At the request of Marc Ste-Marie of the Freedive List, I have put together some very basic information which can educate the spearfishing enthusiast about some blue water spearguns that I and others have made. The goal of this website is to encourage enthusiasts to build their own big game spearguns if they can't afford to purchase them.  The spearguns here are not the standard "dive shop" equipment. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to have obtained a speargun handle from one of the "fathers" of bluewater hunting, JackProdanovich . While at his shop in San Diego, he showed me the large "tuna gun" he had made.  There was practically nothing like this on the planet.  Jack had created a speargun capeable of killing a fish that weighed half a ton.  A sister speargun had been made which was purchased by Mike Goodwin.  Many years ago, I remember clipping a picture out of the Los Angeles Times newspaper about this speargun.  It made a considerable impression on my imagination. Consider having the confidence to be in the oceanic water where you could take a fish of this scale.

You must have complete confidence in your equipment to be able to think you could take a fish that was this powerful.  When I finally got my speargun handle from Jack Prodanovich, I started making plans for a high-powered speargun. I figured that if Jack could use one of his own handles for a gun capeable of this much power, maybe I could too.

I chose to use stainless steel and foam fiberglass composite instead of wood. Wood can be an engineering material, and most people have wood-working tools, but stainless steel is very strong and reliable.  I also had much experience with laminated composites. If wood is so great, why don't they make the space shuttle out of it?

The first prototype was a scaled down (8 band version) of Jack's tuna gun.  It was built with all stainless steel for strength.  I quickly found out that the 3/8" shaft was not very accurate.  The gun actually worked better with 6 bands. This gun was overpowered. Later, Ian McGonagle suggested some length parameters for the gun body.  I had to make 3 different prototypes before I got the buoyancy correct.  It was a difficult process of stripping all the foam and glass from the gun body I had so carefully shaped. Eventually, I found the perfect diameter of gun body to make for the right amount of flotation. After several spearguns, we learned to take them to the ocean and trim their buoyancy with small lead weights. When the perfect trim was established, the foam would be cut open and equivalent lead weight would be encapsulated into the foam. The gun would then be patched and finished.

Each speargun had it's own personality of color.  All were blue to blend in with the cobalt color of the deep sea.  I favored patterns to confuse the outline of the speargun.  This may not really be effective as camoflage, but it is fun to paint. The paints are 2-part catalyzed PPG automotive urethane.  It sticks well to the sanded fiberglass. You must use a breathing filtration with this paint. These paints are not only expensive, but very toxic. A diver must absolutely protect his lungs from contamination and pollution. (stainless steel dust is also very toxic).

As you can see from this picture, there is an elevated track which supports the arrow from the tip of the gun to the handle. The track is a composite casting that is laminated onto the stainless steel gunbody prior to bonding the foam in place.

My philosophy of spearfishing is that if you can increase your effective radius of spear shot, the probablity that you will get a fish increases dramatically.  This is a very arguable point. There have been extremely skilled divers who have shot large fish with very small weak spearguns.  My argument is that, in the long-run, a gun with more power and accuracy will take more bluewater fish than an underpowered gun.  There are always exceptions to my personal rule. You guys can argue amongs yourselves about it, but this is just how I think.  If you are talking about shooting close swimming jackfish, you can use a single-band eurogun.  If you are shooting big yellowfin tuna on the run, a powerful accurate speargun with appropriate line and floats are required. The guns you see here are strictly for bluewater gamefish. Since fish come in different sizes and types, different types of spearguns can be built for them.  I encourage you to responsibly build your own equipment. I am no longer producing spearguns so contacting me for components or guns won't do any good. This is an educational website.