History and evolution of spearguns: from past to present

History and evolution of spearguns: from past to present

Despite being less than a century old, thecrossbow it is an instrument with a long history: from the famous Tarzan designed in 1947 by Georges Beuchat we moved on, in the space of less than thirty years, to Omer's T-16 and T-20 rifles, which revolutionized the concept of fishing with spearguns and retired the old French "toys" forever. In the following years, even more innovative solutions were developed, starting with the introduction of roller system, which offered a shooting power not comparable to that of the spearguns in use at the time.

Itio Alemanni began producing spearguns over twenty years ago, which is enough to make it an excellent witness to the evolution of these tools. The owner of Alemanni Sub, however, is above all one of the innovators who from the seventies to today have made it possible to create increasingly safe, powerful and high-performance spearguns. Therefore we asked him to tell us about the evolution of the Alemanni spearguns, with a look at the future of these tools and of spearfishing.

We know, as you told us in thelast interview, that the introduction of a performance roller system was a crucial evolution. What are the other possible indicators of the degree of evolution of a speargun, in terms of performance?

Il Rollerball it was a big evolution, but it has always had a limit: it is a 1:1 system, that is, the rod cannot exit at a speed higher than the speed of contraction of the tires. We exceeded this limit only about ten years ago with the introduction of scaled down system (also known as sail or tackle), in which the pulleys allow the recoil to be halved, significantly improving the accuracy of the shot, and to increase the exit speed of the shaft without changing the tension of the rubber.

Today there are others too innovative systems, which are in a certain sense more performing but which are not as manageable as the sailing system, designed for fishing in the blue and especially appreciated by fishermen who poorly tolerate it recoil. Over the years we have optimized all the systems, we have reached a point where we have already reached the maximum speed that a rod can reach, so much so that with our spearguns it is even possible to shoot badly due to excess power.

Unfortunately, this progress has not been followed by greater competence on the part of the manufacturers: today it is difficult to find correctly set shotguns, and it is not uncommon to see good quality shotguns penalized by a incorrect set-up. The main difference between us and the others lies precisely in the set-up of the spearguns: we got there after 10 years and 4-5 hours of swimming a day. But as I always say, “if every time you go in the water you learn a hair, at the end of the year you have made a broom".

In addition to performance, the design and quality of the instrument also make the difference: how have the Alemanni spearguns evolved from this point of view?

The design of a spear gun is profound linked to performance. The evolutionary leap for our spearguns came 5 or 6 years ago, when we discovered that the design greatly influences the recoil. It all started with rollers: when we started producing them we built a head to modify traditional rifles. Testing each piece in the pool, I realized that some shapes recoiled less. By trying to exaggerate the characteristics of each one we arrived at today's models.

The roller head allowed us to understand and therefore experiment with many other things: from the comparison we also found significant differences on apparently identical spearguns, actually with different performances. One of the many differences was the design. I also confronted myself with Valerio Grassi, considered the father of the Italian speargun, and confirmed the correctness of my intuition.

The real leap in quality was the introduction of travel version of our spearguns, or rather the construction of broken rods with conical joint, which turned out to be the most surprising and extraordinary innovation we have embraced in recent years. The total weight of our spearguns has proven to be decisive and distinctive: American spearguns used for fishing in the blue can weigh between 10 and 15 kilos, ours weigh a third.

The broken rod, with the conical coupling system, today it is equivalent to the entire auction for precision and reliability…and this is a great achievement.

About the latest generation Alemanni spearguns, what can you tell us about the new geared Special series 125 cm?

It is the rifle with which we managed to get the auction to reach the maximum output speed, and the results are exceptional. In recent years I have always used the scaled down from 135 cm for fishing in the blue: it is incredible in terms of power and precision but limited in movement by length and mass which do not allow you to follow tuna or pelagic fish which move very fast. With a visibility that does not go beyond 20-25 meters the long rifle requires careful management. Then I started experimenting with a new measurement with a 120 cm speargun in carbon and wood: I have long thought that this was the ideal size for fishing trips, with more swing and adequate power.

Not happy I wanted to build the measures 125 cm: The goal was to shoot a 9mm rod much faster than a 120cm shoots a 9,5mm rod. I caught fish I never thought I could thanks to the very fast rod. Several customers then confirmed to me that the design/setup combination created a speargun with incredible ballistic properties. And you can use only one hand.

To make you understand the difference between our geared spearguns and other spearguns, I'll tell you about an episode that happened to a Mexican customer: he has always used our equipment and didn't worry about the recoil, out of habit he used only one hand with a traditional speargun. Result: returning after the shot caused him to break two teeth. He was so used to our rifles that the possibility of recoil didn't even cross his mind.

What is the future of spearguns? What can we expect in the coming years in terms of innovation?

Spearguns have achieved such performance that in order to improve them further it is necessary to look at systems that are too complicated to manage. However, there is still room to move forward, it's about working on the components. Considering that we bypassed the tire limit, the future of spearguns can only lie in auctions.

If you could make 6mm rods that weigh the same as 8mm ones, for example using tungsten, it would change all the ballistics and we will make huge strides in terms of performance. At least this is my feeling as a builder. Then, later, I will tell you about what I discovered as a fisherman.