Another Enclosed Track Euro Build

Well, aside from not posting in forever...I've thankfully been busy tying some loose ends on the up and coming SettingSteel SpearGear site and finishing up some more Custom made Euro Enclosed track spearguns. This latest custom speargun design was also tweeked to the max! What we have is a Basswood core (think balsawood) all wrapped in carbon fiber, with a padauk wood triad-shaped sides and padauk/graphite enclosed track. With the very ergo Cressi Geronimo handle/trig mech. This gun like its early precessors also has the beautiful cuttlefish design that helps it track incredibly fast, and the main body of wood (basswood) keep it light and bouyant. As in the other designs I kept the bands as high as possible to alleviate recoil...this results in the famous "recoilessness" of a euro, while adding in an enclosed track also aids immensely in the prevention of shaft whip due to overpowering the gun. A couple of readers have asked why a full on carbon fiber wrap as opposed to just the carbon belly of the other guns? Mainly because the bulk of the gun is made of basswood a very light wood,and the guns incredibly tight dimensions (less than a 3/4' high and 3/4" wide)were needed in order to prevent the gun from bending hence the full on carbon wrap was essential. As in the other builds this gun also has an integrated shark pic/line retainer.










Here are some specs

Gun is 115cm (45")tip -butt2.5cm (1") high, and tapers from 2cm (3/4") to 4cm (1 3/4")

band to first fin 90cm (36") -5/8 20"band to second fin 100cm (39") -5/16 21"made this gun with a basswood,cumaru core, and padaukits triad shaped (like the other build), with a graphite poured enclosed track, CF muzzle and built in line retainer/shark pic








We tried this Enclosed track Euro gun on a few outings and this speargun is amazing! You can't even see the arrow peeling off the track; its got some amazing pinpoint accuracy thanks to the Euro design and enclosed track. This speargun feels like a feather in the water and maneuvers better than a tube railgun, thanks to the double tapered cuttlefish design. This is the fourth of this generation and the guys I've built them for have been stoked with the guns performance, hopefully their will be more to come!

Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/

The Long Key...Tale

Well NOAA said it was gonna be the last "nice" day this Wed. before the wind picked up, so we decided to take a jump over to Long Key for a spearfishing trip.

5 in the am found us loaded up and headed on the 2 hour drive to go spearfishing at one of my favorite Keys, we were hoping on some good viz as the past few days were quite calm- Long Key is notorious for poor viz (compared to most of the other Keys) probably because it sits on the "curve" of the Keys as well as that 3 mile bridge, which serves as a huge funnel for water to run in and out of, as well as its one of the farthest points from Gulf waters.

We decided to put in on the public ramp and make a run to some new spots we had noted on our last trip spearfishing Long key, so we dropped the Raptor in and headed out oceanside....Ahhhhhh NOAA gotta love'em, wind was about 10mph and seas were choppy 2's, with some 3's (later picking up to 15-20 with 3-4's), the Raptor handled them well , the current was strong , but manageable....the viz was saaaweeet everywhere we went it was top to bottom, the water was perfect for me and my rashguard- but the Squirrel found it a bit nippy (giv'em time , he'll man up)!

Our first few spots were nice, but no fish in the house, on our next spot in about 30' we saw quite a few nice fish, including a 30+pound Black Long Key grouper, that I swore could read and write....the boy totally played me, and their I was thinking I was all ninja-like....what a joke! You see the reason I stress a "Long Key" black is that most of the blacks over in Long key, to me seem a bit above average in IQ compared to blacks elsewhere, perhaps its because they get hit more- as this guy had a nice recent mohawk- or its just in the genes. Anyways I was drifting and saw him all lit up about 5 feet above the reef just floating in midwater, I kicked up current about 2-300 yards and planned a drift right towards him...no kicking, no movement, just a "blob" of pure ninja tactico moving in behind him....well to make a long story short as I was about 100' away he dropped to the sand about 15' away from the reef...the plan was for me to drop very close to the reef and clip him over the ledge ( as I thought he'd be half way in his hole, with just his head poking out) Well as I got to the ledge hoping to see him there, he was was gone...PUFFFF!!!! My peripheral caught some movement, and I slowly looked over my shoulder to the left and about 30 feet away I see him pop up for a peek (could of' sworn he smiled, no more like laughed) and bolt back in his "exit" hole....oh well :(

We made a few nice drifts over some good Long key waypoints, that produced a bunch of reef fish, and from their headed out 3 miles to shoot what we hoped would be a limit of permisos and mules! As we were headed out we spotted some nice relief on the scope in about 75' so we decided to take a closer look we hunted the area for about an hour, pulled some nice fish out, one of the boyz saw a few nice kings in the 75# range,and a nice gag in the 30# range- and another shot a nice Cero mackeral.

Well we got to our spot out in federal waters and dropped in...and were happily greeted by fish everywhere...we moved fast as daylight was a burning and spearfished a bunch a fish adding to our already heavy cooler including a couple of high 20#'s permits ( a new PB for one of the crew) and mules (yellow jack)...we wrapped it up by 6'ish and hauled in. Ahhhhhh a solid 10 hours of spearfishing...thats what I'm talking 'bout!...... ohhhhh and the final tally, alot of fish!

Now, ain't that just a Tale?

Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/

The Squirrels Euro Enclosed Track Speargun

I've been playing around with the idea of an enclosed track Euro speargun for about 4 months now (more or less about the time my son-the Squirrel- had mentioned he wanted a Euro speargun for his B-Day) so I decided to combine some of my slim down versions of my regular enclosed track spearguns with some Euro gun concepts.

Here's the breakdown:

First off the decision was to determine the Handle/Trig mech for the speargun. It was a toss up between the Demka or Marlin handles, and since the Demka was unavailable (I think its an awesome handle) I went with the Marlin...a sweet, smooth as butter, handle/trig that allows for a R or L line release.
The speargun has a double taper front to back, it is about 3/4" in the front and widens to about 1 3/4" in the back, they call it a cuttlefish designed speargun., and its triad shape side to side-not exactly anything new as I have been making this similiar design in my regular spearguns for about 2 years now. But for this Euro I decided to tweek it as much as possible so it can live up to its "Euro fame" of a fast, light, smooth tracking speargun....so I started trimming fat (wood) off the design to make it as streamlined as possible, and the only way to do it without any bend in the barrel was with carbon fiber, so I laminated carbon fiber (CF) between the wood lams and on the bottom (belly, another one of my trademark designs) of the speargun, this resulted in a height less than 2cm (think a little under a quarter-25 cents) not including the track. I added some lead shots front and rear for ballast, the speargun sinks slowly, very slowly, horizontally with shaft, and floats vertically without. This gun tracks incredibly fast and light and feels like a gun half its size in the water. From band to fin the gun is 110/115cm, total length is 130cm, 2 bands 5/8" . The shaft is a Riffe euro 9/32. The gun has a built in shark pic which doubles as the line retainer as well. I made the muzzle with CF to provide the structural support allowing me to bore the band holes as high as possible (inline with the shaft) the space b/t shaft and bands is about 1/16", so the recoil is hardly felt, that coupled with the spearguns cuttlefish design, lets even the wimpiest of kids (er, ummm no pun intended Squirrel ;) shoot the gun without flinching, and shaft whip is nonexistant (enclosed track). The enclosed track was not as complicated as I originally thought. To my knowledge there are no enclosed track Euro spearguns commercially produced on the market today, and very few if any gun builders have made them. For those of you who never have shot an enclosed track gun I urge you to give it a try, you'll probably never go back (same goes for wood compared to metal spearguns) I've been using graphite on most of my tracks as of late so this speargun got the graphite too...I really like the way the graphite sizzles the shaft off the track. The gun shoots to the end of 5 wraps (or 2 depends how your counting) and penetrated up to the flopper in 3/4 plywood...we took it out this weekend and it performed quite nicely ( http://settingsteel-spearfishing.blogspot.com/2009/05/fowey-rocks-spearfishing-report.html ) I'll probably be adding this gun to my line of Miami custom made spearguns, as the Euro type speargun has proven itself time and again to be a "fish, Killa"....so whats next? How about an Ipe/Basswood (yep basswood, like balsa wood) Eurogun..... report to follow!

Till next spearfishing report, tight bands, straight shafts, and smooooooooth triggers!

Tone
http://www.settingsteelspeargear.com/