rear handle/mid handle
Hi Don, I'm glad you found some of my ramblings informative
This topic is one which I have a great personal interest in. I've spent some time with the Italians studying and understanding speargun ballistics.
I was trying to find where I wrote what you quoted to see what context I said it in but couldn't place it.
To sum it up the beauty of a single band rear handle/Euro gun is the simplicity, balance, accuracy and power that is achieved through a single band design. This makes it particularly effective given a wide variety of circumstances and very adaptable depending on the size that is used to suit local conditions and quarry. The light weight as you describe makes the front end light so the gun is not muzzle heavy hence the ease of maneuverability and aim, and, with any thickness or strength of power band, so long as only one is used this balance and all it's attributes are not affected. These attributes translate into absense of recoil and an increase in accuracy, lightweight and maneuverability even at depth as well as an almost perfect compromise of power and speed with a 7mm (9/32") or thinner shaft with the single bands. This is what I meant as far as quick aim and light weight just as you said.
On the contrary, a rear handle design that uses a heavy aluminum or wooden tube that is over 120cm long generally is more heavy on the wrist and muzzle heavy. With two powerful bands aside from it being muzzle heavy it will suffer from recoil as it's not ballasted properly for two bands and be even more unbalanced. This is why carbon fiber tubes are used but even then with more than one strong band accuracy will suffer because it is too light for the power. Some don't care or just get used to it and adjust to it.
As much as the mid-handle design increases maneuverability and has more power than its rear handle,same-size, single-band counterpart if you take the former, a properly ballasted teak gun with three bands, and the later, with a single band and a carbon fiber tube, it's easy see which is easier to maneuver. I own both and in comparison the former is slow and cumbersome and this is why most of the divers I know choose the later for most of their diving. Mi bluewater gun weighs ten pounds the other one three.
Where the heavier mid-handle has it's advantages is when we're targeting a specific type of big blue water gamefish in clear water than can be over 50lbs where the strait and far powerful shot is a priority. You need penetration 20ft away. On the other hand, when the priority is fast action, manueverability and smaller prey than 50lbs with the occasional chance at a big one and you can get within 15ft for shot the later is a better compromise.
Today a compromise between these two designs is emerging, we are doing it with the Master America and others are doing it a different way. The result should be a fast action design that is properly balanced and ballasted to avoid recoil for the use of two power bands and has the advantages of the power of a bigger mid-handle design and the accuracy and maneuverability of a rear handle/Euro type design. Rick at Aimrite is doing it with a mid-handle design I think he calls his hybrid, while Omer has decided to take what was more natural for an Italian speargun manufacturer to start with, a rear handle design. Instead of ballasting the back of the gun the architect who designed the Master America, Marco Pisello, placed the ballast (more wood/more weight) throughout the length of the stock and even more so towards the front, not only increasing BALLAST but more crucially BUOYNACY/FLOTATION where it is needed- in the front of the gun.
This achieves two very desired results fundamental to proper speargun ballistics: avoiding RECOIL and increasing FLOTATION avoiding a muzzle heavy gun which is not possible to do in any other way on a rear handle two band speargun.
Lastly, the reason this beefed up two band design makes so much sense compared to a mid-handle gun has to do with the major horizontal forces during the shooting phase. The force created by the spearshaft and the bands going forward and the counter-reaction of the speargun itself forced backwards.
If you were to let go of a speargun underwater while you were shooting maybe it would be clearer. In short, the gun would accelerate at great speed backwards and your shot would have no power going forward. When you hold your speargun you are creating a solid platform for that shaft to launch from. That is why RECOIL is nothing else than a loss of energy, energy that the shaft is wasting that could be used to make it shoot farther, another reason the heavy 18lb blue water guns are so powerful.
The second problem with recoil is the axis of rotation of the gun around the lever, the lever is your hand and arm.
(This would be much clearer if I drew it all on paper but ballistic tests have proven everything I am trying to illustate)
Now picture these two forces vertical and horizontal; the vertical force-the bands trying to moove the front end of the gun up and down, the horizontal-the shaft and bands going forward and the gun going backwayd. These two forces pivot around your hand
and handle since the handle is not positioned DIRECTLY BEHIND THE HORIZONTAL LINE OF THE SHAFT AND BANDS causing a rotation of the stock around your hand. This rotation lifts the front of the gun and the butt down and the shaft shoots low as a result of the front end of the gun lifting the back of the shaft during this cycle. Unless of course it's encapsulated in an enclosed track. One of the other MAIN reasons a lot of people don't realize their rear handle Euro style design is so accurate is that your hand and handle are positioned directly behind the horizontal axis of the shaft which makes aiming easier and if any recoil were to be present, tends to kick the gun back directly behind the shaft as opposed to rotation it around the handle.
Look how far your hand is to the axis of the shaft in a mid handle and how close it is in a rear handle or euro style design.
1. By increasing the mass in the front end of the Master America it avoids muzzle lift created by the vertical forces of the bands. 2 by keeping the handle directly in line with the shaft and along the barrel, just like other Omer guns and other rear handle/Euro style guns, these horizontal forces are also dealt with since your hand provides the mass more closely centered behind the shaft.
Now I better stop writing because I've used up all my minutes and I've probably bored you to death by now.
If you've read this please make checks payable to "Mark Laboccetta"
take care, Mark
