Anyone try Interceptor speargun?

[spearq8]

Saw this recently and really like how they go about building their spearguns. It seems they only use one type of invert roller design for all their guns. Anyone have experience how this gun shoots?

YouTube

[willstroo]

I was thinking the same thing, and was going to post about them too.

Huge $$, but when you look at the vids on YouTube about how they shoot, they are the real deal. The shaft speed and accuracy are insane. I formal testing like your vids, but holy crap they shoot fast.

[Trace]

Fine looking speargun.

[Diving Gecko]

They look great and the promo video has some stunning visuals - though the words have too much marketing fluff perhaps even written by engineers which is not always a great combo:-)

E.g. take this pearl which I found on the website and which I gave up on deciphering in the video:

Efficient Force Transmission – The force transmission has been optimized for better energy transfer and faster start. With our design, the auxiliary “kicker” band is a thing of the past.

The position of the main bearings minimizes the angle of the pulley line on the spearshaft. Through our newly developed bearings’ design (made of carbon-infused PEEK composite), we increased the functionality to keep the line tension centered on the axis, thus effectively reducing friction.

The bearings are integrated into the muzzle which increases lubrication with the pressure that is generated in the closed cage at the moment of shooting.

That last paragraph... what are they saying?
Also, kickerbands are bad now;-)? I still have pretty close to zero experience with pulley guns and maybe for a Med gun for the reef, a kicker is not needed, but perhaps it is not a bad thing when you get into bigger fish? E.g. Neven and Carbonia seem to think they are needed.

Interceptor mention that the shooting line is not wrapping over the front of the shaft to hold it in place which should make loading the gun a bit faster, but I can't figure out what holds it then? A magnet?

Not knocking on this gun at all. They look great. We just have to decipher the weird mix of Fluff And EngineerSpeak.

[gspearguns]

Originally Posted by Diving Gecko

They look great and the promo video has some stunning visuals - though the words have too much marketing fluff perhaps even written by engineers which is not always a great combo:-)

E.g. take this pearl which I found on the website and which I gave up on deciphering in the video:

Efficient Force Transmission – The force transmission has been optimized for better energy transfer and faster start. With our design, the auxiliary “kicker” band is a thing of the past.

The position of the main bearings minimizes the angle of the pulley line on the spearshaft. Through our newly developed bearings’ design (made of carbon-infused PEEK composite), we increased the functionality to keep the line tension centered on the axis, thus effectively reducing friction.

The bearings are integrated into the muzzle which increases lubrication with the pressure that is generated in the closed cage at the moment of shooting.

That last paragraph... what are they saying?
Also, kickerbands are bad now;-)? I still have pretty close to zero experience with pulley guns and maybe for a Med gun for the reef, a kicker is not needed, but perhaps it is not a bad thing when you get into bigger fish? E.g. Neven and Carbonia seem to think they are needed.

Interceptor mention that the shooting line is not wrapping over the front of the shaft to hold it in place which should make loading the gun a bit faster, but I can't figure out what holds it then? A magnet?

Not knocking on this gun at all. They look great. We just have to decipher the weird mix of Fluff And EngineerSpeak.

Kicker band can be removed in combination with three bottom band pairs but third pair cannot fully compensate effiency of kicker band. Epecialy if thick shaft is used.
This is same invert roller principle as on many others, nothing new. Maybe just a little more pretension on one bottom band. That's all.

[popgun pete]

There now seem to be a lot of specialist builder guns of this inverted rollergun type, makes you wonder if there are enough buyers with the necessary money to support all of them. Over the years some makers have come and gone regardless of the high quality of their guns.

[Diving Gecko]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

There now seem to be a lot of specialist builder guns of this inverted rollergun type, makes you wonder if there are enough buyers with the necessary money to support all of them. Over the years some makers have come and gone regardless of the high quality of their guns.

I don't think Interceptor, at this point, is the breadwinner for the man behind it. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but I am fairly sure he was/is a banker. Maybe it is much more of a hobby project for him at this point with the goal of making a great product rather than needing it to make real money? That might very well be a good thing in the early stages. Anyhow, I don't have any real intel, this is just half speculation and half internet "research". But on that same note, I like when small companies share a bit more of who they are, who is behind it, where they came from and so on - and sadly, none of that on Interceptors website, yet.

As for Briante, I am almost certain that their guns is an inhouse side project of a high end metal machine shop in Italy called "Briante Costruzioni Meccaniche". Which would also explain the metal work we have drooled over before.
I suspect Briante himself is a spearo who thought he could make a great gun, had the facilities, know-how and machines and set about to do it on the side. And if their machine shop is doing alright then they won't be dependent on selling guns.

I don't know if Neven does only this for income, but either way, I suspect he is doing well.

In reg. to Carbonia, I don't know anything about them and their setup.

[gspearguns]

Originally Posted by Diving Gecko

...
I don't know if Neven does only this for income, but either way, I suspect he is doing well.

...

I am graduated electric engineer and this is not my main job for living. Story started when I was building speargun for my son, 9 years ago.

[willstroo]

I think the flopper slots into a recess built into the front of the gun and keeps the shaft in place. Pretty cool, but limits your shaft length.

[popgun pete]

The muzzle rollers on this gun are set quite close together so that the drive cable runs on the shaft axis, or close to it. The rollers are a slippery PEEK material http://sterlingplasticsinc.com/mater...bearing-grade/ which may be less likely to stick, so possibly that explains the non-use of a kicker band.

Just how much of this adds to performance and how much is spin I cannot say. The gun body is a timber laminate.

[popgun pete]

Note the rearmost band anchor position. This band will always be hooked up, except when the gun is in storage.

[musubi]

I think it's a really nice gun. Very thoughtful on how they designed it all. I like the cutouts for the bands and the notches they hook into. I'm guessing that small orange wishbone loop is to take the brunt of the wear making it easier to replace? According to their website they're using 16 to 20 mm dia bands which should give it nice power. I'm not a huge fan of how that flopper sticks sticks down, but maybe it doesn't make much of a difference. Looks like their using the same Harken 16mm Forkhead blocks as my inverts.

Makes me think about experimenting with different band diameters with my invert pipe gun as I'm only running 14mm bands, but it's shooting so well that it's hard to change if it works.

I think inverts in general are more forgiving on the shot. With the mass of a wooden gun, I can only imagine the recoil is less felt than mine, and mine is hardly much. Even with my 8 banded bluewater invert.

[Diving Gecko]

Originally Posted by musubi

I think it's a really nice gun. Very thoughtful on how they designed it all. I like the cutouts for the bands and the notches they hook into. I'm guessing that small orange wishbone loop is to take the brunt of the wear making it easier to replace? According to their website they're using 16 to 20 mm dia bands which should give it nice power. I'm not a huge fan of how that flopper sticks sticks down, but maybe it doesn't make much of a difference. Looks like their using the same Harken 16mm Forkhead blocks as my inverts.



Makes me think about experimenting with different band diameters with my invert pipe gun as I'm only running 14mm bands, but it's shooting so well that it's hard to change if it works.



I think inverts in general are more forgiving on the shot. With the mass of a wooden gun, I can only imagine the recoil is less felt than mine, and mine is hardly much. Even with my 8 banded bluewater invert.

I think you are correct that the orange part of the wishbone is the changeable one.

I don’t think the flopper sticking down is a huge thing - On my airguns, I can rotate the shafts and tend to keep the barb on the underside. But as mentioned, on this gun with the added job it has of holding the shaft in place, it probably ties you to a very specific shaft length and perhaps even brand as not all brands’ have their barbs the same length or set in the same place. Also, what if you wanted to shoot a sliptip shaft. There’s probably an easy mod to be made to make the muzzle into a more traditional one in terms of line wrapping.

As for various band setup choices, Neven has been very generous in often sharing his band sizing in many of the Gladiator threads. From memory, it’s a lot of 16-18mm for him, maybe some 20mm but no 14mm in the bottom battery but I could be wrong.


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[spearq8]

In the end, most important is how it shoots. How flat and for how far and with how much power is retained at the end of the shot. Most likely if all the above are taken care of then accuracy is also taken care of. Biggest problem I find with invert rollers (or any roller) is that you can't really power them up at maximum capacity as that causes major shaft instability. I find that optimal shooting is always when you load the gun at around 70% of possible max load. Would be great to find out if that has been taken care of. I like the idea of wishbone stoppers and am interested to see if that has allowed the shaft to come out stable even when loaded at max power.

[popgun pete]

It looks like knots in the wishbone cords stop in slots in the metal catchers, they rest just forwards of the slight bumps at the end of a shallow ramp. When you first pull on the wishbone the knots rise up over the front face of the ramps.