Newcomer looking for a great gun

.ice, are you really based on the Mediterranean? Didn't realise there were striped bass in the Med, have only come across them on the east coast of the USA. There I think they use short, powerful speaguns due to poor visibility and the large size of the striped bass (e.g. Rob Allen railgun 70cm, or was it 90cm).

Do they have cod in the Med? I generally associate them with the North Atlantic.

For the Med, I normally think of Grouper, Bass, Dentex, Grey Mullet, Blue Fin Tuna -- there are probably many others though (sardine, anchovy,...).

Surprised your list of pneumatics under initial consideration did not include the jazzy new Omer Airbalete (a pneumatic that somewhat resembles a bandgun) or the power Mamba modified pneumatic. That said though, I too prefer simple bandguns.

Darryl Wong, Hawaii spearguns probably have the quality and construction you'd want but perhaps not the price. There are very interesting small independent makers around, especially in Italy, Greece, the USA and...Guernsey. They often use wood construction. Checkout the Indy thread: http://forums.deeperblue.com/spearo-board/85475-indie-minor-speargun-companies.html - glossy speargun porn! (No wonder the Italian government's finances are such a mess, clearly they spent all their time and money inventing and building gorgeous spearguns instead of paying boring old taxes, like the Brits).

For powerful non-wooden guns (which can generally be made using cheaper construction techniques than their wooden counterparts), suitable for big fish, most makers, including Beuchat and Omer, have suitable models, but I might be tempted to go for a South African style railgun (e.g. Rob Allen, Mako USA, Rabitech, Orcas, Freedivers, Hammerhead Hawaii).