Voit Swimaster Speargun

[baja haha]

The era of the equipment is during the mid 1960s--the era of the VN war and the Voit (JBL) spear guns

There were two diving knives;
1) # 2k5 -5-1/2 inch blade ...$8.95
2) # 2K9 - 7 inch blade ...$11.95

There were two pole spears:
1) 2G48 - 48 inches long
2) 2G66 - 66 inches long

There was one extension:
2G30 - 30 inches long
(this is the object you have)

By combining them
2G48 + 2G30 the spear could be increased to 7 foot
2G66 + 2G30 the spear could be increased to 8-1/2 foot

The knife and the pole spears were made by Joe Lamonica aka JBL in his Almond street, Orange California facility. Joe made most of the knives for all the diving companies of that era incuding US Divers, which were marked "Made in USA." Later on the same knife was made for US Dives over seas and was marked "Made in Japan." An example of early out sourcing

SDM

[popgun pete]

Another ancestor of the Voit speargun (see attached), the Swimaster Spearfisherman Company "Magnum". Note the vague similarity to the later Voit speargun which eventually became the JBL. The inspiration was taken from the Prodanovich speargun, but a goof up on the trigger pivot pin position crippled the gun as far as the safety was concerned.

[Don Paul]

My Voit contribution is of a more general nature.
Cheers, Don

[dr.ed]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

Another ancestor of the Voit speargun (see attached), the Swimaster Spearfisherman Company "Magnum". Note the vague similarity to the later Voit speargun which eventually became the JBL. The inspiration was taken from the Prodanovich speargun, but a goof up on the trigger pivot pin position crippled the gun as far as the safety was concerned.

i've still got two of these. Big problem is a one piece trigger; limits band load and trigger pull increases dramatically. Nice line release though. imho

[popgun pete]

Here is a photo of the interior of the Swimaster Spearfisherman Company "Magnum". The twin "rabbit ears" line release has been omitted from the forward projecting arm to allow the trigger to swing forwards a little and allow the safety pin to pass behind it in the notch specifically cut for it in the trigger. Unfortunately the trigger can never assume the position shown in the photo (the sear tooth face needs to be more vertical and the "rabbit ears" base fouls on the grip housing interior before this position is reached), so the safety pin has to engage even further forwards on the trigger which would mean virtually cutting the trigger in half to deepen the notch in order to accommodate it! Prodanovich was not too impressed seeing as he supplied one of his own handles for Swimaster to copy. Problem is the retracting safety pin (driven by a tiny stub sliding on a helical track positioned around the transversely moving safety pin, Prodanovich's design and used on his own single-piece trigger guns) is either too far forwards or the trigger pivot pin is too far back. On single-piece trigger guns you use the safety to immobilise the trigger while dropping the wishbones onto the shaft, just in case it lets go with the jerk of the bands pulling on the shaft. To reduce trigger pull these guns often had "tuned" sears which meant that they could let go if the trigger suffered a large sudden jerk. That is why Prodanovich and Potts guns have very good safety devices as they tuned the triggers on their guns to minimise the trigger pull with increasing band load; better safe than sorry!

[wojo1]

Back in the late 60's and early 70's the voit sawed off magnum was the only gun we could buy and had to go to Jupiter, Fl. to buy it. I still have one for sentimental reasons. Only problem we had was loosing shafts in Jewfish. They were hard to come buy and and we had to save up to buy another one. Killed plenty of fish with them. They were easy to take apart, fix and were durable but overloadijng the bands made them very inaccurate. It sure beat the old single band Arbalete.

[popgun pete]

Just for completeness here is the Spearfisherman Company gun that was sold by Swimaster. This angular grip gun has a single-piece trigger and a hinged tab connected to the trigger that withdraws from the three arm line release wheel that holds the shooting line. Pulling the trigger frees the line release and allows it to turn thus liberating the shooting line wraps. These guns sometimes had a rear cocking stock tube with the usual butt pad for the longer versions. The Voit Swimaster Magnum replaced this gun and had a two-piece trigger mechanism.

Note in the early days Chicago screws often held alloy guns together, these had a male and female part. They could also be used as pivot pins, hence the hole in the end of the pivot seen in the Spearfisherman handle opened up.

[popgun pete]

The Voit Swimaster gun in its final form took its cues from the Prodanovich gun, but the closely spaced trigger mechanism pivot pins always limited its gearing. One way of increasing this spacing was to use a remote trigger and bury the true trigger further back in the grip handle. Jack passed away before he could try building one to see if it was practical. Lever weight was a consideration unless the long tail could be drilled out to lighten it.

[popgun pete]

This is the reason the Voit Swimaster JBL trigger mechanism is not as good as it could be. Uneven contact where sear lever and trigger meet eventually roughs up increasing the trigger pull and an error in the shape of the sear lever causes the trigger to lean on the alloy handle frame rather than the two levers binding on each other in a cam lock. In the gun’s long production run these faults were never fixed despite the stamping dies being remade when the originals wore out. The number of guns made must be thousands, if not tens of thousands, and more likely the latter. A classic shape that has appeared in numerous dive publications for over forty years and maybe closer to fifty.

[popgun pete]

Parts list for the JBL Magnum guns, including the Woody version with the plastic handgrip.

[popgun pete]

As a matter of interest I was sent parts of a Voit Swimaster Magnum by Ron Mullins when some POS stole the muzzle of the JBL Travel Combo, the short two band version of the muzzle. Now in recent years the biplane wing muzzles have switched to plastic, not really such a great idea, and I wanted the alloy original, so Ron sent me the pieces of a gun on EBay. I used the muzzle and slide ring, but kept the balance as spares. I had tried to open the handle up, but although the screw and tube nuts undid easily the grip halves seemed welded together. The answer is the stainless steel pivot pins get virtually welded into the pivot pin mounting holes in the alloy castings and if you try to lever them apart you could easily snap the castings as they are not built for enduring loads in those directions. Well just last week using every trick in the book I sprung them apart, next the photos to see what and if anything had changed over the decades.

[popgun pete]

Here are the photos, any differences will be in the detail, if there are any.


One thing that I notice straight away is that there is no sign of the trigger leaning hard on the frame of the casting. That would indicate that the trigger is cam locking, which is what it is meant to do. The later JBL does not.

[popgun pete]

It is interesting to note that all the Voit triggers which I have had out of their respective clamshell handles are punched out from metal plate as on the right side you can see the curved edge as the metal presses into the punching die, but the actual contact edge has been ground flat on all of them. I don't see how they can cam lock, but if the contact force from the sear lever step passes close enough to the trigger pin axis then the torque produced in the trigger will not lean so hard on the frame, especially if the gun is using only two bands which I think this one did. Another indication of efforts in this area to improve the trigger action is new guns had a dab of grease there, just a tiny bit which gradually would be worked away with usage.

You can see a wear mark where the ground flat surface has been abraded by repeated firing of the gun due to the sear lever rubbing hard on it.

[popgun pete]

If we compare the wear on the nose of the JBL to the Voit Swimaster trigger it is obvious that the older gun has a much better contact with the sear lever which in turn lowers the contact pressure and the friction between levers. Note that in the older guns only the sear lever is made from harder steel with the trigger being a more silvery color, whereas the much later JBL guns are using levers which are both made from the same hardened steel.

[popgun pete]

It is instructive to note that when Fred Biller made his changes to the Sea Hornet trigger mechanism he made a point of stating that the new sear lever was made of heat treated stainless steel to create a better bearing surface with the softer stainless steel of the trigger. Having a problem with galling of the contact surfaces in the Voit-JBL guns no doubt spurred the choice in that situation, in fact the XHD versions of these guns have matching carbide inserts for guns using much greater band loads than the Magnum models. Whether that was the right way to go is hard to say, but the Sea Hornet/Biller has way better gearing than the Voit-JBL guns and the contact pressures will therefore be lower. The Sea Hornet, built to a price and a lower weapon weight, which is what the burgeoning sport then wanted, has problems which lie in its slim width levers that are designed to cope with the bands supplied with the gun as the sear lever can deflect laterally and bend and then jam in the plastic cassette housing otherwise. I know this as I have bashed a couple of them flat again with the aid of a hammer and anvil, but this is not necessarily a cure if the plastic housing has been sprung out of shape or gouged as the levers can catch and not roll when the trigger is dry fired. Such damage can be prevented by sticking with the recommended bands on the gun. If you want to shoot further then buy a longer gun, each Sea Hornet was about a foot longer than the next model down.