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The Guns of San Diego

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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acevedo joseph

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Feb 25, 2006
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I wanted to start a thread to show our friends across the pond the beautiful guns of San Diego California.
Even thow we have custom builders like Trygon, C4, Heranen building state of the art ,laser accurate hollow carbon guns .Many divers in San Diego still prefer haul around huge over ballasted under powered timbers .
 
The San Diego gun is represented by a stout 3-6 band gun 60”-70’’ long. Shooting a shaft from a 5/16 Diameter all the way up to a 7/16 monster shaft .
 
This Original design comes from two men Jack Prodanovich and Wally Potts, to this day divers still dive with guns built by Jack and Wally. Stay tuned to this thread and Ill keep posting Random photos of guns and fish from divers from San Diego
 
 
If you have any photos of San Diego guns please feel free to post them up
 

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Original Wally Potts
 

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Great stuff. Looking forward to more pictures. Would you believe that my 'timber' sits in the garage beside the Lighthall board, one of the best places in the world for catching Wahoo is five miles away and I still haven't even tried to shoot one.
 
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Here is another gun built by the late Steve “anchovy” Nicely . All Steve's guns were built with the a solid teak Stock , Wally Potts mechanism, Potts reel and the famous Anchovy sticker . To have a gun made by Steve you had to be on a waiting list of over one year.
This gun now belongs to my friend Joaquin in San Diego
 

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Hi Bill , could you post a picture of your gun..


Great stuff. Looking forward to more pictures. Would you believe that my 'timber' sits in the garage beside the Lighthall board, one of the best places in the world for catching Wahoo is five miles away and I still haven't even tried to shoot one.
 
Here is a picture of a Custom Jack Prodanovich Gun :king
this gun belonged to a great spear fisherman , the late Dr. George Vafis , this gun shot a 7/16 shaft powered by 6 bands , you will notice that in the first picture its just a piece of mahogany attached to the barrel to add mass , later George would add the custom paint and googley eyes to have the gun look like a fish in the water
 

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Great pictures.

Do you know who wound up with Wally's guns?

he helped me make one a long time ago that I still have.
 
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Nice thread, and thanks for posting these cool pics. Do you own any of these guns yourself, Joseph?
 
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Hi Hteas , I don’t know for sure but I heard they stayed with his family , however there are a few of his guns and all of Jack Prodanovich’s guns are at display a Free dive shop in San Diego called James and Joseph http://www.jamesandjoseph.com/ I have friends who own original Wally Potts guns , ill be sure to post them up to this thread as soon as I get time to take some good pictures….
 
BTW ...I would love to see the gun Wally helped you build . ,, cheers ,,,,Joe



Great pictures.

Do you know who wound up with Wally's guns?

he helped me make one a long time ago that I still have.
 
Hi Batray, yes I own a few Prodanovich guns here are few pictures of my big Jack gun , the gun is a monster and throws a 7/16 shaft yes 7/16;) that’s bigger then a 3/8in most tuna guns … when I take it out my friends say “ ut ohh the fish are in trouble joe’s shooting rebar out of his prodanovichgun today

even with 5-6 bands the shaft is a little slow but when it hits it really puts the hurt on them:duh , almost every fish this gun has shot has stoned them, most of the time they don’t even quiver ,,, its just lights out :hungover




Nice thread, and thanks for posting these cool pics. Do you own any of these guns yourself, Joseph?
 

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Those are some monstrous guns, but it sounds like they do the job. I hope they're buoyant :D

I visited James and Joseph when I was in SD this year. They have a better inventory than most dive shops I've seen, especially for spearfishing.
 
Here is a 60” custom hybrid I made , The gun was inlayed with Mexican Silver Pesos , Wally Potts reel , and you can see it’s a little beefier then your typical hibrid with a 60% to 40% teak to carbon ratio


Unfortunately we were off on the ballast , and when it was all said and done the gun wasn’t able to float the big Potts reel , so I sold it , it now belongs to my good buddy Jeff and he shoots the gun with a float line :)
 

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