"the proof is in the pudding"
Sorry to dump on your product, but if we are going to be honest, here are some other things I either dislike or don’t understand.
Hi Don and everyone else, I guess I'll be slacking for a little while at work again today,chapter two:
First I commend you for your frankness and the fact that you are willing to speculate on most everything about this gun. Second, let's not turn this into an Omer vs Aimrite shitting contest, it would serve no useful purpose. I have known Rick Bettua since he started working with his friend Daryl and I started doing this when we used to dive together in North Carolina when he was stationed there in the Navy, and although we might differ on whose gun we believe is better (wonder why), we have a friendly competition relationship and I even supply him with the reels I designed and introduced into the market five years ago that you probably even have on one of your guns.
Spearguns are like women, some of us like blondes and some of us like bruntettes, some of us like tall skinny ones others like shorter ones with big boobs. What we all have in common is the same passion for spearguns just like the women we love. If you've only had one girlfriend all your life and are happy with it that's fine but it doesn't mean she's the best for all, I know plenty of guys who have had plenty and they can never make up their mind which one they like more until they fall in love and get married. Luckily with spearguns we can have as many as we want without committing the rest of our lives to thy faithful one.
Seven years ago when I was still in college and started a company in the US with my old man selling freediving equipment and spearguns a lot of people thought I was crazy and never thought I would make it and told me I should get myself together and go to graduate school. I never did and I'm happy I did what I did and I'm doing well now.
At the same time seven-eight years ago there were less than ten people in the US I knew about who actually had even tried a rear handle/rail/Euro style gun let alone an Omer. The term Euro is almost seen as derogative sometimes because some people want to try to make it American vs Euro or something, girls are girls, guns are guns, they're all the same-they serve a purpose-to kill a fish. The later was met with so much resistance within the small brotherhood and tribe of freedivers and spearfisherman across the country that networked with each other known as the freedivelist that we all started poking fun at each other, I think I'm the one that coined the label "tree trunks" to the big mid handle monsters, in turn many of them called ours "pea shooters". It was all fun and games and a time of exciting growth and a synergy between different schools of thought. Today some of those companies are making their own version of a "pea shooter"rail guns euro guns whatever you want to call it, others are selling special shafts for "pea shooters", and others who only produced pea shooters are going into their own version of tree trunks, if you think about it you can name these three companies.
What we have to remember is that without ever trying innovation and new ideas and by refuting different concepts without even having tried them you are selling yourself short since you can't prove anything you are saying. Had Rick never made his Hybrid version speargun and stuck with ole' faithful he would have never known what could have been, just like I never knew we would be selling thousands of nice aluminum reels and Omer guns and hundreds of very expensive carbon fiber fins that people thought we were crazy for selling.
I want people who read this to realize that the point of this whole discussion for me is not the profitability or to try to plug a product like the Master America that is undergoing development.
I enjoy and have always been fascinated by the siple physics behind a speargun. We have had so many orders and irate customers who want this gun but can't get it for the simple reason that we are not going to introduce it in the US market until a TEAK VERSION is available like the prototypes we've been testing. I think it is the best wood for use in spearguns in general. I have used this gun and am so impressed with it that I'm not going to put it on the market until I think it's perfect because it deserves no less.
It has one small bug to fix with the line release and also with the way the double loop of shooting line wraps which will simply be taken care of with a pin.
This class of spearguns of $500+ dollars represents a relatively small market and I could spend much more time pursuing the sales of the more economical versions of Omer guns which are more of the bread and butter of this company along with the other products but I enjoy explaining the rationale behind this gun since I have tried it and its physics are sound. This style of gun, the Master, with it's barrel shaped the way it is has been unchanged since the master was first made in 1992-3, over ten years and thousands of them in circulation is already proven, and you should at least ask a diver who owns one or who has one of the old ones, plenty of them on this forum I bet, how it tracks and how well they're balanced.
The first models for five years were produced with a polyurethane foam coat over a round aluminum barrel, the second generation in carbon fiber, and today ultimately in wood for the rigors of more heavy duty use with more power while still being balanced like other Omer guns. To produce it they are still using hi-tech machinery like 3 DIMENSIONAL CAD machines and architects for the design and outsourcing the actual production to high end professional furniture producers who are experts at the lamination/milling and routing process to produce wooden objects using CNC machines.
What other speargun manufacturers have gone through all this trouble that you know of to make a speargun?
This is expensive tooling but ultimately the product is really well made and well done and I don't think the largest speargun manufacturer in the WORLD, Omer, would spend this much time and effort and money in a product they take a lot of pride in if they weren't sure what the hell they were doing. The Master America is not a product that Omer has a high demand for or a high turnover and its not very profitable either considering the time and the outsourcing costs of the wood production that is required.
The one thing I do like is the adjustable ballast. The rest of the gun though looks like it was made by a company who doesn’t really understand American guns and ocean environment and thinks we will get excited by lovely finish and laments that serve no real function.
I would like to go through your post and go point by point and show you where I am sure you are wrong but it seems you've already made up your mind.
The one point you are 100% correct on is that after a certain length this design looses maneuverability to a mid handle design, and that is in guns over 55"/115cm. In a longer gun like a 130cm (65" mid-handle which is equal to 130cm of band stretch) a mid-handle is a better solution. This 115cm is a 55" gun. You shouldn't have to use two hands on any 55" gun unless it's a machine gun:duh
When the teak prototype becomes a reality and you have someone like yourself who has had one type and then tries this one then it will be fair to judge. Right now you are just speculating and that is perfectly fine and even appreciated.
Mark
"you don't judge a book by its cover"
