Speargun - Uses of Spearguns

Uses of Spearguns

Spears and spearguns have various uses:

• Sport spearfishing
• In tropical seas, some natives spearfish for a living, often using a home-made snorkelling kit
• As a weapon, as seen in works of fiction such as Thunderball, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Hell Ride and real-life attempts in Federal Express Flight 705.
• This news item describes a rifle-like gun that fires a spear on a line; the spear has a wide hollow tip and on impact with the target (here, a killer whale), takes a core of skin and blubber as a biopsy sample and falls out. This type of device is more correctly described as a modified harpoon gun.

All spearguns have a trigger mechanism that holds a spear in place along the barrel.

Traditionally, rear-handle spearguns are popular in Europe and mid-handle guns were used in North America, however as spearfishing has developed as an international sport these distinctions have blurred.

South African speargun manufacturers have improved speargun designs with the use of a rail along the barrel that prevents the spear from flexing under pressure from the rubber bands.