CLEAN JOB,   DIRTY HANDS

“This here is a pumped up 115 Supersten, the strongest speargun in the world and it can break your spine in two – so you have to ask yourself: do I fell lucky? So, do you feel lucky, punk?” This phrase is of course taken and modified from inspector Callahan’s role, being used quite often by many spearos who having gone insane from snapper aspettos, at the end, manage to catch the dreamed fish with a very long and difficult shot taken with the strongest gun they had in their bag. The long pneumatic gun.
But just like all “Dirty Harry” movies, almost everybody freaks out with the controversial characteristics of the large pneumatic gun, while others are blown away from the outcome of its action that “doesn’t solve the crime, is crushes it”! Indeed, the shaft from a long pneumatic gun doesn’t simply make a hole, it shatters the heads of large dusky groupers and the spines of snappers and large amberjacks.
Story has it that during the late 80’s and early 90’s the first amberjacks were speared in mid water. A few years later, with the first tunas being taken by the long pneumatic guns of the pioneers in B.W.H. in Greece, a spending spree for these guns was noticed since in Greece at least, no one knew much about “heavy” rail guns. There were even some, who searched in old, neglected stores to find some tired Supersten 130. And just like that, at the end of the former century, while all “elite” spearos were diving with rail guns, they all ended up with a pumped up air gun in their bag, which had been fully customized. This nostalgic wave was so mighty that it actually forced Mares to resurrect the production of the Scarpati Supersten named now after Pipin ( A just name since Scarpati may have shown to the world how to fish for pelagic fish with air guns, but it was Pipin that showed how to fish with air guns in deep waters.). Naturally, those who bought it (victims of the B.W.H. trend themselves) never used it except for occasional target practice.  At some point, around the time of the new millennium, the long pneumatic gun was forgotten…
But here it is again. The long air gun having been considered a cult phenomenon with its users being seen as graphic legends of the spearfishing world, seems now to fit in perfectly with the carbon outfits of the new age hunters, consisting the new, “chic air gun” style!

The “pump” man
“Pump and pump up to the point you can barely load it” This was the advice of the Great Toschi, a somewhat legend of spearfishing in the 80’s on whose patents were based the second and third generation of pneumatic guns made by Mares in the 90’s (the competizione line and also Cyrano - Stealth – Sten 2000) representing perfectly the pure power of the air gun. Another legend of international spearfishing, Renzo Mazzari (who nevertheless changed his opinion in favor of rail guns – or that is how his sponsor wanted it to show) used to state that if you want to successfully hunt red snappers and amberjacks, you must first pump up your air gun to the “absolute limit”. But also here, in Greece, the blue water legend Margaritis would claim that “when the air gun starts missing the target, go back and pump it up”. It sounds simple and by so wise, someone would think, but…
Manufacturers give a maximum operational pressure of 30 Atm. for the spearguns. Indeed, if someone passes this point, he will see the parts that consist his gun, slowly… disassembling! Knowledge is essential from the user on how to assemble and disassemble an air gun, so the head, chamber and valve (especially that last part) will be tightened firmly so as to withstand the strong pressure. Otherwise, the cost by the relevant technician will be large – not taking in consideration that he might be… extrinsic.
And even if someone manages to pump his gun up, there is always the possibility he will not be able to… load it, either in the sea that is actually easier, or on land (something of course never to be done) with the help of his friends that will lend a hand! An urban legend tells of a story of 4 busters trying to arm a pneumatic gun outside of a coffee shop. They had turned the gun upside-down, pushing the gun slowly to the ground. At some point, as the shaft approached the last and most difficult point of hooking to the trigger, our strong men started to sweat even more, with their hands starting to lose grip. Eventually the Supersten was turned to an air missile, with all the busters seeking shelter under anything they could find.  After an agonizing trip to space, our want to be missile landed on top of the coffee shop, with the owner charging out to see what exactly had happened, asking at the same time “what the hell was that”!

The “oil” man
The correct appellation of such a gun is actually “pneumatic - oil gun”. An air gun is just like the ones used on land, since it has a barrel and actually a waterproof one, which except cleaning, also demands lubricating so as to launch the shaft without friction losses, sealing at the same time all the gaskets. At every service (which for long air guns means every 50 shots), the hands get full of oil, the tools and disassembled parts that make up the gun get slippery, sweat drips off the forehead and some have a neurotic tic of letting their tongue out when they tighten things…
It’s not enough though, to loosen the head, take the piston out and empty the clogged up oil from the interior by turning the gun towards the ground. And that is because in that manner, the barrel cannot be completely cleaned from the residues. The owner of a large pneumatic gun must also be “Large” himself. He has to be able to disassemble completely the gun, wipe it, and reassemble it, replacing every time all the gaskets whether they seem worn out or not. And those little corrosions on the foramen of the barrel must be smoothened out or in case of any doubt, the barrel has to be replaced with a new one. If someone cannot tolerate getting oiled up every now and then, then necessarily he will have to take his gun to a “specialist”, paying the usually large cost of repair.
Eventually, a spearo who knows how special his air gun is and how to take care of it, cannot be a “casual” fisherman. That of course is good for the fish, since they will either die on the spot, or live to see another day (he doesn’t risk taking a questionable shot – “who will arm the gun again”). That nevertheless is bad for Mares and any such company, which managed 40 years ago to make a profit, putting together in a small workshop the first generation of Sten air guns. And that is because large air guns will not be necessary to the occasional weekend spearos of the summer.



Jacuzzi fish
One can understand the amount of knowledge an air gun user has, by looking at the length of line mounted on the gun. If he has 6 lengths, then usually… it’s a fake! And unfortunately, most people have mounted 6 lengths of line along with a puny… 25 atmospheres! There are only a few people who due to their physical strength have it so large (I’m referring to the gun…). For a 115cm gun to take all 6 lengths, 55 (!) atmospheres are needed. (some people, using the worthless line included in the package, mount 6 lengths of line on even the smaller models of air guns, such as the medisten). The user, who can truly understand the potential of his gun, has an amount of line that can fully correspond to the atmospheres loading his gun.
The large air gun has to be pumped to 35 atm. to fully take advantage of the “three lengths” (“two lengths are possible at 30atm.)  Four lengths need 40 – 45atm! Accordingly, long (over 115m), 7mm shafts cannot be used since during the loading procedure they tend to bend, especially close to their tail. One of the greater advantages a pneumatic gun has actually is the perforation provided only by shafts of at least 8mm in thickness. Of course, in this article we are talking about setting up a weapon capable of piercing even the toughest of bones found in a dusky grouper’s head and under 20 meters of depth, not to the babies of their kind.
A 7mm bend up shaft can cause corrosion to the barrel (especially when exiting). A corroded barrel leads to air and oil leakage, allowing at the same time water to enter into the gun. And that is the least, since the seriously corroded foramen of the barrel will cause immediate air loss, creating due to the bubbles, a warm Jacuzzi for the red snappers…

“I shine, hit and extract”
The large air gun does not need gears, since their mechanism decelerates the flow of air from the external barrel towards the chamber of the interior barrel where the piston moves. The gear box then, has to be removed. And since the manufacturers urge us to get our hands dirty from the beginning, it’s a good opportunity to widen the round foramen in the inner barrel, over the hook, so the speed of air flow at the moment of the shot may increase even more. At about this point, the air gun loses its easiness at “shooting anything, from a silver sea bream inside the caves, to a tuna in open waters”. In fact, a large pneumatic gun is truly functional (strong and agile) only when fishing selectively for large fish. Of course there are some people who continue to argue that thanks to the gears, they can shoot anything, even under the rocks (and spend the rest of the day trying to get the shaft out…).

“Huile a coude” or The grease fish
“Huile a coude” in French, means to gird up one's loins (“to put oil on ones elbow). And since the 115 and 130 are produced anymore, you will find a 115cm air gun, take it apart, customize the barrel, oil yourself up even more, take the gear box out and fit a blue handle from a Mares Sten Competizione. You can also purchase the “Hunter” model from Seac Sub with a pretty good handle and 8mm shaft. If you are satisfied with 30atm. and a 7mm shaft (necessarily due to the 11mm chamber), you can have the Mare “Stealth” 110 or the Seac Sub “Caccia”. Finally, if you don’t want to part from your guilty flashlight and still find functional using the gears, then the 110 Omer “Airbalete” and 110 Mares “Cyrano” will make you fulfill your B.W.H fantasy. That is of course until you finally put together a true large air gun with an 8mm shaft (or even a “heavy” railgun – it depends on your preferances…)