Heard about those Merlo guns, beautiful. As far as putting muzzle stabilizers on, be careful. One of my dive partners has a 65" Riffe Islander, 5/16 shaft, Alexander slip tip, four 5/8 hi mod bands and he hates the way it tracks! It is dead on accurate but is a pain to track on moving targets. This thing has huge wings in the upper 1/3 of the gun and I have personally handled it and agree that when it comes to tracking, it sucks. Feels like you got a canoe paddle held sideways underwater. Any swell, or movement throws the gun off and it takes a whole lot of effort to swing it back. He has fired it without the wings and says that it kicks like a mule. Don't know if it is balasted but even if it is, I'm not sure how much that will help. My 66" custom blue water gun is a beefed up Wong Ono gun. Big, bad and deadly accurate, but it too kicks pretty damn hard. I got used to the recoil but the gun maker, also my room mate and dive partner, said that if I wanted to cut down recoil while still maintaining its manueverability he could add on thin full length wings. They would start near the muzzle and initially be very thin up front maybe 1 inch wide. As they extend towards the rear, they would gradually become wider maybe four inches max. The gun is already balasted so the wings would need just a touch of lead to keep it balanced. If you want, PM me and I could give you my room mates email and get his input. BTW he makes awesome guns. Top quality and deadly.
Brad
