They say nature abhors a vacuum and that seems to be a case with this speargun from China. Sea Hornet and Undersee were the two main spearguns produced in Australia, with the third being Turnbull which produced a version of the Champion Arbalete. Sea Hornet initially manufactured a timber barrel gun and a stainless steel tube barrel gun which were named the "Sportsman" and the "Pacific" respectively. The guns are well made and used the first mass produced reverse trigger mechanism based on a design developed by spearfishing great Wally Gibbins in conjunction with John Lawson who operated an extensively equipped metalworking shop. The guns first appeared in 1966/67 and were of the cocking stock type used by Americans. As the US was still stuck with single piece trigger guns the two piece trigger Undersee and Sea Hornet soon found their way to the USA and had dealers there, the Sea Hornet guns sold by White Stag and later by AB Biller. The "Sportsman" had bronze coloured plastic parts and a timber barrel and cocking stock and that is the gun we will be discussing here.
The "Sportsman" in its line drop handle form soon switched to black plastic parts and was joined in production by the "Magnum" which was a near identical gun with minor changes to the spear and shooting line, the main difference being the barrel stickers. These guns were sold for decades until about a decade ago when Sea Hornet or the T.D. Preece Company began to run into financial trouble. Like many companies there is an old Chinese proverb that says the first generation founders build companies up, the second generation manages them and the third generation loses them. Whatever the causal factors were are beyond the scope of this discussion.
China, which has become the world's factory for consumer goods, started producing spearguns of rather middling quality and created copies of some popular euroguns which were offered as the Shark and other names depending on whom they were selling them to. Then in 2018 a few guns appeared on eBay which bore the name "Shooter" which were dead set copies of the Sea Hornet Sportsman and Magnum, but produced in China out of their own injection moulds, a move which was no doubt precipitated by the sudden absence of Sea Hornet guns from Australia. In the USA AB Biller had eventually made their own version of the Sea Hornet, but this had been done in conjunction with the Australian company, so was not a rip-off.
The following photographs show just how close a copy the Chinese gun is.
Note that bar the name stickers the clones are devoid of any markings.
The "Sportsman" in its line drop handle form soon switched to black plastic parts and was joined in production by the "Magnum" which was a near identical gun with minor changes to the spear and shooting line, the main difference being the barrel stickers. These guns were sold for decades until about a decade ago when Sea Hornet or the T.D. Preece Company began to run into financial trouble. Like many companies there is an old Chinese proverb that says the first generation founders build companies up, the second generation manages them and the third generation loses them. Whatever the causal factors were are beyond the scope of this discussion.
China, which has become the world's factory for consumer goods, started producing spearguns of rather middling quality and created copies of some popular euroguns which were offered as the Shark and other names depending on whom they were selling them to. Then in 2018 a few guns appeared on eBay which bore the name "Shooter" which were dead set copies of the Sea Hornet Sportsman and Magnum, but produced in China out of their own injection moulds, a move which was no doubt precipitated by the sudden absence of Sea Hornet guns from Australia. In the USA AB Biller had eventually made their own version of the Sea Hornet, but this had been done in conjunction with the Australian company, so was not a rip-off.
The following photographs show just how close a copy the Chinese gun is.
Note that bar the name stickers the clones are devoid of any markings.
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