meant by the springs having to work together.
 
Looks like the “Varvar” uses the paddle pull rod actuator that is used in the “Magnum” mid-handle gun, but whereas in that model the “necklace” coil spring biases the entire trigger system, in the “Varvar” the pull rod does not connect to the sear lever. That then requires two springs with the extra spring biasing the trigger paddle and pull rod. This paddle system is used in the Nemrod "Silver" series, but there the paddle pulls the rod which runs under the inner barrel, not on top of it. The paddle system does not expose the pull rod to the environment, thus only the usual trigger transmission pin pushes on the bottom of the paddle by traversing the pressure boundary.
Pelengas parts diagram mid handle.jpg

This “Varvar” trigger mechanism is in a way a rejigging of the Sunday Sports gun which for a short period was used in the now discontinued “Miron”.
The "Miron" was a nice looking gun, but had a brass tube inner barrel!!! In Russia certain speargun designs are not owned by anybody, hence anyone can make them, the "Sunday Sports" gun being one such design. Another is the "Zelinsky" which we see as the Zelinka spearguns.
Sunday Sports Gun patent.gif
 
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For interest here is a "Miron", but by the time this second version was created they spoilt the appearance by going overboard with ring features for "improved grip". The guns also received paint jobs, some were gaudier than others. They also "borrowed" the side line release in the trigger finger guard from Mares.
miron670.jpg

mironmedium.jpg

Above is the earlier version produced as prototypes. Like many guns of the period the tank is painted. You might get away with using a brass inner barrel in freshwater for a while, but in saltwater galvanic corrosion would destroy the gun with its mix of different metal parts. Plus brass is heavy and will suffer from barrel wear, evidently the tubing was sourced from that used for water condensers. I told them they needed an alloy barrel, but they did not know where they could source it.

P.S. You can read about the "Miron" here, the gun was flawed by some material choices (the brass inner barrel cooked its goose), but something better could have been made out of it by conducting a barrel transplant from say a Cressi as for them you can buy barrels as spare parts.
 
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