Choosing a gun-New At this Please Help Me

[Hypersquid1]

Hi everybody!
I am new at spearfishing and i dont know what gun to choose. I am younger and i dont have a whole lot of money. (about $400 at the most) I kind of was looking at the gun market and narrowed it down Riffe and JBL. i am trying to choose between a Riffe Metal Tech #0 or #1 and a JBl Magnum 38 Special. i am going to be spearing off the coast of Rhode Island, mostly around rocks and sandy bottoms. the main fish i will be targeting will be stripers, bluefish and maybe some big scup and blackfish. If possible i would like to get the JBL gun because it is considerably cheaper, although i would be willing to save a few extra pennies and get the Riffe. I was reading in the forums before i joined, and i think i heard somebody say that the Riffe guns have much better penetration than the JBL, which i think i would like a bit more. PLease respond as i would like to choose a gun by the end of the month to get half a season out of it! THanks.
Hypersquid1

 

[donmoore]

Hypersquid1,
JBLs are good guns if you maintain them and don’t use them too many times a year. Freedivers, especially ones who can enter from shore without long boat trips, tend to use their guns more times in a year than scuba divers. There is no question that Riffes are built better.

Freedivers also feel like they need to make their shots count more since they are only taking one shot per dive and the fish will likely be gone in the next dive. You are correct in that Riffes are more powerful. The slide ring JBL's use steal some of their power and Riffe MTs have substantially longer band stretch because JBL's are really rear handle guns with loading extensions.

If you want the most power for a gun length, I believe in putting the length in the stock and not the shaft overhang. You can usually put the next size smaller shaft length on a Riffe MT. In otherwords, on my MT-2 I use the MT-1 shaft which is 42-44" (depending on if Hawaiian flopper or standard). This means my MT-2 is the same overall length as a MT-1 but I have 6 more inches of stock length and 5 more inches of band stretch.

The one thing you have to watch out for with these smaller guns with little shaft overhang is having enough shaft mass. With a 42-44” shaft on a MT-2 it really needs to be 5/16” shaft instead of a 9/32” if you use three 9/16” bands. Otherwise the power gets wasted.

The gun I would recommend for you is the one I would like to sell. That is a MT-2 with a 42” Hawaiian Flopper 5/16” shaft, enclosed track. If using shaft line, a good quick release, which is really hard to find, where it attaches to the bungee is nice, because when you string a fish, which is something that will happen often with the power of the Riffe, you can just undo the quick release and pull the line through the fish.

If you want I will sell you mine for 70% of a new one. It is in great condition and will probably last as long as you want it to. I will get a larger MT to backup my 4. We have to go on long hard boat trips here and when my 4 gets disabled (bent spear from fish, lined kinked too bad to continue, crimp come undone, bungie breaks, ect.) I want to have a larger gun as a backup. If you don’t want a Hawaiian flopper either now or in the future, you can cut it off and tap the end to 5/16 by 24 thread. 17-4 stainless is hard stuff but male threading is easy (somebody going to say something about this).

If Riffe would sell me the aluminum stock, I would have made one of my smaller MTs into a 4 a long time ago, but they won’t.

If you want to buy new, that’s cool too.
don
:wave