The Latest Salvimar Race Kits and Vacuum muzzles

[quakeos]

Got my hands on some goodies today! a few Salvimar race kits and vacuum muzzles...

It's not exactly new, but the new race kits from 2018 onwards I believe now come with turned Delrin pistons as opposed to casting. You can feel and see the turning marks on the piston and they appear to be more substantial/higher quality. Due to it being milled out of Delrin the plastic should have a grain structure as appose to casting which has none. I believe Salvimar are the first guys commercially to release a turned Delrin piston, with everyone else being cast with the exception of some exotics...

Salvimar also claims the O rings to be Teflon coated which polishes and cleans the inner tube during its operation. They stood up very well to the torture tests and I'm convinced these are the new best plastic pistons available. I've cracked/ totally destroyed a number of salvimar pistons during torture testing, see below...

Ouch...

The vacuum muzzles as mentioned in an earlier post are essentially the same apart from the detachable front muzzle piece. They are substantially longer and I believe the reason salvimar did this is so when the shaft enters/ exits the shaft, it is at a shallower angle so the shaft tang cannot blow out the aluminum ring where the cuff holds onto.

this is one of the fatal flaws of the design - they are too thin and I've seen a number of broken ones, and I've totally butchered 2 of them after modifying them for 10mm spears and the slightest bit of recoil in the vertical and horizontal planes totally broke it.. once they break the vacuum muzzle fails to seal by itself...

So - good to see them always improving and changing their products for what appears to be the better!

Also, meet a little apple. Little apple preys on fish in caves and is very good at doing so!

 

[Diving Gecko]

That does look like a nice new piston. I’ve had good luck with the stock Mares (injected) piston at elevated pressures and so have many others but we are still not talking +40 bar.

And yeah, the inner lip holding the seal is too thin unless you take good care when loading. Especially since the stock tang (tail end) is thicker than it needs to be and the fit of the slider/slide ring is quite loose, too. I have less issues on the UBL muzzle cuz its fit at the front is much better and the tang slimmer - but you still have to be careful that your tail end is fully seated in the piston and the shaft not bending too much when you load. Otherwise that thin lip will eventually die.

As for the rest of the love for Salvi, meh...;-). I guess they only sent the flawed slip tip batch to China and scubastore and not to your continent;-). Nah, I like them as a company as they do seem to man up to their (few) mistakes or at least do the second best thing and release upgraded products fairly fast. I feel they are the best and most innovative of the major Italian brands for sure.


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[popgun pete]

For years pneumatic spearguns used metal pistons, originally a metal spine with steel mushroom tail and head and aluminium body composed of several tubes and rings. They were replaced with solid metal pistons which were usually cadmium or zinc plated steel and in some cases stainless steel. The upmarket Scubapro Magnum had a stainless steel piston and matching shock absorber as did some of the later Nemrod guns. The Russian Seabear had a titanium piston and so does the Taimen. If you want to go for super powerful guns then ditch the plastic pistons and shock absorbers.

 

[quakeos]

For years pneumatic spearguns used metal pistons, originally a metal spine with steel mushroom tail and head and aluminium body composed of several tubes and rings. They were replaced with solid metal pistons which were usually cadmium or zinc plated steel and in some cases stainless steel. The upmarket Scubapro Magnum had a stainless steel piston and matching shock absorber as did some of the later Nemrod guns. The Russian Seabear had a titanium piston and so does the Taimen. If you want to go for super powerful guns then ditch the plastic pistons and shock absorbers.

How were stainless steel pistons and shock absorbers for noise Pete , compared to their plastic counterparts ?

 

[popgun pete]

How were stainless steel pistons and shock absorbers for noise Pete , compared to their plastic counterparts ?

The metal pistons don't seem to be a lot noisier, what makes the noise is a lot of pressure in your gun and the noise radiating from the muzzle ports and tank due to the impact energy. Plastic pistons are cheap, metal is the best material for rapidly moving pistons.

 

[Diving Gecko]

You could start with a metal shock absorber.
As for noise, there's a distinct noise reduction when using shock absorbers where the piston rams into a PU sleeve rather than straight into the plastic itself. So, I'd say there's definitely noise coming from the piston impacting on the shock absorber. Now, whether a more clangy metal on metal sound is worse than plastic on plastic I am not sure off. I would think it is more noticiable but on the other hand, I think the fish reacts either way - but if the shaft speed is high enough, it doesn't really matter much.