Hi Don,
Like Aquiles said, I started halfway with JBL, first ones were pneumatics ( 5 of them ). All died of over pressurization and a few of barrel corossion. I could have rebuilt them but the dealers stop selling them, so no parts.
My JBL were the 140cm aluminum non XHD. All of my friends use JBL. We have like 20 of them, from Woody to XHD, even the 38. Whatever JBL has to offer, we try them all. We are rough users, if in a long trip, the guns don't get washed for at least 3 days. Many of use have owned more than 1 JBL cause they corrode to death. We go out to sea almost every week those days.
We bought JBL because it was the supposedly most powerful gun available in my city. Riffe was not yet available, AB Miller came in as personal import to a few people. Scubapro used to have the black plastic stock and pneumatics.
My JBL Magnum aluminum 140cm+- comes with 1/2" x 3 bands and 8mm shaft with Tri-Cut detachable. The brochure stated 21 feet shooting range or something and it cost US$175. I also have the JBL reel and all sort of JBL spear tips. The 21 feet shooting range is the clown I talked about, 12 feet is good enough.
First trouble we had was the slide ring which will get damaged very fast and jam on the shaft, thus reloading is impossible. Some angry friends of mine just jam it up the muzzle and force in the shaft, after all the fish were plenty. Some shaft jam up so bad, we need small hammer to release it. Powerband installation is another tough affair on those winged aluminum muzzle, since we are not familiar with the guns, we try to widen the gap with screwdriver, thus we snapped the wings at the muzzle. This happened too often, yep we were stupid but the designer is not any smarter too. The rubbers last with us no longer than 4 months at our frequency of use. At US$12.00 a piece localy, US$36 x 3 times a year, buy you 60% of a new gun. Then another shop offer a new stronger rubber ( I don't know what brand ), we install it and found out that the trigger could not handle it. The trigger pull came to such a level that Sven put it as "U need a hammer to push the trigger", same case with us. Adding more powerful rubber not only cause trigger problem, the slide ring get damaged even faster.
We were enjoying the JBL still and shafts started to break at the shaft threaded end, too often. Spearhead break too at where u have the small rubber insert pushing the floppers open. We accept this as "wear and tear" of fighting big fish. Later the water tight plugs at the barrel started to leak and the speargun will sink and collect water inside, extra corossion. We then started buying new barrels cause corrosion also occurs where the screw holes are, front and rear part. We also bought a few trigger sears cause our galled/worn from stronger rubbers. The pistol grip since made of cast aluminum, sometime they won't be able to be dismantled for cleaning cause the oxidation inside which produced white powder, felt and act like super glue...as I said we abused it badly.
Then the dealer introduced the JBL XHD series with tungsten carbide insert. Trigger is OK and can take better rubbers but the muzzle is plastic. The outer or third band will fly off sometime during a shot, we use nylon tie wrap to prevent this. Once in a while we break the muzzle, just from shooting. Anyone handling a JBL long enough, should know that the rubber butt end need to be glued, or else it will be lost, what an inconsiderate design.
Then come the Woody, nicest gun of all the JBL. The slide ring jamming up is a fact that we must live with. Some of owners weld a nice rounded stop tab on the shaft, instead of the two small dot for stopping the slide ring but on 3/8 shaft it is not good cause the shaft gets a little elevated on the plastic track by the extra diameter of the weld. That plastic track will also come off after some years cause it is being only glued to the aluminum barrel and when the corossion set in, the glue bonding failed.
There is nothing that we never change on our JBL, even the screws and the female insert need to be replaced after sometime cause they jammed up and we damaged the "+" screw heads.
So Woody get to be our favourite and it has the old dark brown pistol grip. Later after a year or two of using it, we found one flaw, and a serious one. Whatever the plastic material they use was bad, where the trigger pin rest, near the safety flip switch, will fail. First u see small white dot colouration on the plastic. This in an indication of plastic on the way to breaking apart. Take a small screwdriver and push that small "dimple", the plastic will fall off and u can see the trigger pin. If when a gun is loaded and that plastic part of the pistol grip failed, it might self fire. U may have a good trigger sear but the pin is what hold it in place. This is why JBL now uses a new black pistol grip for the Woody, must be improved material. All of ours with brown colour pistol grip had this problem, not one gun, we have about 8 units.
Smaller JBL last longer cause less power, less impact on the slide ring and so on.
Now let's do the math. Ignore US local prices, I don't live in the US, so the prices is up to the local dealer here.
One year of USE of our JBL guns :
Aluminum Magnum = US$175.00
1 year supply of rubber = US$ 108.00 ( 3pcs x 4 months )
3 Slide rings a year = US$ 36.00 ( 3 pcs x US$12.00 )
3 years of owning my JBL, I have spent more than the price of the gun itself + all the unhappy times the slide ring jamming up when they are so many fishes. I have not included all the broken shafts at the machined thread, broken speartips, muzzle, new trigger sear sets and so on. Who say cheaper is cheap.
Compare to my US$ 600+- Riffe 124cm teak Standard #2 fuly modified. I only buy 4 bands a year and it is because I hate the look of it, I never snap any rubber yet if service life is only a year. US$56.00 a year is my expenditure. I can shoot a fish with this short Riffe easier than my friends biggest and baddest XHD450s, power for power I don't loose, in fact since mine is 4 banded, I out range those 450s. As for my own JBL, not worth comparing to my #2 Riffe. Tracking fish, I am ahead. Ice Pick spearhead on my Riffe never get replaced till today and it holds fish like I never seen before ( limited experience..sorry ). I harvested more fish, much more fish with my #2 Riffe. I never get slide ring problem, Riffe doesn't have any. My shaft got bent once but no breakage on the machined threaded end. I have no fear of trigger jamming up. I don't have any corrossion problem.
If I keep using my JBL for 3-4 years, I will get the same #2 Riffe fuly modified like mine, money for money.
The only Riffe I dislike was the Metal Tech cause it was aluminum, my experience with aluminum JBLs scared me. But when my friend bought an MT-3, I took a close look and that's when I decided to get my MT Zero, I calculated it will last hell of a long time.
The XHD series of JBL has no difference in quality over their non XHD, except the color of the barrel being blue and tungsten carbide insert in the trigger. Oh yeah the muzzle is plastic..why...I don't know.
You see, I am a bit of an engineering guy. When I see quality machining parts, I can tell the difference. If u ever ripped open a Riffe trigger, u will know what I mean.
A friend of mine who owns a Steve Alexander told me this :
"Take a look and use an Alexander for sometime ( me not yet ), u will find the Riffe is almost like a toy, exactly the same "toy" like impression of a JBL when u first swap ur JBL for a Riffe."
He was referring to his Riffe Blue Water against his Alexander Tuna gun.
Do I believe him ? I have to...... he owns and have tried everything RAs, XHDs, Omers, Riffe-s and he is a very qualified freediver spearo, he is not biased, he just told me how he sum up a product.
Atached is how my JBL looked like. That broken wing on the muzzle is a second muzzle. This one I did not use any screw driver to pry open, just over forceful insert of powerband. See the screw holes on the barrel, it gets bigger. See the cracking on the barrel end, this is the corossion.
I don't bad mouth a product unless it is poor quality, I don't gain anything. Also ,I can only say that a JBL is poor engineering only after I got a Riffe, there is a reference to compare with. If I later buy an Alexander........... Riffe a toy ? ......who knows..... he he he.
If in a place there is only Swatch as a common and best watches there are, when you buy a TAG Heaur......... how will u find that Swatch ? If later u swap for an all gold Rolex, how would u find that TAG ?