back some 50 years ago

[Popgun Pete]

As I also made this ramset powered spear pistol of which I constructed two examples in 1970.

 

[Andrew Dawson]

That green part on the end of the chrome fitting in the top pic....is that a shotgun shell?

 

[Popgun Pete]

That green part on the end of the chrome fitting in the top pic....is that a shotgun shell?

Yes, it is an ICIL Magnum 12 gauge powerhead with the cartridge nose filled with paraffin wax and the percussion cap and case join painted with nail varnish.

Here is a photo of the entire gun which I restored some years ago by rubbing back the old varnish and repainting it.

This old slide photo shows both guns before they received their front grip handles and drum reels replacing the vertical mount reels. Shafts were 3/8" stainless with breakaway heads on stainless steel cable.

Other guns are Undersee's "Bazooka" models and a Nemrod "Comando", one of the first batch imported here as it was meant to be a "Goleta", but that gun had just been discontinued.

 

[Fibonacci]

As I also made this ramset powered spear pistol of which I constructed two examples in 1970.
View attachment 514926

Very nicely engineered Pete, the vertical lever locks and unlocks the breech?
Straight outta Thunderball
Ramset cartridges hard to come by these days, but CO2 powered spearguns should make a comeback!
Sodastream cylinders... hmm...

 

[Popgun Pete]

Very nicely engineered Pete, the vertical lever locks and unlocks the breech?
Straight outta Thunderball
Ramset cartridges hard to come by these days, but CO2 powered spearguns should make a comeback!

Yes, the bolt cocks the gun and has a dogleg In the slide for the bolt to be placed on "safe" so the gun cannot shoot. The screw breech was used for the considerable power of the Ramset cartridges, but usually the green or yellow cartridges were used. These guns appeared after the SMG, but used a different firing system with the rimfire Ramset cartridge. Looks rather cool, but we soon returned to our big band guns as it was all too easy to fumble and drop the ammo.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Very nicely engineered Pete, the vertical lever locks and unlocks the breech?
Straight outta Thunderball
Ramset cartridges hard to come by these days, but CO2 powered spearguns should make a comeback!
Sodastream cylinders... hmm...

The heyday of CO2 cartridge guns was in the post World War II years when a lot of war surplus cartridges were available at very low prices and speargun makers decided to make use of them. Usually one cartridge per shot, especially with the sparklet cartridge, they had the problem of carrying and accidently dropping any of the cartridges while reloading, but the guns delivered a reasonably powerful shot. The most modern iteration was the US Divers “Sea Hunter” spear pistol which was carried in a leg holster along with spare cartridges, but although an intriguing gun to look at it was not really a spearfishing weapon for serious hunting.

 

[happy-diver]

Hello.
Danish oil for restoring wooden guns whilst maintaining most of the original finish
and resealing transfers-stickers without ill effect to like original condition beautiful

We used to have an XR Falcon JPJ396 ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

for sure there are some slides of it somewhere

 

[Fibonacci]

@Popgun Pete I was thinking more along the lines of the Pelletier large capacity CO2 cylinder guns as used in Thunderball

 

[Popgun Pete]

The "MACO2" is basically a restyled "Pelletier", same trigger mechanism and bar its looks the tank connection is the main change being on the butt of the handgrip rather than attached to the rear of the upper gun body. Bear in mind CO2 spearguns have long been banned in France, but not its overseas colonies where they were used on big fish.

 

[Popgun Pete]

The "Pelletier" is a very simple gun, if you open the gas tank valve and there is no spear in the gun then the gas will just flow freely out of the barrel. The seals on the spear tail make the gun gas tight when the spear is in the barrel and when you reload after a shot water that entered the gun has to be eliminated or hydraulic lock will prevent the spear inserting in the gun as water is incompressible. The rear purge valve is held depressed and then water is driven out through it as you push the shaft into the gun. The remaining water inside the gun is then driven out by opening the gas tank valve briefly which then drives the last of the water out of the gun interior through the open purge valve via a burst of gas. After that the gun can be pressurized for shooting. The purge valve on the "MACO2" is on the right hand side of the gun, you can see it on the photo, whereas on the "Pelletier" it is located in the bump at the lower rear of the gun.

A diagram shows the various parts of the "Pelletier".

A photo of a gun without its rear tank valve and tank.