Salvimar Hero/Metal trigger experience

[popgun pete]

Here is one of the earliest reverse trigger mechanisms, the Sea Hornet. Because the sear lever swings down the safety cam goes in front of the trigger, located above the pivot position so that the trigger can be blocked by it. On standard trigger mechanisms the trigger is at the rear with the sear lever in front of it which makes it much easier to put a cam right in behind the trigger. The shallower that the reverse trigger mechanism is the harder it is to locate a safety mechanism, but it can be done as seen in the Avatar handle. The Sea Hornet is a cam lock mechanism, unusual for a reverse trigger. Most reverse trigger mechanisms "lock" by jamming the trigger against a cross bar in the cassette housing, they do not cam lock. They basically "frame lock".

"L" is load, that is when you are applying the bands and getting the gun ready for action, "F" is for fire or shoot. The red dots mark the top of the safety cam to help in showing it being rolled forwards.

 

[popgun pete]

Here is an early version of the Ermes Sub Safety that was eventually used for the later "Avatar" handle, the cam here is metal rather than plastic.

Later this appeared, you could get it by special order, it was not standard.

A bit of a squeeze, but it works and has a short throw between on and off.

 

[Nejc]

The safety cam in a speargun mechanism usually has a slot for the back edge of the trigger to swing into when the gun shoots, but if the levers can wander slightly from side to side in the mechanism housing then the trigger can hit the edge of any slot rather than backing right into it. When the safety is applied this slot is revolved or slid to be out of alignment so the trigger hits the blocking bar instead and cannot go back to fire, but if it doesn’t align completely when the safety is off it still will not shoot. You can either widen the gap slightly or put thin washers in to stop the trigger moving sideways in the gun.

Thank you, was expecting that the situation would be something along the lines of what you wrote. The good thing is, that safety is really easy to install and take out in this gun. And was planning to take a look at the parts once I get some time off to figure out where to shim and whether I should widen the safety pin gap or not. But thanks to your reply I have gotten all the information I needed. Will modify it and try again as soon as possible (cannot wait to get back in the water)

 

[popgun pete]

The safety bar may also serve as a stop to prevent the sear lever swinging down too far when the gun shoots. Some reverse trigger mechanisms use a catching step such as a transverse pin through the housing that limits the travel. The reverse trigger mechanisms rarely have a biasing spring on the sear lever, so it just flops down under its own weight.

 

[Sorcerer]

Oh good to hear we have more on the topic.

So far my experience is better however I can say that trigger still latches on safety for fuck knows what reason and taking it out might be a second to go decision.
Trigger is still too hard too for my taste - with hard trigger you really have to lock the wrist in order to avoid movement when pressing the trigger.
On top of the archery phenomena where when shooting you tense and tend to miss so they use RANDOM release(!) time so you do NOT know when the arrow will fly for better accuracy(!), for me it really feels its quite hard for huntinf smaller species.
I just cant imagine doing fast decision fast shoot process with it, at least yet.

I will say another thing about it - it might have another flaw.
Line release mech is just poorly engineered in the housing and is likely not suitable for dyneema to be used, especially a small one that I started to use with the gun.
Famous Salvimar Monored in 1mm...
The moment I went back to you use monoline things are much smoother.

So where is the problem you might ask?
Very thin line seems to get literally STUCK in between the line release wing and botton of the housing. With proper tension the way that line wraps behind the wing, the line gets pulled literally under the wing and plastic housing.
I will try to get some fotos tomorrow.

This is when I stopped using monolines quite some time ago due to it being another weak and/or breaking point and this is just bullshit.
The choice for 1mm dyneema seems controversial I know but I have plenty of reasons for me.
- I try to use as versatile setup as possible in our waters, this gives me almost 95m(!) of line on the reel. For wahoo its good but its pain in the ass to reel. Cant have everything.
If I get my hands on Yellowfin/Big eye I might be able to survive with just standard non high pressure floats, as 95m + 40m float + 30m buddy float gives enough spacing for the line to not work vertically but rather under 45degree angle unless the fish goes to 180m+...
- plenty strong but not the strongest if I go for pelagics as I dont use breakaway. So even if things go to sh##, my floatline is stronger so Im unlikely to lose the gun. The reel line is the weakest one here and it should break first. Better to lose shaft/reel line than entire setup.

I do not have a camera anymore which is super sad as im unable to do high speed 240/480FPS tests to confirm line release issue god, if I am back to monoline sth is f#####.

PS. Salvimar never picked up the glove to investigate issues further with me after, beyond innitial emails back and forth. Case closed.
That gun imo has amazing potential that is being wasted, and im really considering to order standard 135cm for bluewayer this year but whenever I think of it something tells me to look otherway.

 

[Nejc]

Oh good to hear we have more on the topic.

So far my experience is better however I can say that trigger still latches on safety for fuck knows what reason and taking it out might be a second to go decision.
Trigger is still too hard too for my taste - with hard trigger you really have to lock the wrist in order to avoid movement when pressing the trigger.
On top of the archery phenomena where when shooting you tense and tend to miss so they use RANDOM release(!) time so you do NOT know when the arrow will fly for better accuracy(!), for me it really feels its quite hard for huntinf smaller species.
I just cant imagine doing fast decision fast shoot process with it, at least yet.

I will say another thing about it - it might have another flaw.
Line release mech is just poorly engineered in the housing and is likely not suitable for dyneema to be used, especially a small one that I started to use with the gun.
Famous Salvimar Monored in 1mm...
The moment I went back to you use monoline things are much smoother.

So where is the problem you might ask?
Very thin line seems to get literally STUCK in between the line release wing and botton of the housing. With proper tension the way that line wraps behind the wing, the line gets pulled literally under the wing and plastic housing.
I will try to get some fotos tomorrow.

This is when I stopped using monolines quite some time ago due to it being another weak and/or breaking point and this is just bullshit.
The choice for 1mm dyneema seems controversial I know but I have plenty of reasons for me.
- I try to use as versatile setup as possible in our waters, this gives me almost 95m(!) of line on the reel. For wahoo its good but its pain in the ass to reel. Cant have everything.
If I get my hands on Yellowfin/Big eye I might be able to survive with just standard non high pressure floats, as 95m + 40m float + 30m buddy float gives enough spacing for the line to not work vertically but rather under 45degree angle unless the fish goes to 180m+...
- plenty strong but not the strongest if I go for pelagics as I dont use breakaway. So even if things go to sh##, my floatline is stronger so Im unlikely to lose the gun. The reel line is the weakest one here and it should break first. Better to lose shaft/reel line than entire setup.

I do not have a camera anymore which is super sad as im unable to do high speed 240/480FPS tests to confirm line release issue god, if I am back to monoline sth is f#####.

PS. Salvimar never picked up the glove to investigate issues further with me after, beyond innitial emails back and forth. Case closed.
That gun imo has amazing potential that is being wasted, and im really considering to order standard 135cm for bluewayer this year but whenever I think of it something tells me to look otherway.

I will report on my further findings and changes after I get back from the trip this weekend. I did a complete disassembly of the mechanism this Sunday and I noticed that my sear had a considerable play and could be moved LEFT - RIGHT ~3mm.
Video of the sear lever movement:

New video by Nejc Mirtič

photos.app.goo.gl

I also noticed a "notch" in my trigger surface which seemed as if I wore it out with the sear roller. So I decided to smooth out that notch, then I used a drill bit to make the sear hole a bit bigger and replaced the original axis with the drill bit. I might have made the clearance of the sear axis a bit too much because I didn't dare make it completely movement free.

I stopped in a local dive shop yesterday and asked the owner if he is familiar with any problems with the hero/metal heavy trigger. And he said, that no, as long as you lube the roller that it spins freely it should work just fine. And he had one of those drop-in Salvimar metal heavy triggers in the shop, and that trigger feels completely different, all of the axes are welded in, there is a bottom trigger brace that holds the trigger together and at the same time it serves as a trigger stop so they can ditch the safety, and there is NO LEFT - RIGHT SEAR MOVEMENT WHATSOEVER. And when I mentioned that the trigger is too heavy to press, almost like the trigger is not capable of withstanding that 350kg that they claim, he said that they were doing some experiments and that they managed to load it more than that, and it shot just fine. So I have a feeling that if that doesn't solve my issues with the trigger, I might need to replace the entire trigger unit because it is likely that the earlier models had "defects" that were later resolved.
This is what a standalone Salvimar Metal Heavy Roller trigger looks like, all of the axes are welded in on the other side and the trigger stop bar was welded on both sides. Which should add some rigidity to the entire trigger mechanism.

So you are shooting monored too, interesting, I use 1.5mm monored (only the shooting line) after a tip from the local shop that monored shoots a lot better than the mono. There might be something to it. I removed the o-ring (as per the tip in the majdq8 video) at the same time that I switched to monored, so I am not entirely sure what started causing the problem. Now I installed a piece of Teflon washer underneath the line release, so now it holds the line release more steadily/it doesn't wobble anymore. But that was the change I did on Sunday, so none of the changes are tried and tested yet.

 

[Nejc]

One thing that I forgot to add, the original hero trigger as others have said, does not allow for the safety to be removed, the sear will drop too far down w/o the safety installed. Trigger, on the other hand, if I remember correctly, hits the bar on top (spring retention pin) which makes it stop once the full trigger pull/travel is achieved.
If the only problem you are having is the line release, I think I could make a new replacement lever (3mm carbon for example) and share the CAD file that would replace the original one. A longer lever that bows in further from the gun/only at the end so the line is not pulled so much against the gun/mech anymore. I have a few ideas about what could be the problem with the original one. The dip starts too close to the mech and the remaining part goes too far back. Which causes the line to compact between the line release and the gun. If we move the dip a few mm away from the mech I think it would solve most of the problems with the line release if that is indeed the case. (See picture. Screenshot taken from the Majdq8 video)

I am 110% determined to get to the bottom of the problems with this trigger

 

[popgun pete]

Anyone having a problem with a trigger that is not being experienced by other users should just replace it. Triggers are not rocket science, but their proper functioning depends on the pivot pin spacing being correct and no wobbling or excessive side play of parts. Possibly a bad batch can slip through, I have an Ermes Sub double roller with a wonky drilled sear lever pivot hole that makes the sear lever not sit parallel to the housing walls. Later batches don’t have this problem as the manufacturing process was changed.

Note that the trigger mechanism is flat on its back in this photo, the sear lever is not sagging.

 

[Sorcerer]

Difference how a 2mm mono wraps compared to thinn 1mm monored(dyneema).

From top view you can see it gets inbeetween bottom of the line release and top of of the plastic housing. Its hard to similate line behavior but I got a new camera coming hopfully by august.

I feel like betatester salvimar. Sorting design issues ... AGAIN.
Shall I send the invoice again to Marco Zaninni?

 

[Nejc]

So my trigger is fixed. The problem was a combination of too much play in the sear and the fact that the sear roller would get stuck because of that on occasion. So after testing the gun extensively I can say that either a new mech or fixing the sear pivot should in most cases fix the problem with the trigger being too hard.

@Sorcerer Yeah, I know what you mean, unfortunately, I have gotten used to the fact that whatever I get I will have to modify it in order to get it working to the standard I like. So if that is the only thing, luckily that is an easy fix, just need to find a service/a friend who will be willing to machine a new line release arm out of Stainless steel or Carbon.

 

[Sorcerer]

So my trigger is fixed. The problem was a combination of too much play in the sear and the fact that the sear roller would get stuck because of that on occasion. So after testing the gun extensively I can say that either a new mech or fixing the sear pivot should in most cases fix the problem with the trigger being too hard.

@Sorcerer Yeah, I know what you mean, unfortunately, I have gotten used to the fact that whatever I get I will have to modify it in order to get it working to the standard I like. So if that is the only thing, luckily that is an easy fix, just need to find a service/a friend who will be willing to machine a new line release arm out of Stainless steel or Carbon.

What did you do to counter the sear play?
Mine moves arouns like years aswell

 

[Nejc]

What did you do to counter the sear play?
Mine moves arouns like years aswell

I fixed mine by drilling the sear and the trigger case with a drill bit of the same size I had a stainless steel pin at home (leftover from something I tore apart) and the fit was very tight, so I used a polishing agent to slowly sand away the extra material. In the end, I removed almost all of the wobble and the sear rotated easily. Then I lubed everything with a dielectric marine grade grease and assembled everything together.
For the sticking roller, I used the same type of silicone grease that I packed around the roller and then I rotated ("drove" it by dragging it around the table...) the roller by applying slight L-R and R-L pressure so it would reach the main roller shaft.
But I am with popgun Pete on this, it is an easier/more surefire method to order a new replacement trigger for the gun (make sure you are 500% clear on that, that you need a REPLACEMENT Hero trigger and not a standalone trigger for DIY/aftermarket guns), rather than messing around yourself. Especially because finding a suitable stainless pin and drill bit that will work well together is almost impossible. And most drill bits will rust (HSS) so using the drill bit as an axle (best way to get a perfect fit though) is not the best option because of that.

 

[Sorcerer]

So to make it clear, you increased the bore hole on which rotates the sear and mounted it with a pin that has lower tolerance between them than the original?
If that would be permanent solution than holy fuck salvimar...

I have some tools but not as precise ones to do the whole process if that the whole reason of the issues.
It also makes a bit sense that pin might be not to spec or simply poorly designed looking at my oxidized and SHEARED back pin holding the trigger in the handle...

I havent tested nor I have the tool to measure diameter of the pin to 0.000x but what if the holding pin and sear pin have different diameter and they simply screwed up and mount them not to where they should go to?!

Would sanding the trigger part where roller rotates to a bit smaller diameter not solve the issue aswell giving bigger tolerances between roller and trigger?
Yes i know it might couse hot trigger and unsafe release.

PS. I am trying to find another smart solution, what if we add small spacers but not to tight between:
wall - sear level - wall
so it looks like this
wall || sear || wall
This could limit the wobble slightly...?

Another side note after watching the RA trigger safety tests that were post recently on YT where it broke at 370kg, it seems like the general idea of testing this is pretty useless as it tells very little about how sensitive is the trigger. From RA tests double band is like 120-150kg tops, yes the trigger can survive 4-5 band setup but yeah... no reason too

 

[Nejc]

So to make it clear, you increased the bore hole on which rotates the sear and mounted it with a pin that has lower tolerance between them than the original?
If that would be permanent solution than holy fuck salvimar...

I have some tools but not as precise ones to do the whole process if that the whole reason of the issues.
It also makes a bit sense that pin might be not to spec or simply poorly designed looking at my oxidized and SHEARED back pin holding the trigger in the handle...

I havent tested nor I have the tool to measure diameter of the pin to 0.000x but what if the holding pin and sear pin have different diameter and they simply screwed up and mount them not to where they should go to?!

Would sanding the trigger part where roller rotates to a bit smaller diameter not solve the issue aswell giving bigger tolerances between roller and trigger?
Yes i know it might couse hot trigger and unsafe release.

PS. I am trying to find another smart solution, what if we add small spacers but not to tight between:
wall - sear level - wall
so it looks like this
wall || sear || wall
This could limit the wobble slightly...?

Another side note after watching the RA trigger safety tests that were post recently on YT where it broke at 370kg, it seems like the general idea of testing this is pretty useless as it tells very little about how sensitive is the trigger. From RA tests double band is like 120-150kg tops, yes the trigger can survive 4-5 band setup but yeah... no reason too

Yes, that is basically what I did, I don't have any real precision tools at home, I drilled out the hole with a regular "hobby grade" vertical drill, so not the 1 thou/mil zero wobble heavy-duty stuff machinists usually have, and somehow it worked out ok.

It is possible that the first few batches were a bit wonky, since you have to set/calibrate the tools, or even that they had a bad batch of pins, which can sometimes happen with large volume production.

Shimming might help, but I assume you will have to find some sort of foil since most of the metal shims will be too thick and will most likely rust. So something like the PVC Binding cover (here in Slovenia it is known also as "Cvetličarska Folija" for wrapping the bouquets which is basically a 0.25-0.75 mm thick clear PVC foil https://www.multivario.si/izdelek/trde-prozorne-pvc-folije-polikristal/ ) or if you manage to find thin PTFE/Teflon shims that I imagine should work even better to limit the wobble.

On mine, there was a tiny grove made by the off-center roller and I assume in combination with a roller that is not rotating as well as it should be it was what was causing problems. So I had to sand the surface to a smooth finish, but I made sure to remove just enough to smoothen the grove but not reshape the whole trigger. I wouldn't want to sand the trigger down even further. If the roller rotates well and the trigger surface is smooth (no edge on where the roller could catch) it should work like it is supposed to. So I see no need to increase the tolerances etc.

So make sure to lube the roller well, so it spins freely, and if you manage to remove most of the wobble out of the sear I think you are good to go.

P.S.:
The only idea behind having a trigger that can withstand 300+kg I can see is for use on some bigger multi-rubber (tuna style) guns. Rollers to my knowledge reduce the force on the shaft but double the contraction speed, so it requires thicker/heavier bands, so the force on the spear should be either lower or about the same as on a regular band gun.

 

[Nejc]

P.S.:
The only idea behind having a trigger that can withstand 300+kg I can see is for use on some bigger multi-rubber (tuna style) guns. Rollers to my knowledge reduce the force on the shaft but double the contraction speed, so it requires thicker/heavier bands, so the force on the spear should be either lower or about the same as on a regular band gun.

Very interesting read regarding the trigger forces and different gun designs etc.:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jesse-Spiller/publication/349350884_Modelling_Speargun_Dynamics/links/602c6009a6fdcc37a82ffc36/Modelling-Speargun-Dynamics.pdf

Found this on the page 77 (91 in PDF file)

 

[Sorcerer]

I just cant grasp how a roller can have lower/halfed kg load on the notch than a simple gun... It would make a big difference on the mech loads indeed and potentially sensitivity of the trigger.
In roller you are splitting the effort of loading but overall shouldnt the force on the notch be exacly the same in all cases?
A 2 rubber simple gun is of a similar power as 1 rubber roller at similar stretch ratios.

 

[popgun pete]

You need to look at the Basic Rollergun Energy diagrams, there is no magic in the energy that they store. As to lubrication grit will stick to any grease. The best way to keep parts moving is dunk the gun, or at very least the muzzle and rear ends in a freshwater tub after each dive, then spray the metal parts with WD40. Nylon or Teflon flat washers can be used to prevent side play of the levers, that is what the manufacturers use. The more complicated in construction trigger mechanisms are not set and forget, rollers only work if they continue to roll, and otherwise at best they only offer line contact across their width. Solid metal levers use curve matching affording a larger contact area, that is what was used for decades.

 

[Sorcerer]

@popgunpete
A short answer would be much appreciated to turn me into right direction, I will get back onto the mentioned thread for sure - regarding the loads on mech.

Also could someone explain to me how on earth is the sensitivity adjustment screw supposed to work? Ive been bashing my head since Ive taken apart the mech and playing with it. The screw attached is so short it does not even come close to the trigger mech to touch it, let alone lift it up! What am I missing? (if my screw is shorter than it is supposed to be ill serioudly rage :F )

Original foto with with added screw.

 

[popgun pete]

Sensitivity screws are like having someone stand closer to the edge of a cliff, they just reduce the trigger swing. They are not a good idea as they can increase the pressure on the contacting parts by reducing the contact area when the gun is cocked for long periods. With roller tip sear levers, which are line contact, this makes not much difference, but it can affect the trigger top that they are leaning on.

Trigger Mechanism Design Rules - Spearboard.com - The World's Largest Spearfishing Diving Boating Social Media Forum

Trigger Mechanism Design Rules All About Guns

www.spearboard.com

 

[Sorcerer]

Ok back on washers topics, where do I look for them...