Jack Prodanovich's
"Rollerguns"
An educational demonstration
of design development
author - John Warren,
2/20/2001 (edited 12/16/02)
Over my years of contact
with Jack Prodanovich. I have been exposed to the methodology that he uses
to design some unique pieces of equipment. Many of these stainless steel
artifacts have found themselves into the mainstream of spearfishing technology.
This report is a brief educational expose for the spearfishing aficionado.
For those of you with the ability and interest in building your own equipment,
some of this information may become motivating.
The experienced spearfisherman
has learned that one type and size of speargun will not be optimum for
all kinds of fish. There has been considerable debate comparing 'Euroguns'
with California 'log shooters'. Much of this dialog is stricly based upon
commercial alliances with manufacturing companies. Everyone has their favorite speargun, but a deeper
question still lingers, "Why is the gun designed like this way?" An examination of historical equipment will illucidate some of the evolution.
History
as it took place in San Diego
The early divers started to explore
the underwater realm with home made equipment. They solved problems as they
encountered them. These pioneers paved the way for manufacturing companies
to create the fine equipment we use today.
There were only a few freedivers on the coast in the 1930s. Jack Prodanovich
was one of them. He and his associates formed the Bottom Scratchers Dive
Club. Jack created his own speargun
to shoot the abundant fish that were in the clear ocean waters of San Diego.
Please see the image below of Jack's first rubber powered speargun. It had
a two piece trigger and three bands of latex surgical tubing.
This rubber powered speargun and others which followed
it, enabled freedivers to take fish that they could see with their goggles
and early face plates. Effective equipment like this put dinner on the table
on many occasions. But the divers were not well-prepared for the enormous
fish they would discover on the edge of the submarine canyon. Huge broomtailed
groupers and enormous black seabass defied the divers attempts to take them
with these weakly powered spearguns. The best rubber that the divers could
find was tire innertube or thin surgical tubing. It worked for small fish,
but the spearshafts bounced off the tough hide of the largest groupers. The
frustration of not being able to subdue the largest fish motivated the divers
to develop an inventive solution.
The Development of the Powerhead
Jack went back to his shop and thought long and hard on
the problem of how to spear these largest of fish. Since his brother, Johnny,
worked at an aircraft company in San Diego, Jack persuaded him to obtain
some quality stainless steel tubing. Jack embarked upon the design and perfection
of the powerhead. This was a tubular device which screwed onto the tip of
the spearshaft. Within it's mechanism there was powder cartridge from a bullet.
Jack initially used a 38 caliber round. A small speartip fit into the thick
walled stainless steel tubing. The mechanism was designed so that when the
spearshaft hit the fish it would detonate the powder cartrige and 'shoot'
the speartip dart through the fish. It was a two stage device. The initial
rubber powered spearshot would get the powerhead to the fish and the exploding
cartrige would drive the point through the body of the giant fish. The powerhead
worked so well that the divers used them on long pole spears. Needless to
say, after hitting a fish with a powerhead there was still a tremendous amount
of freediving work to be done to subdue the fish. As proof of the effectiveness
of the powerhead, Jack keeps a large fish vertebra with a stainless steel
dart driven deep into spinal cord cavity. This shot rendered the giant fish
completely immobilized.
In it's day, the powerhead was the most effective device
for taking big game fish, including 'mero', black seabass, and gulf and broomtail
grouper. Before long many different individuals were making powerheads for
their line of spearfishing accessories.
From bottom to top they are as follows. 1. Stainless steel dart used with Prodanovich powerhead. 2. Prodanovich 22 caliber.
3. Prodanovich 22 caliber. 4. Special gray whale tranquilizing powerhead
for research (used once). 5. Prodanovich 38 special. 6. Prodanovich 38 special.
7. Charlie Sturgill powerhead. 8. Bell-Aqua Thunderhead.
It became more than evident that powerheads were extremely dangerous when
Jack Prodanovich lost his righ eye during test firing of a powerhead in a
swimming pool. The shaft went out and hit the target, but the detonation
of the powerhead blasted the spearshaft backward penetrating Jack's faceplate
and right eye. This unfortunate incident was captured on film by Lamar Boren.
Powerheads Banned in Mexico
At a period in time, POWERHEADS,
were used to take-down many large fish. Finally, Mexico outlawed the
use of these cartrige powered spearpoints for big game spearfishing. It was
obvious they were a type of gun and conceivably could be an anti-personel
weapon. Without powerheads it became much more difficult to drive a spearpoint
through a large reef fish to secure it. Big game hunters started to increase
the number of rubber bands used to power the spearshaft to compensate for
powerheads becoming illegal in the prolific waters of the Sea of Cortez.
A four-band gun became standard equipment with freedivers in darkest Baja.
Remember that big fish 'bust-up' equipment and there are no diver equipment
supply stores to replenish bent spearshafts. In Baja the fish are heavy duty
and the equipment must match. There is world wide agreement among spearfishermen
that fish which are shot must be landed. Underpowered equipment which is
mismatched to the size and the power of the speared fish can lessen the 'catch
ratio' and result in more injured and lost fish. That's clearly not right.
Recently there have been
new ecologically defined protected zones established around the lower Sea
of Cortez. The offshore islands near Loreto have a reserve status where
commercial exploitation is no longer allowed. Limited sport fishing is
still allowed. If you want to spearfish around the islands below Loretto
contact the port captain for local fishing information. It is not my goal
here to provide the most recent status of this restricted area or the most
current Mexican fishing law as it applies to spearfishing.
It was rumored
that spearfishing would still be legal in these areas, but the wording
of the law was under debate. Some officials interpreted the law to state
that a freediver could have only one spear gun powered by one rubber band.
There was quite a lot of confusion in this matter. In some Mexican officials
minds (and sport fishermen), the law was to be enforced by these one-band
definitions. With much hard work and careful deliberation, John Riffe
was able to clarify the Mexican law as it related to bands on spearguns.
John Riffe had numerous meetings with agents from PESCA and SEMARNAP resulting
in the law being interpreted to permit multiband speargun use. Please see
the MULTIBAND_OK documents.
The rumors of
one-band speargun limitations were heard all the way up into Southern California.
Please keep in mind that in some areas, these rumors may be true and in
some restricted areas or they may be false. Jack Prodanovich elected to
design a one-band prototype gun with adequate power to shoot grouper. The
concept of the rollergun was the best solution to fit the design requirement
of a compact speargun for reef hunting with adequate power to secure large,
strong fish. If one band was to be the regulation, Jack could provide an
effective solution to these limitations.
Jack's Prototype Rollerguns
One of the design developments that Jack came up with was
a single band transverse rollergun. Please see the images of these rollerguns.
For more power multiple bands can be incorporated into a rollergun.
Jack continued his research on rollerguns by putting multiple
rollers on the front of the speargun. Each band is first cocked on the tab
of the spearshaft. The gun is then turned over and the band is recocked on
the bottom of the gunbody. This is done for each of the four bands. When
the gun is fired, the bands end up stopped on a keeper. See the composite
image of Jack's four band rollergun.
Although these guns are prototypes, they provide useful
clues and possible direction for the spearfishing aficianado. There may be
practical shortcomings to these guns, but the concept is what should be considered.
These images were
provided by Jack Prodanovich as an educational service to any individuals
who are interested in construction and development of their own custom
rollerguns. I will add more images and information as it becomes available.
JOHN WARREN,
March 1, 2001
Re-edited December 16, 2002
On September 18, 2001
I met with Jack and took some pictures of his small Japanese antique rollergun.
To view images and a description of this interesting artifact click this
link: JAPANESE EARLY
ROLLER SPEARGUN
Recently, I have also
had the privelege to meet Don Rolstead who has build several rollerguns
in the mid-1960's please see: DON
ROLSTEAD'S ROLLER GUNS
Niko
Brummer has put together a very thorough and analytical
webpage showing many of the details on the rollerguns that he has built.
His webpage is a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning more
about this type of speargun. Please make sure that you look at this website: http://roamingsolutions.net/niko/index.htm
prior to visiting other links.
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