....travel-speargun....

[popgun pete]

Although the details are not entirely clear I think the spear connection looks like this. The principle being used is that you only need the shaft in one piece for reloading the gun and swimming around with it, especially if you point the gun downwards you don't want the shaft falling apart which would be highly inconvenient. So the taper jams the shaft just enough to support its weight. Once the shaft hits the target you only need its parts to stay connected, they don't need to be one long piece. The other requirement is when you miss, it is possible with the gun set to a number of wraps, usually two, the spear will hit the stops and pop apart, but I guess you can live with that, On dry land the taper can be set a little tighter by bouncing the shaft tail on the ground letting its weight do the setting, but you're unlikely to be able to do that in the water.

 

[popgun pete]

An analog of this is the pneumatic speargun piston. These have been made of plastic since the seventies and the tapered bore in the piston nose jams the spear tail so that the spear does not fall out of the cocked to shoot gun. In most modern guns the taper is on the spear tail, not the piston nose bore and as that hole wears the spear tail gradually goes deeper into the piston. In the metal piston days I had a spear tail wear so much that eventually it would not stay in the piston, but this is pretty rare as spears would be usually lost or bent before that happened. This was one of the older shafts made of much better stuff than what followed later and dated from the days when engineers decided the specs and not the company bean counters.

 

[popgun pete]

After winging its way here over the wine dark sea here is the first photo of the JBL Reaper Travel Gun. A bit bigger-boned than I expected and I am just glad it got here so soon. Shipping box was very strong with big flat staples that I prised out very carefully, if you ever get snagged on one of these you don't do it twice.

 

[popgun pete]

The spear is an integral tipped shaft of 8 mm diameter and has a mono loop through the extreme spear tail, which is not my favourite rig. There are no stop lugs on the wishbone notched shaft. The rear end sinks when tossed in the tub, the front end floats and has fat, rather long bands. The carry bag is the same one used for the Magnum, right down to the strap placements. Overall the gun looks pretty good, a bit on the small side and I could see a triple break-down version with an extra intermediate barrel tube. A longer spear to match of course. The guide track is built into the barrel tube extrusion, at the ends where it is blended over there is no anodizing, so the parts were cut off later.

 

[GRAPHITE SPEARGUNS]

The spear is an integral tipped shaft of 8 mm diameter and has a mono loop through the extreme spear tail, which is not my favourite rig. There are no stop lugs on the wishbone notched shaft. The rear end sinks when tossed in the tub, the front end floats and has fat, rather long bands. The carry bag is the same one used for the Magnum, right down to the strap placements. Overall the gun looks pretty good, a bit on the small side and I could see a triple break-down version with an extra intermediate barrel tube. A longer spear to match of course. The guide track is built into the barrel tube extrusion, at the ends where it is blended over there is no anodizing, so the parts were cut off later.

Looks like the spear is just fitting inside that bag if the gun was longer would that mean a triple piece break down shaft?
How deep do you think the connection pieces go into each side of the barrel?

 

[popgun pete]

Looks like the spear is just fitting inside that bag if the gun was longer would that mean a triple piece break down shaft?
How deep do you think the connection pieces go into each side of the barrel?

The lime green piece inserts into the barrel and is a snug fit secured by a screw on either side. Assembled the gun looks longer once you shove the spear in it.

Yes, you would need a three piece spear, but using that Alemanni taper lock system might work as the spear just has to daisy chain together once you make a hit.

 

[popgun pete]

One way you could do a three piece shaft is you have the two rear sections screw together and use the taper connections on the front section only. That way the fish pulls the front section off and the rear two pieces only have a tensile load applied to them via the shooting line to the gun. Nemrod made a three piece shaft for their travel gun, the Weekender, based on the Gaucho. I have seen a Gaucho, a non floater after the shot as half the gun barrel flooded.

 

[GRAPHITE SPEARGUNS]

One way you could do a three piece shaft is you have the two rear sections screw together and use the taper connections on the front section only. That way the fish pulls the front section off and the rear two pieces only have a tensile load applied to them via the shooting line to the gun. Nemrod made a three piece shaft for their travel gun, the Weekender, based on the Gaucho. I have seen a Gaucho, a non floater after the shot as half the gun barrel flooded.

I think you could call this shaft a spear with a slip tip

 

[popgun pete]

I think you could call this shaft a spear with a slip tip

Well that is exactly what it is, ditto for the Alemanni, in fact that was what probably gave him the idea. The detachable tips usually have a taper with a half ball nose, the idea is the tip cannot jam on with the hit. The Alemanni idea relies on it staying stuck until the fish gives a big heave ho, which is pretty smart actually.

 

[popgun pete]

There is 5 meters of black mono between the end crimps on the 100 cm Reaper, the gun itself from butt to tip is about 1.30 meters with the exposed metal barrel tube just on 100 cm. So counting the length running along the spear that is two wraps which is really all you need. I haven't installed the rear loading butt which is rather short, so didn't include that in the overall length measurement.

The trigger mechanism is a cam lock as it dry fires, thus pull the trigger and the spear moves forwards a tiny amount. The dipping sear tooth mechs like the Sporasub's and early Rob Allen's the action of release is momentary so they don't dry fire, hence no way to check the action on terra firma unless you have someone pull on the shaft as you pull the trigger.

Photos of the latest Rob Allen mech shown below, the JBL will be near identical, especially as the line release finger is now also metal on the JBL. The disposition of the springs may be different in the JBL, but to check will need to knock pins out.

 

[TAGSpearguns]

Well this appeared on another thread, but I will add it here, a variation on the MVD spearguns that comes as a take down travel model. Sold under the name TAG.
View attachment 59233
View attachment 59234

I posted this in the other break-down gun discussion - I'm the owner of TAG Spearguns here in San Diego. Pete is correct as usual (I don't even know how many of your posts I've read over the years!) - I use parts from MVD and I build the barrel connection. The connection is a VERY tight fit which requires some muscle to assemble/disassemble but doesn't require tools. The track is also self-aligning. The barrel connection is both very strong and very rigid. There is a short video on my Instagram of me hanging from the joint. There is absolutely zero "play" in the connection and no deflection when loaded.

Regarding the travel shafts: I have been shooting ONLY travel shafts and spearguns for the last 11 years. They will sometimes bend like a normal shaft. Sometimes they will break. My shafts have a shooting line connection point just in front of the center connection so that the fish can still be landed with a broken shaft (they also have a rear connection point ). I've personally only broken 2 shafts and they were on large fish that went into the rocks. Both fish were landed. I also have slip-tip travel shafts which greatly reduce the chance of breaking. Though lots of nice fish have been landed on the flopper shafts after hard fights!

Any questions please feel free!

Oh, and since there isn't enough margin in the guns to get them into the dive shops, I offer free returns and shipping if it is not used. So you can at least get the speargun in your hands and if you don't like it I'll have it sent back and refunded. I also lend my personal guns to local divers so they can take them out for a test dive before purchasing.

Dive Safe
Cam

 

[popgun pete]

Hi Cam, well it is good to see another travel gun on the market. Like many things in life you only hear from people who have problems and never from those who have no problems at all. I think if fish being shot are of the usual size for consumption and are of modest dimensions then two piece shafts are not such a problem. I know if I see a fish that I am not tooled up for with my gun at the time I don't take a shot at it as I know its limitations. However not everyone has a private arsenal to select from and they may be in an area new to them, so are not sure what to expect.

I think that jam together two piece shaft that the Alemanni guy uses would be worth investigating, it is designed to stay together when moving the gun around but pulls apart when the fish runs with it. Then the shaft works like a big slip tip. It was discussed here somewhere and there is an annotated photo of it. The only downside in making it is the tie points on the shaft center join to create the cable or line hinge that holds the two pieces of shaft together and the fact that they are most likely thick shafts anyway. Post 98, just checked. Here it is again anyway.

 

[TAGSpearguns]

Hi Cam, well it is good to see another travel gun on the market. Like many things in life you only hear from people who have problems and never from those who have no problems at all. I think if fish being shot are of the usual size for consumption and are of modest dimensions then two piece shafts are not such a problem. I know if I see a fish that I am not tooled up for with my gun at the time I don't take a shot at it as I know its limitations. However not everyone has a private arsenal to select from and they may be in an area new to them, so are not sure what to expect.

I think that jam together two piece shaft that the Alemanni guy uses would be worth investigating, it is designed to stay together when moving the gun around but pulls apart when the fish runs with it. Then the shaft works like a big slip tip. It was discussed here somewhere and there is an annotated photo of it. The only downside in making it is the tie points on the shaft center join to create the cable or line hinge that holds the two pieces of shaft together and the fact that they are most likely thick shafts anyway.

I actually had some shafts built a few years ago with a similar design as his. Sort of a giant slip-tip. I'd say it works pretty well especially on bigger shafts. But, it's not exactly what you'd expect in that the connection will still break:
1. A fish will usually get several kicks of their tail before the shaft actually comes out, just taking up the slack in the shooting line. This gives a big fish plenty of time to put pressure on the connection.
2. Making #1 worse, if the slip-tip style center connection is tight enough that it functions like a solid shaft it needs to be zero-tolerance (no deflection or movement) and it doesn't "want" to come apart easily like a slip tip would. Especially when the force of the shooting line is acting perpendicular to the joint as the fish swims away. So the fish were able to get into the rocks with the whole shaft.

In these situations, the joint is only as strong as a threaded connection anyways, but with more hassle. Seeing as these situations are likely to break both shafts, I went back to threaded center connections flopper and threaded-tip shafts.

In addition to still being able to land the fish, using a center shooting line connection reduces the force the fish can apply to the joint to some extent. And, in my experience, if the fish breaks a shaft in the rocks, it was probably not far off from bending a normal shaft anyways.

That being said, we have landed some great fish on the floppers! A 95lb Grouper submerged a 30L high pressure float and the shaft didn't break or bend and the flopper was still tuned. Many yellowtail and kingie up to 58lb, cubera, grouper, a YFT, WSB, etc... but they can break them easier if they get into the rocks!

 

[TAGSpearguns]

Also, I know several companies used to make travel guns using 7mm shafts which makes sense that they were breaking more often. On my 2-band and inverted roller guns I use 7.5mm shafts and on the water-ballasted gun I use an 8mm break-down.

 

[TAGSpearguns]

Hi Cam, well it is good to see another travel gun on the market. Like many things in life you only hear from people who have problems and never from those who have no problems at all. I think if fish being shot are of the usual size for consumption and are of modest dimensions then two piece shafts are not such a problem. I know if I see a fish that I am not tooled up for with my gun at the time I don't take a shot at it as I know its limitations. However not everyone has a private arsenal to select from and they may be in an area new to them, so are not sure what to expect.

I think that jam together two piece shaft that the Alemanni guy uses would be worth investigating, it is designed to stay together when moving the gun around but pulls apart when the fish runs with it. Then the shaft works like a big slip tip. It was discussed here somewhere and there is an annotated photo of it. The only downside in making it is the tie points on the shaft center join to create the cable or line hinge that holds the two pieces of shaft together and the fact that they are most likely thick shafts anyway. Post 98, just checked. Here it is again anyway.
View attachment 59540
View attachment 59541

Oh I didn't see the photos! I think the tapered connection, as long as it is a perfect mate, would work well. Especially on thick shafts. Regardless, I've always admired his work!

 

[popgun pete]

Oh I didn't see the photos! I think the tapered connection, as long as it is a perfect mate, would work well. Especially on thick shafts. Regardless, I've always admired his work!

The key feature on Alemanni's shaft is the joining taper, it is not a single taper and there appear to be two sections to it. I tried to upload the bigger image on the Alemanni site, but it just failed to load even though I had accepted all the cookies on his site. Unlike a slip tip taper that often has a ball section tip this taper needs to hold the weight of the shaft front section with the gun pointed downwards. In the video you see him set the assembled shaft by bouncing it on its butt. Good luck with doing that in the water! However it is not so tight that the fish will not rip it apart because that's exactly what it was designed to do. If you look at my diagram of it at post 101 you can see my guess at the shape, but I think it might be slightly different in the proportions.

 

[TAGSpearguns]

The key feature on Alemanni's shaft is the joining taper, it is not a single taper and there appear to be two sections to it. I tried to upload the bigger image on the Alemanni site, but it just failed to load even though I had accepted all the cookies on his site. Unlike a slip tip taper that often has a ball section tip this taper needs to hold the weight of the shaft front section with the gun pointed downwards. In the video you see him set the assembled shaft by bouncing it on its butt. Good luck with doing that in the water! However it is not so tight that the fish will not rip it apart because that's exactly what it was designed to do. If you look at my diagram of it at post 101 you can see my guess at the shape, but I think it might be slightly different in the proportions.

Yes I think you're right - it appears tapered from those photos. Again, this goes with out saying, beautiful guns!

 

[popgun pete]

Yes I think you're right - it appears tapered from those photos. Again, this goes with out saying, beautiful guns!

Well now I have joined up and while no luck on the two piece I can see his slip tip which is probably similar. Trouble with shipping gear from Italy is it is hugely expensive. I once bought a loader and a rear cap for a pneumatic that would both fit inside a teacup and plus shipping that cost me over a hundred bucks. Having directly bought a few guns from that part of the world it cost me double than anything similar elsewhere. However in both cases they were the only show in town so to speak. You want it then you stump up the cash.

 

[TAGSpearguns]

Well now I have joined up and while no luck on the two piece I can see his slip tip which is probably similar. Trouble with shipping gear from Italy is it is hugely expensive. I once bought a loader and a rear cap for a pneumatic that would both fit inside a teacup and plus shipping that cost me over a hundred bucks. Having directly bought a few guns from that part of the world it cost me double than anything similar elsewhere. However in both cases they were the only show in town so to speak. You want it then you stump up the cash.
View attachment 59542

Yeah I feel the pain - the customs fees to a lot of countries are basically a non-starter for shipping a speargun there!

 

[popgun pete]

Yeah I feel the pain - the customs fees to a lot of countries are basically a non-starter for shipping a speargun there!

In Australia the Customs fee is 10 percent of the product and shipping cost combined. Now once shipping a gun here was around 50 to 70 dollars, but now it is 170 dollars, which is what it cost me to buy a JBL Sawed-Off XHD Magnum a few years ago from the USA. The JBL Reaper Travel gun shown here cost me all up nearly a grand AUD, which was kind of off putting, but if I wanted to check one out that was the only option. AUD is currently only worth around 67 cents USD and the gun alone was just over USD 500. The reason for that shipping expense is the size of the Travel Magnum carry case. Without the carry case the shipping package could have been much smaller. Generally the length of the gun pushes the shipping cost up, for example although it eventually came at a much lower shipping cost initial quotes for shipping the Seal 130 Rollergun were USD 600! From memory it eventually came here for about a third of that in terms of shipping alone, then Customs got 10 percent of that.

Now one advantage of a travel gun is that it is half the length of a standard speargun and that makes it much cheaper to ship. If you break the gun down further by shipping it with barrels separated from handle and muzzle you should be able to squeeze the gun down even more in terms of package length. With the dealer's assistance I had a stainless steel Biller tube gun sent in pieces, the only problem was the spear, but that came separately, in fact I had a number of shafts shipped to make it worthwhile sending a second package, so I would not discount overseas sales completely if I were you.