Sea Hornet in the early seventies put out a limited number of timber guns with the wooden barrel replaced by a boxy stainless steel tube sealed with cork at either end. It seemed a mad idea and I never bought one, but picked this one up in the Coffs Harbour junk shop in the back end of town in 2000. Stripped of some parts I soon replaced them, but have never used it. Ironically the Chinese "Shooter" replicated this stainless steel barrel in alloy. The Chinese gun when you haul it out of the drink has a cup of water slowly drain from its interior as they never sealed the tubes where the handle screws attach, there is a boxy open space at either end that fills with water. However the guns do float after the shot and are identical copies except that the mould ejector pins are in slightly different places, these pins push the component out after the mould opens.
In subsequent years the bronze plastic parts were eliminated and all Sea Hornet guns now have black plastic parts. An exception was the "Tourist" model which had red plastic parts and over time Sea Hornet made a few specials for other companies such as sports store franchise "Anaconda", which were done in orange plastic. Mel Brown, AUF historian of what used to be the USFA, has told me that some were done in blue, but alas I have never seen one. Other colours are said to be around and may turn up eventually in places like eBay when relatives toss old diver's guns out or sell them to scavengers who then on-sell them on eBay.
An additional note if you ever happen to buy one of the Chinese alloy barrel clones is that to help drain water out I suggest that you don't install all the self-tappers supplied with each gun. They came in knocked down form for you to assemble originally, but this may not always be the case. There are more than enough screws with two each side and two on the bottom in each handle section which means that you can leave one of the bottom ones out. The muzzle only has two self-tappers in the bottom, but with a gun standing on its butt that area will leak down any water trapped inside it. I installed every screw on one gun and it floated very well until water leaked into the butt when it went slightly butt down and on pulling it out of the water quite a bit of water was still in it. If air cannot easily get in that stops any water flowing out. As who knows what alloy the Chinese used for the barrels I suggest that you don't leave any saltwater inside it and with an access hole freshwater can replace any saltwater after a long dunk in a freshwater tub and then drain or evaporate out. I had an alloy barrel on a Bandito turn to Swiss Cheese when saltwater sat in the base of the tube which meant that I had to take about four inches off it to get rid of the damaged metal.
In subsequent years the bronze plastic parts were eliminated and all Sea Hornet guns now have black plastic parts. An exception was the "Tourist" model which had red plastic parts and over time Sea Hornet made a few specials for other companies such as sports store franchise "Anaconda", which were done in orange plastic. Mel Brown, AUF historian of what used to be the USFA, has told me that some were done in blue, but alas I have never seen one. Other colours are said to be around and may turn up eventually in places like eBay when relatives toss old diver's guns out or sell them to scavengers who then on-sell them on eBay.
An additional note if you ever happen to buy one of the Chinese alloy barrel clones is that to help drain water out I suggest that you don't install all the self-tappers supplied with each gun. They came in knocked down form for you to assemble originally, but this may not always be the case. There are more than enough screws with two each side and two on the bottom in each handle section which means that you can leave one of the bottom ones out. The muzzle only has two self-tappers in the bottom, but with a gun standing on its butt that area will leak down any water trapped inside it. I installed every screw on one gun and it floated very well until water leaked into the butt when it went slightly butt down and on pulling it out of the water quite a bit of water was still in it. If air cannot easily get in that stops any water flowing out. As who knows what alloy the Chinese used for the barrels I suggest that you don't leave any saltwater inside it and with an access hole freshwater can replace any saltwater after a long dunk in a freshwater tub and then drain or evaporate out. I had an alloy barrel on a Bandito turn to Swiss Cheese when saltwater sat in the base of the tube which meant that I had to take about four inches off it to get rid of the damaged metal.
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