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RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] For Cliff's spearfishing sub.



Bill,
Thanks for the words of encouragement.  It does stink getting older.  It's been a few months since my last dive experience, it was quite the shocker for me.  Involving my son in a risky incident caused by me makes it hard to dismiss as a simple mistake.
 
As far as the gun:
It's still a little ways out there in the overall plan, (I've only just taken delivery on a brand new Lincoln 185 TIG welder complete with stinger for stick welding), but my idea is to start simple and work up.  I will permanently fix the barrel to the sub, slightly below a porthole.  Sighting is nothing more than an adjustable peep inside the porthole which is aligned with a post on the front of the barrel.  Since the target will be within 10 feet of the end of the barrel, elevation is not going to be a big concern if the rear sight is adjusted for a 5' zero (he says hopefully).The barrel assembly will be welded through the hull and connected to the reservoir and lockout / triggering mechanisms inside the sub.  It wouldn't be too far a reach to put a pneumatically actuated ball valve (1" through hole diameter) on the far end of the barrel.  This would allow you to lock out the barrel, vent the overpressure gas / water to the inside of the sub (the volume would be minimal), and access the rear of the barrel to reload another spear/cable/piston assembly. Sound a little like a torpedo tube?   With the barrel lockout valve sized accordingly, it wouldn't stop or impede the spear assembly from clearing the barrel.  I feel pretty confident I can make this work.  It's simple and easy enough that I expect to be tinkering with it in the next few weeks.  The great unknown at this point, having zero time in a psub, is how steady I can hold the sub and how much maneuvering I am going to have to do to get the target in proper alignment with the barrel.  I figure most of the excursions are going to be at oil platforms and if necessary I could come up with some sort of rig hook that could be laid over a support beam or around a leg to help stabilize things but that would only be a fall-back position since that begins to compromise the ability of the sub to surface (if the hook couldn't be released for some reason), and would further complicate the no external hang-ups philosophy.
Best Regards,
Cliff 
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org [mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org]On Behalf Of Akins
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 3:10 AM
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] For Cliff's spearfishing sub.

Dear Cliff.
 
Your story touched me.
 
Just like Charleston Heston wanted to preserve our firearm and hunting heritage for future generations, you want to preserve underwater hunting heritage for your descendants. You want to also enjoy seeing them enjoy themselves underwater
 
when you can no longer physically scuba yourself.
 
I know what you mean about getting older. It gets a bit harder to do things myself with my 51 year old body. I had to take my double dive tank rig apart recently to a single because it was
 
getting just too heavy to dive with what with supporting the weight and getting in and out of a boat with it with the steel inserts in my spine.
 
This old ex marine now a grandpa, has had my left hand fingers crushed (but now useble), half my right collarbone gone, left collarbone broken, most of my hair gone, both wrist surgeries, both knee surgeries with the left one twice, and two spinal surgeries.
 
I hate getting older! Lol.
 
I go to pain management for shots into my spine area when it gets bad. That helps some. But I realize that getting older means dealing with pain. I try to keep my strength and stamina up by working out and using the
 
boxing speed bag. But then my epicondials on both arms hurt and I have to take medication and get cortizone shots in them! You can't win against age. But like you I plan to hang in there as long as I can.
 
Like you I wonder how many more years I can dive and do the things I like before age stops me. I think your spearfishing sub is an excellent idea. Just as you say, it would enable
 
you to introduce your descendants to the underwater world and spearfishing at an early age from within the dry confines of grandpa's submarine. You  go guy!  I wish you the very best with building your sub and
 
achieving your dream. I am very interested in how you are going to rig the spearguns so you can aim and remotely fire them from within the sub. Are the spearguns going to be able to pivot and move or will they be static?
 
How will your sights be set up? Will each gun have a light attached to it, possibly a laser dot sight as well?
 
Will your spearguns be single shot only? Have you given any thought to making an air powered repeater that loads from a magazine or even a revolving speargun like a gatling gun type?  You could hang a bunch of baited
 
hooks all over the sub and catch just as many or more fish that way, but the remotely fired speargun sounds like a lot more fun. I hold a patent in the firearms field and am very interested in underwater personal weaponry.
 
There is an italian speargun that I forget the name of right now that is an "over under" two shot speargun. Thus far that is the only multishot speargun I know that is manufactured for civilian use. The U.S. navy and a few other
 
countries have underwater FIREARMS. An underwater firearm differs from an air or rubber powered speargun in that it uses a chemical combustion explosion to drive the dart or spear just as a metalic cartridge does in a standard firearm.
 
That is why a BB gun, pellet gun, or air or rubber powered speargun are all NOT firearms. You might run into some legal problems if you design and use an underwater firearm but you would be just fine and
 
fall into the same catagory of any other spearfisher if you used rubber or air powered spearguns on your sub. I would suggest air powered. There are two types of air powered spearguns. One drives the spear with the air which rushes out behind the spear
 
and obscures your vision for a few seconds. You lose air when you use this type of speargun. The other air type is also sometimes known as a hydraulic type speargun. You pump the chamber of your speargun up and when you
 
pull the trigger, that air goes into another cylinder that has a piston that pushes the spear out. The air stays trapped in the cylinder and does not exit the speargun. Then you can push another spear into the cylinder and this compresses the air
 
back into the chamber and makes it ready to fire again. Every once in a while you have to pump up the gun because of small air seepage past the o rings.
 
H & K makes a 5 shot underwater pistol that our navy seals use. But the Russians stunned our navy guys when we found out they had an underwater machinegun that looks like a stretched out
 
AK47 and fires 26 or 27 spear bolts from its magazine!  We have nothing like the Russian weapon. Check out these links for underwater firearms. They can give you some good ideas. Just remember they are underwater FIREARMS
 
and would be considered as such by the coast guard.  
 
I am thinking you might look into building a revolving speargun similiar to a long pepperbox pistol or gatling gun type of barrel arrangement without the speed of a gatling of course. Lol. And have it air powered. Since you cannot exit the
 
sub to reload there would be no sense in using the hydraulic type of air speargun since you could not shove the spear back in to recharge it for the next shot. Or even a rubber powered rotating barrel type of gatling setup which would be easy to make and use standard
 
speargun parts. That would be a bit more bulky with all the rubbers stretched on the spears though. If minimal air loss for say up to 20 shots would not be a problem, I would go with a gatling rotating barrel arrangement, and have a valve that the barrels rotated
 
in front of and stopped in line with so that as in a revolver the air chamber was lined up with your barrel. If you make this barrel cylinder arrangement tight enough you will not get much air loss from between the barrel and air chamber. Plus it would be sleek and
 
streamline without rubbers stretched all over it. If you like this arrangement you could make this on your workbench. The only thing is....how are you going to rotate those barrels and remotely fire the speargun and aim it? 
 
Were you thinking of having more than one speargun built into your sub?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I would be very interested in what type of spearguns you decide to design and build onto your sub. If you ever want someone to bounce ideas off of, I would be glad to help out.
 
Kindest Regards,
 
Bill Akins.
 
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:58 PM
Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Spearfishing

I think I should explain the main reason I am so excited about spearfishing from a 1Atm. sub.  Grandchildren!!!.  I am approaching an age very quickly where spearfishing on scuba will not be possible without being selfish and unfair to my diving friends.  On my last trip, I had to surface on my son's octopus because I let my air get too low watching him fight a fish I speared and couldn't fight.  He could have stayed down and fished for another 30 minutes on the air he had left, but following safe diving practices, which I didn't do, he knew he had to bring me to the surface and abort the dive.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I'm just fighting for any chance I can to maintain a lifelong connection I have had with the sea and have passed on to my children and hope to some day pass on to my grandchildren.  As a boy I free-dove for crabs and octopus on the island of Crete when my dad was stationed there for the US Air Force.  My dad took me to the many coral reefs around the island and taught me to snorkel and not be afraid of scary things like crabs and octopi (sp?).  Back then I could hold my breath for almost 3 minutes and stay down twice as long as my father.  I was raised an American Hunter, my father was a competition shooter for the USMC and later the USAF, I only remember him hunting one time in my life, it was a dovehunt set up by an uncle.  However, he filled my life with stories of hunts he had been on in younger days.  I think it's a cultural thing, like oyster diving or folk-dancing.  Spear-fishing is a natural extension of that upbringing.  Time passed, I showed my son and daughter the same things (my daughter didn't care for it, my son did and that's OK).  I want to introduce my grandchildren, I have four now, to a world I grew up in and which so many others take for granted.  I have the utmost respect for marine life and more importantly marine ecosystems.  I firmly believe that Grouper that I have personally taken tastes infinitely better than store bought grouper.  I am a good cook, especially when it comes to "wild game".  I have taught my children that killing anything for a thrill is wrong.  I also taught them that hunting is not wrong but must be done with a certain finesse and taking a whole lot of responsibility into account.  I have never left game to rot.  Certainly there are more challenging ways for younger men in better shape to hunt and I have tried or done a lot of them.  I am more serious about building a psub than you can imagine, my wife thinks I'm crazy but it WILL be done before I turn 60.  I fully intend to give my grandchildren "rides" as they get old enough and eventually take them hunting, if I can and they want to.   And someday, maybe I can watch them hunt on scuba from the comfortable environment of a 1Atm sub.
My Sincerest Regards,
Cliff