Building a 36 inch roller for a gentleman with a torn rotator cuff.

[Fox55]

So I have a friend that wants me to build him. A 36" roller gun for reef fishing but he has a torn rotator cuff. I'm worried he won't be able to pull back a single 5/8 band. After he heels. So my thought is to make it a double roller with 2 1/2" bands. Should be roughly the same power in the end but it'll take longer to load. It will look like a monster. What do you all think.

[armandozx]

From a physical therapist and Spearo point of view, your friend is playing with fire, my suggestion is that whatever build you make for him is for him to avoid primeline rubbers altogether and stick to kent elastics. Hammerhead sells some pink 16mm bands that are very stretchy and easy to load. It really all depends on his recovery and how much stress he wants to put on that shoulder joint, which to be fully honest, I'd baby for the rest of my life if I was in his position.

Or switch to pneumatic spearguns and stabilize with with the weak limb as close to the body as possible while the stronger limb does the loading force.

[Fox55]

Thanks I will let him know.

[popgun pete]

One handed loading with a pneumatic would be best, 36 inches is close to 90 cm which is a universal size gun. Don’t pump it up too hard and it should shoot OK. A rear biased, mid-handle buys a bit more loading length in pneumatics, there are some around, and in fact Ukraine made them. The Pelengas Company has an eBay store, you could look there. They use the same size spear tails as Salvimar and Mares, so will not be an orphan gun.

Mares Sten comes in a range of tank lengths, you need to work backwards from what you want to shoot and where. Although not talked about much now the Sten is still a solid gun. Faster slim fish that are not too big you can go down to an 11 mm inner barrel, but I think 13 mm is the best all-round size.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/26399432...r=563517390724

[popgun pete]

This should do the job, easy to load ergonomics-wise.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/134138014238
This gun package is all set to go, Trophy reel model which is high capacity and filled with line, all accessories included.

[svivian]

Originally Posted by popgun pete

This should do the job, easy to load ergonomics-wise.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/134138014238
This gun package is all set to go, Trophy reel model which is high capacity and filled with line, all accessories included.

I actually have this model... good quality and performs well.

[Dbrown]

Here's another physical therapist weighing in.
What shoulder has the rotator cuff tear? Dominant arm he will be holding gun with and pulling trigger with? The toughest part would be holding out the gun and aiming with the arm with the cuff tear. If his non-dominant arm has the cuff tear, he'd likely be fine with minimal if any modification to the rubber. The rotator cuff is always involved in shoulder motion, but is not a power mover in drawing back bands. Lot of rhomboid and latissimus dorsi and bicep with that draw.

Shorter, lighter gun and only carrying one spear may be the biggest difference maker for someone with a cuff tear in their dominant arm. Everyone is different. Some people have cuff tears and minimal dysfunction. Others have great difficulty. Each individual has a different set of circumstances.

Good luck with the build.

[armandozx]

Originally Posted by Dbrown

Here's another physical therapist weighing in.
What shoulder has the rotator cuff tear? Dominant arm he will be holding gun with and pulling trigger with? The toughest part would be holding out the gun and aiming with the arm with the cuff tear. If his non-dominant arm has the cuff tear, he'd likely be fine with minimal if any modification to the rubber. The rotator cuff is always involved in shoulder motion, but is not a power mover in drawing back bands. Lot of rhomboid and latissimus dorsi and bicep with that draw.

Shorter, lighter gun and only carrying one spear may be the biggest difference maker for someone with a cuff tear in their dominant arm. Everyone is different. Some people have cuff tears and minimal dysfunction. Others have great difficulty. Each individual has a different set of circumstances.

Good luck with the build.

Great to have another professional in the fields!

Ever handle a pneumatic before? You can stabilize the gun with the weak limb and load with your unaffected relatively easy without giving much use (ROM & strength to the affected shoulder) because as you push down with your unaffected the foot is what's stopping the gun from moving out. Working this scenario out from injury prone perspective maximizing safety. With a correct water entry gun stability should not be an issue, pneumatics are not heavy, i'd still opt for him to star getting used to his non injured side as his go to form now on.

All things considered, I can see a greater injury risk during the landing of the fish if he is targeting medium to large species. A lot of ROM happens during this stage and that's where the wrong pull or push could land him in further trouble.

Or shoot and have a buddy land the fish.

[Dbrown]

I have no experience at all with pneumatics.

Do agree that landing a bigger fish or reaching up under a ledge to try and horse one out could be a challenge for anyone not at 100%. We've all had our challenges at 100%.

Shoot and shag as you suggest could be an option. Hopefully he can continue to enjoy the recreation. Do some therapy and maximize his potential with a rotator cuff deficient shoulder (a potential option), or consider a surgical repair with the right surgeon if that's a viable option. (Long rehab time and months off of Spearfishing, but potentially something to look at for long term if able to comply with post-operative protocol)

[Fox55]

Luckily for him, we live in corpus. Where we get one month out of the year for spearfishing, and that's past. So he's going to have some recovery time. Next June. We're only shooting mangrove snapper and sheep head in the shallows.

[JameyK]

Re: Building a 36 inch roller for a gentleman with a torn rotator cuff.
Luckily for him, we live in corpus. Where we get one month out of the year for spearfishing, and that's past. So he's going to have some recovery time. Next June. We're only shooting mangrove snapper and sheep head in the shallows.

I lived in and speared in Corpus for a few years. While I was there I ended up primarily using a small pneumatic gun by Mares. It was about the length of a traditional 65cm gun. It worked great for the jettys. It allowed me more bottom time than a pole spear, but it allowed me more hunting days than most people because my gun was so short I could still use it in very low vis. I also liked that the shaft was thicker than a euro style band Gun of the same length.

Also, get a nice wetsuit and there’s a lot more hunting days than just June. Best mixed bag of fish is right now. Late September into October (mangroves, black drum, sheepshead). Then you’ve got Sheepshead, flounder and black drum mid winter, and mangroves, jacks, pompano, and flounder in the spring

[popgun pete]

Basically a pneumatic gun is a spring gun, the compressed air works as a frictionless spring without needing to have an actual coil spring inside the gun. Many of the earliest pneumatic guns were conversions of a spring gun using just a simple tube and a low start pressure in the gun as the compression ratio when you loaded it drove the pressure up. Like this one. The sliding trigger operates a release at the gun’s muzzle via a thin pull rod, so no intrusions into the pressure tank which makes the gun very simple to construct.

This gun in a French museum may be the oldest, all these pneumatic guns were home-made. Some of its parts may be missing.

[RichT]

a couple years ago I made bands for a one-armed customer. I used a metal wishbone and welded a piece of stiff wire to the top of it so he could get his hand in the "handle of the wishbone quite easily and it stayed stiff enough, being metal, that it easily dropped into the shaft notch.