[Old Man Dave]

I've done some testing of my gun.

First up I balanced it. Eventually it took 1 oz in the nose and 3 oz's in the handle to get it just floating horizontal fully rigged. It now weights 4lb exactly (1.7kg) in air.

I first rigged it with a single wrap of 160lb mono with a slider (slip ring) which gave a range stop at 9ft. This was not enough. The first firing saw it reach the end of the line with a mighty tug which I could see was gonna cause damage. Re-rigged it with a double wrap plus slider which worked out at a full stop at 14.5 ft. It reaches the end of the line with a good tug still. Was impressed by this. Couldn't tell the drop at full range but doesn't seem to be more than a foot maybe 18 inches.

Test fired it at a target, in the sea, in about 3 ft of water, just hand held. Typical shallow water hunting conditions. Turned out at 8 ft (2.4m) or 2 spear lengths it was on line but 2 inches low. Reversing the screw on flopper head improved this to about 1 inch low. At 6 ft it was spot on (flopper below). Some of this could be my aiming as it was as I said hand held. However for an initial test I was well pleased.

Recoil was very low and absolutely miles better than my "standard" euro when it had 20 mm bands. Accuracy I thought was better than I could have hoped for, for a first try.

Next step is to re-rig with a 6.5 mm spear and no slider and re-test.

I have also shot a few fish with it and it feels good but more testing, both on targets and fish is my plan.

Dave

Have attached a peper copy traced from my target. Scale marks are inches.