popgun pete

This French band gun is the subject of a patent in 1943 (diagram shown), when France was under occupation by German forces during World War II, but not necessarily in the Sud (South) of France. I have never seen one, but I am sure that it existed, even if only as a prototype. The overall proportions of the gun are similar to a spring gun, but it has a rectangular section metal barrel tube, being a "semi-enclosed track" band gun with a spear tail driving device instead of a wishbone. The unique trigger mechanism features a "double demultiplier" action, which means that the sear lever and trigger both confer mechanical advantage, thereby improving the trigger mechanism's leverage to reduce trigger pull. We take such things for granted today, but that was not the case back in 1943. I wonder if Cyril has ever seen one, or if any of the other French speargun collectors contributing to the "guns of the legends" thread have any knowledge of it. I have produced a second diagram showing the trigger mechanism's action and that of the unusual internal lever arm link to the line release lever. Note that the line release lever is also used to reset the position of the twin sear teeth and latches the trigger mechanism for the next shot, after first inserting the spear into the gun.

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LunkerBuster

whoa. that is really cool..I cannot imagine how annoying chaning the band would be

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i like to spear fish

popgun pete

You would have been so engrossed with the novelty of using an underwater weapon of completely novel construction that you would have hardly worried about changing the bands. There is no Rene Cavelero "Arbalete" available yet (that design was only registered in 1943) and the only spearguns being used are the many spring guns produced pre-war (e.g. United Service Agency: Kramarenko and Wilen's compression spring gun) and the various home-made efforts built around side slotted tube barrels with wooden rifle-like stocks. Bands are made from rubber items manufactured for other purposes, such as automotive belts and straps, hence early spearguns often use square or rectangular cross section bands. It is the dawn of spearfishing as a sport which will flourish once the war ends. That said, bands don't last long and are not very powerful due to the type of rubber used back then. Sometimes bands would stretch and not return to their original size or would break.

fusilancien

hello PETER

I have this strange speargun I know nothing of him?????

CYRIL

popgun pete

A side slotted barrel gun using loop bands designed by Le Prieur, it is designed for shooting from the surface, hence the bulky wooden stock. Le Prieur designed a full face mask with snorkels built into either side, you used it to look down and shoot the fish swimming below. The snorkels had multiple bore tubes and looked like antlers grouped together at the top where they were all fixed together. Air went in on one side and exhausted from the other. A very early gun and it has a patent, as does the dive mask.

The spring gun handle shows that this is someone else's realization of this weapon, but the idea is from Le Prieur.

The diagram is attached showing the original handle and optional shoulder stock.

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LunkerBuster

This is a great thread

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i like to spear fish

popgun pete

The significance of Yves Le Prieur's gun is that it is one of the first band guns, "demande le 9 decembre 1938", but only published in 1940. The priority date is the 1938 date, but Alexandre Kramarenko got to the patent office first with his spring gun in 1937, so his gun is usually acknowledged as the first speargun. If you take power operated fishing gigs as a starting point then they pre-date spearguns, but the spear never fully leaves the gig. It was a small leap to putting a grip handle on the gig, installing a trigger and letting the shaft fly free of the muzzle. Goggles gave you underwater vision, they have been around for centuries and now you had a weapon that could strike faster and harder than a hand propelled spear or harpoon. Guy Gilpatric was concerned that people could now spear fish without getting the back of their head wet and Yves Le Prieur in a sense obliged him. You would be a brave man to attempt a surface dive with his "antler snorkeled" dive mask as your continued ability to breathe on surfacing was dependent on eliminating water from the mask, one-way valves on three intake tubes on one side let air in (and water too if the snorkel tips were submerged) and three one-way valves let air out of the three exhaust tubes on the other side. So not really a "dive" mask at all, more a personal underwater viewing window. Le Prieur was an accomplished engineer and inventor, he saw this as a surface activity rather than submerged underwater hunting with his free-flow breathing set using compressed air and his "Nautilus" gun, a cartridge powered underwater rifle. You can read all about this in the "Compleat Goggler", Gilpatric's book, if you can still find a copy not snapped up by old book collectors! Jules Verne would have been pleased as his underwater hunters had been blazing away underwater for years with their compressed air guns under the looming bulk of the Nautilus hovering about the bottom, while illuminating the benthic scene with "electric lamps of the latest pattern".

Dan

Pete, you are an encyclopaedia of spearguns. Thanks for your contributions.

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Don Paul

Roger that, the gun knowledge of 10 men.

Cheers, Don

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''Great mother ocean brought forth all life, it is my eternal home''
Don Berry from Blue Water Hunters.
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popgun pete

Well thank you Dan for the forum to put it up in! This knowledge is going "over the horizon" fast, so unless it gets written down it will be forgotten as old-timers head for that "big reef in the sky", or somewhere slightly warmer depending if they have been good or not!

I still hope to locate the "D&F" (not its real name) 1943 gun as some parts of the design would have to come from experience, not theory, as that front curved line wrap hook is to avoid line snags as shooting line pulls off the line release lever behind it. Also the small spur on the trigger finger guard is to allow a reverse hand hold on the handle when cranking the line release lever to latch up the trigger, they don't actually tell you that in the patent, but that is what the spur is there for, to rest your thumb on it.