Another on-line auction yields an old, handcrafted bluewater speargun. This gun was presumably used in Gulf Coast or Florida waters. The cypress wood gunbody has similar length and gunbody section profile to another set of very old American guns. See: http://rocknfish.com/Reef.html . This hand built speargun shows considerable understanding of inventive concepts of design. I do not know any information on the competent spear fisherman who built this fine gun, when it was made or the types of fish it has taken. Judging from the scars on the gun, this was a real working speargun that brought home many fish in it's career. I can only offer praise for the inventive creation of the unique mechanism.
The overall length of this gun is 73" (185.4 cm). Contemporary spearguns for blue water hunting have similar length. It is safe to say that this is a bluewater gun. The slot in the muzzle is 2.25" X .5" (5.72 cm X 1.27 cm). The laminated cypress wood gunbody has the dimensions of 1.5" X 1.25" throughout it's entire length. It is logical to assume these dimensions indicate and American gun, not one of European origin. Unfortunately, there is no spearshaft included with the gun, the presumed overall band stretched dimension was 60". The gun is a rear handle model. Indications are that there was once a rubber gun butt fit onto the back end. There is no indications of a track that the shaft rode within.
The gunbody is composed of three glued laminations of cypress wood. After all these years it is still very straight and sound. The center lamination has been saw cut from the tip to 5" back. Within this saw cut are placed 4 laminations of stainless steel sheet metal, the outer pieces make up a formed tubular shaft guide at the nose. The stainless steel also serves to reinforce and strengthen the band slot. Two through bolts have been sunk into the wood to hold the nose together. As many as four rubber bands must be tied after inserting into the band slot. The metal does not go all the way to the tip of the nose which suggests the use of a finned slide ring at that place. There is no obvious location to wrap line on the nose with the possible exception of the shaft guide itself. This shaft guide appears undamaged. It does have a sort of hook-shape to it, but the line would have had to be wrapped beneath the shaft when the gun was loaded. On the back of the gun, there is no obvious line release as well. Several explanations have been offered, but we may never really know how the gun was originally rigged.
The handle, trigger and sear of this gun show an ingenious and unique design. The center lamination of cypress wood is 1/2" wide. At the location of the sear, the central lamination is discontinuous, thus allowing for a 1/2" wide shaped brass sear to fit in perfectly. There is no metal sear box, only wooden sides which have close tolerances to the sear. The brass sear and steel trigger mechanism is very unique. The sear is relatively identical when rotated over 180 degrees. The sear pin is a substantial 3/8" steel bolt which goes through the gunbody. It appears that when the sear was hand-made it started as a disk of brass 3" in diameter. This ingenious mechanism is designed so that the shaft would probably fit between two horns of the sear at the top of the gun. The spacing of the horns of the sear is 1/4" which tells us that was the diameter of the shaft at that point. The overall shaft diameter was most likely larger than 1/4". It had a short tail wider than 1/4" extending beyond these 'horns'. What is remarkable about this sear is it's functional symmetry. The long trigger mechanism engages the underside of the symmetrical sear. It engages at the other side of the horns. There is a full hand grip lever to the steel trigger. The trigger has been brazed in a repair attempt at least once. There is a weld of brass metal upon the trigger tooth indicating a rather unfinished attempt to resurrect this gun at one time. The trigger is hand forged steel. Stainless sheet metal reinforcements strengthen the local area. A stainless strap can be seen which aids in holding the handle and trigger mechanism onto the gunbody. Some of the machine screws are steel and others are brass. The hand grip is precisely shaped mahogany wood.
When the trigger is pulled it allows the sear to pivot forward thus freeing and releasing the spearshaft. It is a very ingenious mechanism. To reload the gun, the sear and trigger are positioned in the correct geometry and a band is placed on the back of the shaft making the gun ready for the next shot.
It appears that this gun has been refinished at least twice in it's career. Old vanish has tightened the fit of the sear in it's wooden case. Please note that like any antique wooden piece of furniture the old finish is very important to preserve. Although the wood could be brought back to a shiny new appearance, it is much, much better from a historical standpoint to leave the original patination of wood and metal. Don't refinish any antique speargun you happen to find. Thanks to Ron Mullins for generously making this great antique bluewater speargun available for documentation. It is a classic piece of American Southern bluewater spearfishing history.
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