Hiya
Loading a 75cm gun will be pretty easy, due to its short length. Longer guns tend to be more difficult to load, simply because the spearo can't reach the bands easily. Loading a speargun is 90% Technique and 10% strength!!
Rob Allen spearguns, railguns and other spearfishing and freediving accessories. scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "gun loading tutorial"
What you need to remember, the longer you make your rubbers, the less powerful your gun will be. I recalll when i started out, i had a 90cm Cressi gun with very long bands, also to facilitate easy loading. Then, i had a 5kg fish, which was MONSTOROUS at that time in my spearing career, stop right in front of me, perfect mid-body shot, but my spear simply bounced off the fish's scales, BECAUSE it wasn't powerful enough!! Lesson learnt!!
Metal wishbones, aka, articulated wishbones. I see you've already found the downside to using them!! Many spearo's switch over to dyneema wishbones, which are basically a soft cord type material. Much safer on your fingers!! The downside is that you need to smooth the notch's on your spear or else it'll cut the dyneema. Wire wishbones are prone to fraying and they'll also poke holes in your fingers once this happens.
Two options. If your gun has place for a second band and your spear has two notches, use 2x13/14mm bands. These will definitely be easier to load.
Otherwise, get the spearo shop to make you another notch 3/4 way up your spear. You can then load the wishbone to this "loading notch", then go from there to the proper notch. This is how i taught my wife to load her 1.1m gun.
Remember though, practice makes perfect!! When i started i BATTLED to load a 90cm gun!! Now, with no additional physical training, i can load my 150cm-170cm guns with the greatest of ease!! Soooo, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.......
Also, wear gloves, as it makes a big difference and always load the gun in the water!! NEVER discharge your gun OUTSIDE the water!! The spear will get jerked back by the shooting line and will come straight back at you!! You can seriously injure or even kill yourself!!!
Hope that helps!!
Regards
miles
