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Mid handled wooden guns

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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Nice History! You're right about the recoil on that usd gun - they also had a very narrow grip I didn't like - very flat with edges. I've seen one of these and some of the nemrod mid-handle band guns on ebay. But the technology is so much more refined now. My fav back then was the nemrod pneumatic (mine was old then - got it used). Got so I could do Clint Eastwood style slap-shots with it against fast moving prey. Very nice grip on that one - and great balance.

By the way - Pippin's outfit seems to be dumping some really long mares guns on ebay - 59inch pneumatics for $184 - one with 2 hours left and no bids
 
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Originally posted by fuzz
Loss of fingertip stopped play:confused:
Is that right? Bummer if so, you have my sympathy, I never imagined it would hurt like this for so long :( to late now! just got to deal with it.
I had my attention drawn to this in the pub tonight, oh no I feel another project coming on!
 
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I abuse my teak Riffe mid handle guns and my metal techs. (also midhandle).

I throw them in the back of my truck and drive down dirt roads for hours. The midhandle design lets me have the power of a big gun with the barrel swing of a small gun. When you shoot it, It floats.

One last fact. Riffe guns are equipped with rubber silencers all over the gun. Trigger silencers, line silencers, etc. They are built in and if you dont know where they are you would miss them. Even the bands have no metal in them so they fire silently.

as far as I can tell any midhandle gun will have the advantage over a rear handle gun of the same size(length). This allows you to get a bigger more powerfull gun without having to scarafice the movement that you would get out of a rear handle with the same trigger to barrel measurement.

I agree with rig though, the best gun for you is the one you like best...

GTB
www.gonetobaja.com
 
The 'silence' claim is a marketing tool to hook customers. The 'clunk' made by the average spear gun is irrelevant. It has no effect on fish. Even power heads do little to spook fish. However, the low freq vibrations make by a struggling fish DO mean something, to sharks and other predators. The only gun that I have observed to have a disturbing sound, and that would spook fish, is the CO2 gun. These would emit a blast and trail of bubbles (rocket gun) which would cause fish to flash. Also, the sight of an arrow zipping through the water will spook nearby fish, regardless of sound.
 
That "clunk" sure pisses off the vemillions and canaries up here. :hmm And unless I leave a yellowtail, amberjack or mahi to struggle and bring the rest back in, that "clunk" doesn't do my cooler any help either.
 
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Alison - forgotten what is wrong with your wrist but I seem to remember an accident or something which means that you now prefer a handle that is not at 90 degs to the main gun...

I think with a wooden gun you could get the makers to make a gun to the exact dimensions that you prefer - most are small-ish manufacturers and happy to oblige for requests like this - but then again if you are getting one made for you by friends that's good too !

Totem sub make a small model aimed mainly at bass-hunters.....could be a good one for you. No one had bought it when I was looking at buying a wooden gun and I was pretty tempted.

It is on their site (http://www.totemsub.it/guizzo/guizzo.htm) - not on the english part...

Anyway I reckon that if you have a weak/funny wrist this could be a good gun to get - nice and light and good for European places.

I'm tempted as sometimes the 100cm Pelagos is a bit long for the visibility - but here in Guernsey the visibility is normally quite good.

Just a thought to either buy or incorporate into your design.
Ed
 
Ed
I shut it in an aircraft door and broke it quite badly; unfortunately we were in Cairo at the time! Medical care isnt as... well lets just say I should have flown back to Bahrain for treatment :( Nothing really wrong with it, just a bit twisted, so my gun handle is way over at 47 degrees or something. Not even sure that its possible to make a mid handled gun with that sort of angle and still have room for my arm.
 
I would say that the fish down here where I hunt are easily spooked. I know that if it were legal to set off a powerhead down here it would scare every big fish away from the area.

The main difference is that when an un silenced gun goes off underwater it makes more noise at the moment you pull the trigger. The firing mechanism hits metal to metal, the line release hits metal to metal, even the yokes on the bands are metal in a metal slot on the gun. These make noise as they rotate in the shaft and as they seperate from the shaft. Even though is is only a second from when the spear leaves the gun untill you hit your target, I believe that a scared fish reacting out of instinct from the loud noise can turn away from the shot, while heading up or down causing a miss or bad hit. The fish down here can have power and a bad hit means a pretty sure loss. Maybe I am just kidding my self but I like to have all the odds in my favor when I am in the water out here. I have seen a school of big fish comming in spook and bolt when my friend accidently hit his fins together. There is nothing more frustrating than a loud underpowerd speargun. "How did I miss that one...?"

I have used 5 different brands of spearguns

I maintain 9 guns for expeditions of which 6 are mid handle, 3 rear handle. 7 of the guns are Riffe, 2 are AB Biller.

I have never hunted on the east coast at all so I cant say how fish out there are, I would bet most fish are spooked by sound. But Im not a fishologist or anything so Im just speaking from what I seen.

GTB
www.gonetobaja.com ( <---- Now thats a marketing tool.)

Or maybe Im just clumsy in the water.....
 
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Yep, noisy gun scares fish. At least other potential fish might not want to come near by. Thrashing fish does invite other game fish. Where I come from we want to be as quite as possible.

Even my bubbles scares fish.... :confused:
 
I've hunted throughout the US and the world. Movements scare fish, and bubbles scare some fish. Gun noise has little to no effect. It is the movement of the shaft that causes nearby fish to bolt. Most of the problem is with croakers (white sea bass and trout). Remove your snorkel and squeeze the bubbles from your wet suit and don't worry about the gun. The whole issue of 'gun noise' is nonsense.
 
Okay then. Why are band guns preferred over pneumatics?

Also- to allison's wrist - there used to be these really classy wooden guns that had a grip like the old grips on dueling pistols. I wonder if anyone still makes them.
 
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Hi Pesky,

Whatever you say Bozz, but a quiter shooting gun is a better hunting tool and that is not a nonsense in my hunting ground. I think I should know better than you, it is my hunting ground after all...;) The world is so huge and so many variables, there is no way you can generalize everything to be the same elsewhere.
 
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Around here many types of fish will bolt and then come right back. Others leave and do not return any time soon.
 
Well Ive watched from the surface someone shoot into a school of Bass, to see the lot react to the shot not just those in the vicinity of the spear. How many of you have shot at an easy target head and hit the tail end because the fish bolted? No need to admit it but I bet you can relate to this? Anything that can help kill vibration in the gun on firing has to be good!
 
Re: Take your pick

Originally posted by icarus pacific
Take your prick

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by peskydor
Gun noise has little to no effect.

Most of the problem is with croakers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------






:hmm

In the UK a croaker is an old git who anoys folks, you know he may have a point! :hmm

Thanks for your input everyone :) I think your style of gun sounds pretty cool, one day perhaps, aparently I'm going in with a wooden mock up this week to see for myself ;) but I'm sold on the multipe bands thats a definite no questions must have for me now
 
As for the durability of wood finishes...

Wood gun manufacturers are beginning to discover the benefits of epoxy saturated wood barrels. Epoxy does not develop cracks that allow water to penetrate over time. The wood remains stable. Modern epoxy is tough and requires no maintenance. I have two home built wood guns that are epoxy saturated. No water has ever penetrated through to the unsaturated wood despite normal dings and scratches. I think we'll see a lot more of this epoxy saturated wood in production guns of the near future.
:)
 
most of the custom guns are epoxied...Wongs, Merlos, Yokooji, and Kitto/Klefstads "deluxe" guns. The Riffes arent but only require a little more love and some like Sven prefer to rub their wood smooth with oil every now and then:king
 
I would agree with the oil option myself. By default, every surface coating can only degrade with time and use, every seperate coat will always be a seperate coat no matter how well keyed in it is. Its only going to take 1 ding to breech a layer to allow water to very slowly do its thing :( Fixing it to a nice result isnt going to be easy. Dont get me wrong, after all my working life spent as a cabinet maker I think West systems type products are brilliant but an oil finish on a wood such as Teak is different, the oil never totaly dries (not even tung or danish) so each new coat will become part of the previous one, making it an easy fix. The dogs gonads!
 
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