My first speargun

[jerbee]

It really comes down to personal preference, environment, and prey. I started with a single band Cressi Comanche, then found it wasn’t delivering enough penetration for the big ones, so I got a Cressi Cherokee Ocean with 2 bands... found it STILL wasn’t enough, so I broke down and bought a JBL Woody Magnum three band with 3/4” shafts. Now I’m hunting down fish the size and weight of adult humans without any problems. If hunting humans… I mean, hunting really big human sized fish isn’t your thing, then I think you would be perfectly fine with the regular Cherokee. Here’s an example from a few weeks ago of what I was having trouble shooting with the 1-2 sling guns.

 

[johndiver999]

I feel strange telling a gentleman this but: your shaft ain’t as big as you say it is.

It really comes down to personal preference, environment, and prey. I started with a single band Cressi Comanche, then found it wasn’t delivering enough penetration for the big ones, so I got a Cressi Cherokee Ocean with 2 bands... found it STILL wasn’t enough, so I broke down and bought a JBL Woody Magnum three band with 3/4” shafts. Now I’m hunting down fish the size and weight of adult humans without any problems. If hunting humans… I mean, hunting really big human sized fish isn’t your thing, then I think you would be perfectly fine with the regular Cherokee. Here’s an example from a few weeks ago of what I was having trouble shooting with the 1-2 sling guns.

 

[Sam Miller III]

" if you can lift a fish it is referred to as Bait by serious spear fishermen
If you can't lift the fish it has the distinction of having the title of a FISH by serious spearfishermen "

I certainly would like to see a 3/4 inch spear shaft

SDM

 

[Popgun Pete]

This is a Potts gun which is a stainless steel fabrication with a wooden barrel and cocking stock. The stainless steel parts are soldered together with a special solder.

 

[Popgun Pete]

This design was later to be used with refinements and spot welding to create the Scubapro speargun trigger mechanism shown below. The cassette based mechanism was used in the Scubapro alloy tracked barrel tube gun and the timber "Safari".

 

[Popgun Pete]

This is a "Safari" gun. The different timbers used in the gun don't work together very well and some stocks had problems with a number of guns scrapped without ever being completed. Single-piece trigger mechanism was limited in band pull as too much and you could not pull the trigger! Some guns were re-equipped with the Potts two-piece trigger mechanism which can be identied by the two pivot pins and that is able to be used with larger band loads.

replaced with a better copy

 

[Popgun Pete]

Wally Potts' design ideas are also used in the late seventies, eighties Scubapro "Panther", this gun had a one-piece stock construction molded in glass-reinforced polypropylene and was only available in two sizes, the 626 and the 636. It bore the trademark deep grip handle and much of the design ideas of its predecessors with pivot pins for the trigger mechanism on the same horizontal line in the sear box, usually they are slightly off-set. The stainless steel levers are sintered and impregnated with molybdenum disulphide grease and have been created in forging dies so that they required next to no post-finishing. The molding dies for the plastic gunstock cost a fortune, that is why there were only the two sizes. When Scubapro got out of spearfishing the gun went to Bandito which still produce the gun, although the side-lettering has changed to "BANDITO" on the stock and it has a new shape for the rubber butt pad. If a 648 had been produced then the gun would be better known today.