Need help choosing new spear gun

[Tailchaser]

Most of the expensive guns are way over-rated and many are fragile.I have friends with JBLs who would outshoot anyone on a given day.

Those are some bold words... Now I do understand that you guys are hunting in Florida and it is a different world out there when it comes to hunting. From what I understand most of your shots are shorter range and your hunting in structure. You are right the "big expensive" guns are not a good choice for that.

If you think the handle, trigger mech., or any other part of those pos jbl's or similar would even come close to one of the more expensive guns you are crazy, The price tag is more then justified.

You say you have friends that would out shoot anyone... does that mean your not very good or you dont actually hunt?

The majority of the hunters that I know of are out for quality not quantity... We dont need or want to go out with a sub machine speargun and kill everything. We take what we need and make sure that we are taking the right fish.

Here is a example of what most west coast hunters are after!!! This is from last season of Bill Ernst world record fish by the way his over priced gun looks like its had its share of shots and is still a workhorse!!!

 

[100days-a-year]

tailchaser, look at my pix.The red grouper was #30 gutted which is #3 bigger:11: than the IUSA record I saw in Spearfishing Mag's last issue(where that pic you showed came from).It was shot with a Biller in between 120' and 140' @ a range of 20'.I have seen several species taken locally with these POS that would have been world records if they were submitted.

Range is a function of band power and shaft drag,how can a gun shoot farther because it costs more? trick question


Several of my friends are full-time commercial searfishermen and are good enough to make a living,they all shoot Biller or JBL.

The internet is full of people trying to justify a ridiculous and almost obsessive attention to minutiae,spearfishing is no different.

 

[Tailchaser]

Why dont you post a few pics of your biller... I would love to see what you have done with it to get 20'+ range out of it. I do not know too many guns out there in this class that can take 20' shots.

So please post some detailed pictures of what your shooting and tell us all you have done to it...

 

[100days-a-year]

I reread Bill's story and he said he was 10' away and the gun is....homemade.So much for that.

My Biller is a 54" LTD with a butt extension to help me cock it and ballasted to be slighly negative empty and balance mid body with shaft in.I use Spearfishing Specialties 5/8" or 3/4" rubber and 2 of the 5/8" or 1 3/4" will give you 20' range freeshafting.For lineshafting AJs,cobia and pelagics I use 2 wraps of #400 mono and 2' of bungie to keep it snug.The wraps are right at 48" and with 3 x 5/8" or 2 x 3/4" bands it will penetrate a fish at full extension.Not only penetrate but entirely straighten the stainless spring slide ring from sticking out at 90D to pointing backwards.

This is my current 6 yr old gun with about 1500 dives and countless hours freediving a drifting for pelagics.The notches as you can see give me 3.5 to 1 strech with 22" to 24"bands.Nothing needed to be done to make it capable of holding almost #400 of combined pull.

Where are your pix?

 

[runway1]

QUICKIE: What do you mean by "free shafting"? No line on the shaft?

 

[Tailchaser]

I reread Bill's story and he said he was 10' away and the gun is....homemade.So much for that.

So much for what? be it he makes it himself or buys a Wong, sea sniper... whats the difference? Its the type and quality of the gun!

I also never made any claim to the distance of the shot that Bill had on that sea bass... But I can assure you that NO ONE out here would trust that gun with stock bands let alone over powering it the way you have.

As far as what I shoot it is a standard off the shelf Riffe Euro, nothing special never said it was... But it will get the job done and done well!

So Lets agree to disagree on the fact that its your opinion against mine, but next time your out this way I would love to dive with you and see your Biller in action... guess I need to see it to believe it...

Good luck with it

 

[100days-a-year]

runway1,freeshafting is indeed using no line.This technique is used primarily for bottom fish but I have shot cobia as well.It allows greater range and accuracy but takes practice.

tailchaser,no problem.Thanx for the invite.