Although most people now call the tube a clam gun, it was invented in the 1950s and originally called the Sandpiper. The original clam gun was a garden shovel, the blade cut narrow and angled, the handle shortened, back in the 1930s. Somebody then started making and selling it as, I believe, the Westport clam gun. Nowadays a good one is hard to find in stores. They don't make them like they used to. The models available today are a pitiful excuse for the guns you used to be able to buy.