For the last quarter century I have been a dedicated mid handle speargun user. Advantages of a mid handle gun are well known. I guess I wanted to take a peak at the other option so have made several slightly custom “euro” style guns for myself. Firstly I looked at several different brands of “European” style handles & the Sigal handle scored the highest for fit, function & finish. I had some amazing figured rosewood I had managed to extract from the private stash of a timber importer which I had been saving for a project of my own. Queensland white beech ( very oily, it’s like a white teak) would also be used in the laminated blanks to make the rosewood “pop”.
I have been enjoying the experiment & have had no issues or problems switching from mid handled guns to there euros & back again. I put this down to aiming using the spear tip as the dominant reference, with consistent spear overhang & parallel rubbers using band lifters. It not uncommon for me to use four different guns in a day as I may dive in estuaries, bays, reefs & wide offshore.
My thoughts are that the euros are slower & harder to track than the same length spear & gun in the mid handles. The up side is that they are a “lot” simpler & cheaper to make & also I feel they are simpler to point confidently ( not track) & are fractionally faster to make those guesses required to shoot.
So far after 3 months I have fished a few competitions with them as well as most of my social diving. I plan to finish the years comps with them now & will most likely give them a run on pelagic fish up to 30kg, but the mid handles really come into their own on big fish so no change in choice there.
I expect I will go back to mid handled guns exclusively, but this is an enjoyable & insightful diversion in a year where I haven’t travelled any further than five hours from home.
I have been enjoying the experiment & have had no issues or problems switching from mid handled guns to there euros & back again. I put this down to aiming using the spear tip as the dominant reference, with consistent spear overhang & parallel rubbers using band lifters. It not uncommon for me to use four different guns in a day as I may dive in estuaries, bays, reefs & wide offshore.
My thoughts are that the euros are slower & harder to track than the same length spear & gun in the mid handles. The up side is that they are a “lot” simpler & cheaper to make & also I feel they are simpler to point confidently ( not track) & are fractionally faster to make those guesses required to shoot.
So far after 3 months I have fished a few competitions with them as well as most of my social diving. I plan to finish the years comps with them now & will most likely give them a run on pelagic fish up to 30kg, but the mid handles really come into their own on big fish so no change in choice there.
I expect I will go back to mid handled guns exclusively, but this is an enjoyable & insightful diversion in a year where I haven’t travelled any further than five hours from home.
