Airgun History.

[I. J.]

Ive just been reading the Blue Book Of Airguns, 4th edition by R. Beeman and J.B. Allen (ISBN no. 1-886768-47-1, an ideal Christmas gift for anyone interested in all types of airguns ) and came across the Shark Manufacturing Co., Buenos Aires, Argentina entry. Quote:

'Shark began in 1975, producing underwater spear guns, using elastic bands or a GAS-SPRING mechanism .

In 1979, a unique application of this gas spring mechanism was used in the development of the Shark CQ air rifle which use a conventional barrel cocking system but have a vey interesting, special multiple cocking capability. A single barrel cocking compresses the gas-spring to ordinary power potential; two strokes triples the power.'

Has anyone ever seen or used one of these gas spring rifles? I though Theoben had invented the gas spring system.

[ora8i]

Have a good dig on FunSupply.

Gas-Spring Airguns
When we were first introduced to airguns such as the British Theobens and the Argentine Shark, and later the prototypes of the Beeman RX and Crow Magnum, which use air, or other gas, as the mainspring, we borrowed the term "gas-ram" to refer to their power mechanism. We have since adopted the more modern term of "gas-spring". It had become clear that the gas-ram term is both inappropriate and misleading. New airgunners, and even some rather experienced ones, were confused as to what sort of mechanism was meant by gas-ram. The ideas of gas ramming a pellet or of a plunger ramming against a pellet came to mind, but certainly neither is the case. The gas-ram term led many, even some who should have known better, to think that guns with such a mechanism did not even belong to the well known category of spring-piston airguns! It was proposed that shooters with such guns should not be allowed to enter shooting events for spring-piston or piston airguns. Of course, these are spring-piston guns in every sense of the term. They just use compressed, captive gas as a mainspring instead of a compressed piece of metal. Both use the same sort of piston to compress free air behind a projectile.
If we were to consider gas-ram as a logical term, then we should consider substituting "spring-ram" or "metal-ram" for airguns which use a metal mainspring. The gas-ram term seems to have been coined by one of the inventors of this mechanism. Much as I respect each of the involved inventors, I think that we should completely abandon the term. Let's make it clear and simple: there are both gas-spring and metal-spring versions of spring-piston airguns!
Robert D. Beeman
12 December 1994
Published by Airgun World in England in 1995 and U.S. Airgun in USA in 1996.

If you want a repeater CO2 gun you may just want to check out the Shark repeater at Susnshine Airguns. Very solid gun and does about 15 FPE stock. Excellant bulk fill setup too. Here is the link: http://www.sunshineairguns.com

There is a post that the "springer" did 50 fpe!!

Have fun.


Ora

[ora8i]

http://www.armasshark.com.ar

Shark Website.


enjoy

Ora

[I. J.]

Cheers ORA - it makes interesting reading.

[fullmetaljacket]

Some nice guns on the site.

what looks like a shell ejecting 50 cal co2 shotgun

**** me, it shoots arrows too!

semi-auto 10 ft/lbs rifle

Doesn't seem to be any gas-ram models though, aside from a brief mention in the 'history' section.

[sniper22]

i read blue book 1 when i was 6. followed by blue book 2,3,4,5.... then the green books then the red books and somewhere along the way read all thr ladybird books too, from book 1a onwards.









ps. for those too young to remember, all these books were used in schools when i was young (late 60's/early 70's)

[I. J.]

Doesn't seem to be any gas-ram models though, aside from a brief mention in the 'history' section.[/QUOTE]

Sharks (pre Theoben) gas-ram rifles date back to 1975. The B & W photos in the Blue book show the model CD405 an underlever similar in appearance to the Chinese Lion (of the 80's) and the smaller break barrel reminds me of the BSF55.

[albrown]

I also hear that Cardew did some development in this area... I think in partnership with Theoben....

Alex

[AndyMc59]

Tony , after the Ladybird books I progressed onto english novels , none of which I can recall having a blue cover . I would recommend moving over to some basic german or french language tomes , as they are much more challenging to understand if you dont speak the stupid guttaral language . Some of them are blue though . Bye the way , did you sort the Air Ranger problem ? Andy .

[wazb]

the books he is on about are called.the red pirate the blue pirate and so on

[sniper22]

****** hell! i can just remenber the books not the contents

[Hsing-ee]

there is a fellow on the airgun forum that makes gas rams out of auto-parts and relum tornadoes called geddfinn check out his posts.

[sniper22]

if shark were making gas ram guns in 1975, when did theoben patent the same thing?

[albrown]

Patents can be just country specific or continent specific. It becomes gradually more expensive depending on the number of countries you want your patent to cover....

Alex

[sniper22]

thanks but i asked WHEN not where.