Are 'side tabs' needed on gun

The larger Riffe guns are over powered and underweight, so have a problem with recoil and muzzle rise. Many people add side stocks or muzzle wings to increase the mass of the gun and prevent muzzle rise, so Riffe finally started offering those options himself. Of course a better solution would be to have used more wood and lead ballast in the first place, but he apparently chose to make it optional if you wanted the gun to be accurate rather than change his design.

I had a Riffe Island, and it had a big recoil problem and shot very low until I added muzzle wings. Then the muzzle wings made it much more difficult to get the gun pointed where I wanted it.

If the gun has sufficient mass for the shaft and bands that it comes with (like a Wong for instance) then wings and side stocks are not necessary.

Decca said:

Thanks. So recoil is a problem. Your experience indicates that recoil causes the gun to kick up. I guess that is a similar to gun recoil. Next question is how do you work out how much mass is required to reduce recoil to an acceptable level? If you use the momentum equation, what do you use as a criteria for recoil velocity.

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I'm afraid I can't give any numbers, but can just state a few principles.

First, recoil is more of a problem if the handle is mounted low rather than behind the barrel and/or butt. All my guns are mid-handle with the handles below the wood butt. When the trigger is pulled, the bands just want to shrink, and are indifferent about pushing the shaft forward or the gun backward. If the shaft is heavy relative to the mass of the gun, then the gun gets pushed backwards. The force of the bands is above the resistance provided by your hand on the handle, so the gun rotates around the handle, the muzzle rises, and the rear of the shaft is pushed up as it leaves the gun, causing the shot to be low.

Of course Euro guns have the handle mounted more in line with the barrel, so they can generally maintain accuracy with less mass and stronger bands, but I just prefer the added maneuverability of mid handle guns.

There are basically three ways that I know of to reduce this recoil and rotation around the handle.

You can make the gun heavier.

You can use a thinner and lighter shaft.

You can use weaker bands, but of course that decreases range.

I have seen all three methods used on Riffe Islands, Riffe Blue Waters, and Riffe No Ka Ois.

Some people using the Blue Water have switched from the standard 3/8" shaft to 5/16", and I know one guy who even uses 9/32".

Some people using Islands and No Ka Ois have switched from the standard 5/16" shaft to 9/32".

Some people use longer or thinner bands than standard.

And people using all of these guns have added home-made side stocks and or muzzle wings.

I had a personal experience that demonstrated to me how a little weight can make a difference. For the first two years using a certain gun with a reel mounted on it, I could hardly miss. Then I removed the reel and started using a float line with breakaway, and started hitting low. About the same time, a friend got the same gun and used a float line from the start, and said he couldn't hit anything. Then I put the reel back on and regained my former accuracy, and my friend put a reel on and got the accuracy that he had never experienced. That convinced me that the gun was on the verge of being overpowered, and that just the weight of the reel was able to tame it.

One other example of ballast and reels. When I ordered a Wong Magnum hybrid a year or so ago, I sent Daryl Wong a 12.25 ounce reel that I planned to mount. With the standard amount of lead ballast in the gun, it sunk with the shaft out when my reel was mounted. He had to remove several ounces of lead to get the gun to float again. When you are dealing with a limited volume gun maker like Daryl who builds every gun to order, you can get it right like that. And of course if you are making your own gun, you can get it right. But there is no way a gun maker like Jay Riffe could fine tune guns like that because he has such a great volume. I'm not trying to lay blame- its just a fact of business.

BTW, I decided I didn't like the drag on that heavy reel, so I substituted one that weighted half as much. In order to keep recoil under control, I added 4 ounces of lead in the handle.

The mention of videos reminds me of a very dramatic one that a friend showed me. It showed a guy using a Riffe Island to shoot a white sea bass. My friend showed me the video one frame at a time so that you could see the progress of the shaft down the gun and the movement of the gun. I believe he said that each frame represented 1/5th of a second, although I'm not sure of that.

In the first frame after the trigger was pulled, the muzzle of the gun appeared to have already risen about 6 inches. When the shaft was half way off the gun, it was bent in a huge bow over the muzzle with the rear half still being pushed up by the rising gun while the front half was being held down by water resistance. By the time the shaft was off of the gun, the muzzle seemed to be at least 12 inches higher than when the trigger was pulled.

I was not surprised to see the muzzle rising as "conventional wisdom" had told me that this was why my Island shot low, but what was remarkable to me was the big bow in the shaft before it was off of the gun. It would seem that the fact that the shaft would have to straighten itself out could not be helpful to accuracy.

I guess I should mention that before I sold my Island, I installed the muzzle wings, and whereas it had been inaccurate with three 5/8" bands before, it became accurate with even four 5/8" bands. As a side benefit, I always felt that if my boat's engine failed, I could use my gun for a paddle to get home.

But in spite of that, I didn't like the added difficulty in maneuvering he gun, so I moved on to a different brand.

BTW, the guy in the video hit the white sea bass dead center.