Quote:
Originally Posted by blaiz
Most euro guns i.e. OMER, Beuchat, Rob Allen, Rabitech, and so on are going to come with a closed muzzle. They do not have a slide ring. The ones you usually find with the slide rings are the brands like JBL, Sea Hornet, or pneumatic guns. Closed muzzle usually means that there is a bridge that goes over the shaft which holds it down to the gun at the muzzle. The bands are most times threaded into each side of the muzzle (2 separate pieces as opposed to 1 continuous band) and have a metal wishbone.
An open muzzle (like found on most wood guns and the HH Evolutions) have no bridge. Instead the shooting line comes up the side of the shaft (from the back) wraps under a stainless pin or plate, around the shaft, down over the front of the muzzle, and back to the line release. In this set up the shooting line holds the shaft down to the gun.
Some will say that the standard euro gun (w/ closed muzzle) is easier and quicker to load. I have found that once you get used to loading the open muzzle it isnt a problem at all.
The picture Jon posted of the Riffe midhandle and the rabtech (i think) is a good one to compare the differences. You can see that they shoot the same shaft lengths but look how much reach you loose with the midhandle. Its an awesome set up for low viz. If you are diving in relatively clear water than you will understand how important that extra reach the euro gun w/ rear handle provides is.
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Blaiz,
this is exactly what my confusion was over. thanks for the great detailed description here.
I have shot open muzzle guns with the line that wraps around the spear to hold it on. This style seemed easier to load because I could just lay the spear on the top of the rail (as opposed to grabbing the end of the spear holding it way out, trying to feed it through the end)
I think i like the idea of a euro style gun and i believe that a 85-100cm gun would be about perfect (this is the size of the barrel, right? not the total length with spear).
OH- hey is there any tradeoff or differences between the seperate pieces-band or one continunous band? Power? accuracy?
This is a pretty big deal to me because the gun i have now is not too hard to load and has the dual single piece band. I cannot imagine if it were the loop style with wishbone. I must be a real wuss, when I shot a friends RA my wife laughed at me all week because of the 10 different bruises I had all over my chest!
mahalo
