is not much slower if you're both lineshafting. Besides, unless you stone every fish with every shot you make (and those who say they do are lying) you're spending more time finishing, stringing or bagging then you are reloading. Does an extra 5 seconds in reloading matter? I don't think it does, especially given the other trade-offs.
Now perhaps if you're shooting stupid fish (e.g. hogs) you might have an easy time of it. Here we don't have any hogfish; we shoot snapper, grouper and AJs, mostly, with a few Ling thrown in for good measure. Most of the guys I spear with don't shoot trigger, as there's not enough meat on them to make it worth it. A few will waste a shot on a good flounder, but most will just stab him with the point instead. The AJs and Ling can be life-threatening if mishandled, quite literally. I'm far more interested in the accuracy and power of my shot than the reload speed; if the AJs are around I would rather have one big fish than 4 snapper, although I'll certainly take both if they are there for the taking
A lot of shots here have to be taken at longer ranges (10'+) rather than the 4-6' range in which nearly any gun will do the job, simply as the fish around here know what a speargun is and tend to be rather wary of el-spearo closing in on them.
Yeah, I can load the JBL faster. But I've also had the JBL, which is the same size as my C2, fail to penetrate fish that the Riffe goes all the way through. There is a major difference in power between the two guns, even though I've powered UP the JBL one level! It STILL doesn't compare to the Riffe's stopping power.
The Riffe is easy to reload if you do it right. Hold the gun at the muzzle end with your hand wrapped around the muzzle. Make sure the bands are on the right side (top) of the gun. Insert the spear under your hand in the track, with the line going through your wrapped hand around the barrel. Slide down and lock it in the trigger. You now have the line right next to the holddown tab - wrap it around the tab, then do the two wraps on the posts and you're done. Cock the bands and shoot. Wrapping the line doesn't take more than 3 or 4 seconds; its no slower than any other multi-wrap gun and is easier than many, as the last wrap is against the shock cord and you can easily pull it far enough to get over the tab at the rear of the gun. The C3 series are harder to load than the C2, simply because its a longer gun. I can reset the spear in the trigger and wrap the line in under 10 seconds unless I manage to foul myself in the line or something similarly stupid. How much faster than that is material? Band load time is not related to the gun; its related to the number of bands you load, how strong they are, and how strong YOU are.
The "commercial" SS guns have only one line loop, which is obviously faster, as there is no wrap. They also tend to load only one band. And if you're freeshafting, then obviously you beat ANY line gun's reload, as you don't have to screw with the line.
If you're freeshafting, then you definitely want to be thinking about a different gun, as the Riffe simply isn't set up for that. Yeah you can do it (see below) but you won't be as productive as you will with a gun made for that prupose.
In terms of loading the bands, there is a difference - the Riffe is harder! Well, heh, guess what - you get out what you put in with a band gun, no two ways around it. So if you want the power, you have to put the power in. Thus, its harder to cock. I CAN hip-load my C2 but its not any fun. The C3 pretty much has to be chest-loaded, at least for guys like me. Maybe "The Terminator" can hip load that cannon, but I can't - at least not if I want to do it more than once or twice a dive. I usually shoot three bands on the Riffe, but will sometimes depower and shoot only two if I'm in confined quarters. I could probably power up the Riffe a notch and shoot ONE band some of the time, never needing more than two, but my arms and chest would protest at the end of the day from the abuse they'd take in loading, so I don't.
Nothing is worse than hitting a nice AJ dead in the brainpan and having the spear fail to penetrate; too much power is better than too little.
You CAN freeshaft a Riffe, by the way. The trick is loading it and cocking the bands. Once loaded the shaft won't go anywhere. When fired, it won't go nuts either. Try it sometime - I have. If you need you can use a cut-off snorkel keeper as a "hold-down" until you have the gun loaded, or just shoot through it - it won't hang up. The big issue is getting in the water and down with the gun unloaded; that's what the snorkel keeper is for, to keep the front of the spear in the groove until you load the bands.
The problem with freeshafting a Riffe is more in the spear and line; you pretty much can't switch modes with one, since the line goes on the shark fin tab and is crimped. Therefore, unlike some other guns where you have a slider and can unclip from it, that simply isn't happening with the Riffe. That's where the PITA factor comes in. Switch-hitting is thus simply not realistic, which does limit your options, and all-in-all the Riffe is really designed to be a line gun all the time.
As I said I own both a JBL Woody Sawed-Off Magnum and a Riffe C2 (and C3); I prefer shooting the Riffe C2 around reefs and wrecks to the JBL.
