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Shaft threaded vs. regular?

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snask

Member
Sep 25, 2020
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What are peoples preference of shaft, pro's and cons of threaded shaft.
 
theaded shaft generally is shorter for the same gun. This could be important if you are planning on travelling with speargun. Or, threading the shaft can make an existing shaft as short as you can.

Threading the non-threaded shaft can be a good option to give a second life to a shaft that was catastrophically bent at the flopper hole. I had one of those.

Threaded shaft doesn't have to penetrate as deep to engage the flopper. This could be important if you are fishing flat fish like halibut or flounder. The gun with non-threaded tip may not have enough power to penetrate the fish and another 10 inches of pebbles and sand in order to be able to engage the flopper.

Another benefit of threaded shaft is that you can replace the broken tip and don't mess with repairing the flopper as you would if you had a fixed non-threaded shaft.

Yet another benefit of threaded shaft is that you can have a very hard stainless tip, the type that won't bend of dull even from hitting the granite rocks. The whole shaft cannot be made of this kind of steel or heat treated to same hardeness because it will be too brittle and insanely expensive.

On the con side:

threading the shaft is tricky. If you think that you can do it on your own, wise and die will not work. Pretty much need a lathe to keep the threads in alignment or you are guaranteed to have a crooked tip. Have a garage machine shop or a good machinist buddy. This kind of kills the idea of trimming the existing shaft to a specific length for most people.

Also, shaft-to-tip join area is weaker than the rest of the shaft and right in the very critical zone. Some purpose-built shafts and tips allow the tip to form a shroud over another half inch of the shaft, but this is not plug and play. Again, you need to be a machinist to form a good threaded tip joiner.

Threaded tips are usually quite a bit bigger in diameter than the rest of the shaft, therefore there must be some hydrodynamic friction losses. And some added resistance to penetration perhaps.
 
Reactions: DivingNomad, Mr. X and Leander

Is this related to the DIY threaded shafts or to factory threaded shafts too?
 
DivingNomad said:
Any "cons" for using factory threaded shafts?
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there is a chance of a slight weakening at the thread. I had a few shafts that bent or broke off right by the thread. But honestly, solid shaft would probably not survive the same events either, as they are weakened at the flopper and a hole for flopper pin. Also, like I mentioned earlier, tip should match, kind of hug the shaft way past the threads reducing the stress.
 
Reactions: DivingNomad
I guess this is too obvious, but the reason I use threaded shafts is because I use slip tips.
 
Reactions: DivingNomad
Diy threading is not on the agenda.
So is it mostly cost related and easy to bring along and change the tip? Harder tip steel is good of course.

What's the cons of full shafts, just cost of replacing?
 
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Reactions: Andrew the fish and Leander
I
sharkey said:
It’s “horses for courses” choose the correct spear & point for the job.
This is a small selection of some of my own kit & everything except the silly “drop barb” gets use.View attachment 56724
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I see mostly threaded, lots of slip tips. And pretty much only tricut prongs there. Since you have wide shaft experience, what do you think of salvimar capture and sigalsub hrc shafts?
 
Reactions: Leander
I would expect a threaded shaft to be much heavier at the tip. If it is, how does it impact the trajectory in the water? Do they drop faster compared to non-threaded shafts?
 
snask said:
I

I see mostly threaded, lots of slip tips. And pretty much only tricut prongs there. Since you have wide shaft experience, what do you think of salvimar capture and sigalsub hrc shafts?
Click to expand...
What are they?
I use Sea Hornet, Sea Sniper, Riffe, Hunt, Pathos, Rob Allen, Salvimar & a few others, but not the ones you mention.
Why, are they different to the other brands?
A few examples of some straight shafts which I use. I do pay a bit of attention to brands but several brands may source their spears from the same place. I’m less interested in brand names than I am in the function & performance of the spear.
 
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Very early spearguns used threaded shafts as hunting around reefs meant that tips often got damaged when they slammed into a rock, even though they may have already skewered the fish. The usual arrangement was twin floppers pivoting on a single pin. Some early tips had a removable point that screwed into the tip body, but these were relatively uncommon. When spearfishermen in the islands wanted a thin fast shaft on their home-built guns they just sharpened the end of the rod which was the spear and put a single flopper on it, hence Tahitian spears. These shaft were 1/4" diameter and were mainly for small zippy fish in their somewhat depleted fishing locations, the spear being relatively long for the gun to improve the aiming as with meals at stake misses were undesirable. Basically integral tip spears are easier to make and cheaper to produce and have minimal drag, but once you move to larger diameter shafts for more hitting power at the target then removable tips work just as well with good holding power. The wider heads allow the floppers to sit in their flow shadow nestled in behind the sharpened strakes or flutes on the head.

If the fish is big enough to give the shaft a workout and turn it into a pretzel then you need detachable tips so the shaft just trails the victim on its connecting cable. Any cable connection sticking out one side of the tip tends to steer it, so that has to be taken into account if you shoot over a long distance.

Integral tips spears are better in more open water (few or no rocks in line with the victim). One advantage with removable screw tips is you can remove the tip and pull the spear from the already dead victim once you have pushed it through to the other side. Just don’t drop it while you are getting the fish into the bag, stringing it, etc.
 
Reactions: Leander and DivingNomad
snask said:
What's the cons of full shafts, just cost of replacing?
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to me, it is the shaft length mostly. Say, my 75cm gun will have 115cm full shaft which will not fit into my 44 inch travel case. But same gun works fine with 97cm threaded shaft. This allows me to fly without having to check my luggage in as oversize/fragile. Kind of helps traveling by bus or even by taxi.
 
Reactions: Leander
Pro of a 'Hawaiian' shaft - it is straight. To have an ideal screw-on tip you must screw it on all the way and threadlock and after that turn the tip on a lathe to have an ideal straight shape. But we are splitting hairs here Like it was mentioned before - a one piece shaft after many hits in the rocks must be converted to the screw-on type. It is not easy since a normal 17-4ph spring temper steel (H900) condition is not easy on a die - you must have a quality die, not some chicom garbage. I threaded tempered shafts wit a quality USA or Polish-made dies since threading on my lathe is a pain in the ass. Yes, it is possible to make a perfect thread if you know what you are doing.
Tip also can be lost - thus you need to threadlock in some way. But if you have a spare tip - you can replace the smashed one in the water after hitting a rock. With one piece you can not.
I prefer a one -piece shafts. But I religiously avoid hitting the rocks. Less parts on my shaft - less hassle. I use air guns.
 
DivingNomad said:
What would you recommend? Loctite 242/243 blue formula?
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What I actually do is to coil a piece of a nylon or polyester thread over the shaft thread and then to screw on the tip. You do not want it to be too strong if you are planning to change it in the water - you must be able to unscrew the tip. You can use a teflon tape as well - basically anything that does not get destroyed in the salt water.
 
Reactions: Leander and DivingNomad
Plumbers' teflon tape works well and you can still undo it by using the floppers as a lever. JBL used to supply a spool of the stuff with their guns such as the "Travel Magnum" to help hold the two-piece shaft together and attach the screw-on breakaway tip.
 
Reactions: DivingNomad

So no need for Loctite at all?
 
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