speargun advice needed and would be highly appreciated

[Big Bad Brown]

i am in the us army currently deployed in Afghanistan and hopefully will be back to the great waters of Hawaii soon. i am a newbie to spearfishing but have done a little with a cheap pole spear from Walmart before and i got hooked! i have been trying to do a lot of research on all the big speargun brands i.e. omer, riffe, jbl, mares, mako, cressi, and a few others. i am having a pretty hard time deciding which to get. i want around a 110-130 cm non-wood preferably with 2 bands and a reel in the hopes it can be somewhat of an all-around speargun, also i would like a floating speargun. but i have heard of some defects in a few of them. first the jbl magnum 55" has a loading issue that requires the shaft needing extra force for it to click, the omer cayman e.t. camu 3d has the noisy metal wishbones of course but also in order to load a second band without the shaft shooting off the second you let go of it you apparently have to jam it into the trigger mechanism which i highly doubt is good for it. also the mares phantom v carbon fiber has a barrel bowing when 2 bands are applied, and info on the viper pro is hard to find. i haven't heard hardly anything bad about mako, rob allen, cressi, and i haven't heard anything at all about ocean rhino. the only thing i have heard about hammer head is the red bands scare fish. also is there really a noticeable difference in barrels with an enclosed track and ones without? i'm sorry for the long post but i am really hurting here lol. please give me as much info as possible, thank you very much for your time and thoughts. i already posted this in the new section but but would like to better my chances of advice by posting it here

 

[giericd]

hey man, thanks for serving, i was in from sep-2001 to sep 2006. I too got bit by the spearfishing bug when i came home on leave for the first time. i started with a pole spear and moved up to a 2 band JBL 38special. it was too small for anything big but was deadly on small snapper. i then got a seahornet wood gun that is about 48-52" long 3 bands a cannon but couldnt hit anything with it. even with 3 bands the shaft was super slow. i has large snapper 3' infront of the tip and when they heard the trigger click they darted off before the spear reached them. I researched for months on what gun to buy. i ended up going to Miami and bought the Omer cayman 3D camu with the large reel. on a lot of sites guys were recomending 110cm-130cm length but you would be supprised how long the 100cm gun is! i ended up getting the 100cm and if it was any longer it would be hard to load (i'm 6'6"). i took it to the keys and let me tell you i love this gun!!! it shoots like a lazer! lightning fast and pinpoint accuracy with good range. i blasted dozens of snapper, grouper that were on the run, grouper under rocks and in deep cracks. once i got used to the open muzzle design which was frustrating at first i was reloading fast. dont worry about the one band it is a perfect balance of band power and shaft weight/shaft drag and it is super fast and hits with enough punch that the shaft went through most of the fish i shot that were 10' away and they were spinning on the line. i too was very nervous of the metal wish bone as far as safety and noise not to mention sctatching up the gun. i dont care what gun you shoot you will allways hear the bands make that pop when you shoot when the wish bone is on the shaft it doesnt move and is silent. one thing i like about it is how it is neutral in the water. let it go it it just sits there, if you place it on the bottom it will just sit there so you can work a lobster out of its hole. once fired if you let the gun go it floats. the cuttle fish design makes a huge difference in sweeping the gun from side to side with little effort since there is very little drag, you will lose less fish since you can get on target much faster. i wouldnt trade my gun for any other on the market, the 100cm is a do all gun around a reef and i'll be an Omer customer for life after seeing the quality and workmanship of their guns. Hope this helped. stay safe, and god speed! Whooa!

 

[Big Bad Brown]

yeah i cant wait to get back! what was your mos? and thanks for the advice man, its actually really helpful. i have limited it down to either mako or omer. they're almost identical with the exception of omer's cuttle fish design for about $100's more and better camo. idk it might be a tuff decision but i still got a couple of months to decide

 

[giericd]

I was an MP, joined 0ct 16th 2001 (great timing! lol) and got out oct 2006. of my 5 years in i spent 4 1/2 over seas, at least i got to see the world right. I think you are right on track with your selection. I had alot of speros pushing me tward the Mako, but decided against it. To me it appears that all wood guns are pretty much the same shape, all tube guns are the same shape, what makes one that much better than the next? Better muzzle? Better grip and trigger? But they are all cookie cutters of eachouther. No serious spero is using JBL but other than a diffrent muzzle and trigger/grip assembly they are pretty much the same, ok the Mako probably has a little thicker aluminum tube which makes it a little stiffer hence more accurate. I didn't want a gun that they just cut the tube at different lengths, slap a muzzle and grip on it and sell it. To me Omer really was thinking out side the box of traditional guns and put a lot of thought in to their cuttlefish design.They tried to do something different at the highest quality possible, let me tell you they made a piece of art! When i first picked it up off the shelf i was amazed at how high quality it felt! Super stiff, balanced very well, the 3D camo was awesome and just by touching it the camo even felt thick. after a week in the florida keys spearing/lobstering for about 15 hours a day i only got a few light scratches on the gun and it was from the shaft end rubbing the camo as i tried to quickly reload, totaly my fault. other than that i draged it across rocks under rocks and not a scratch from that. I usually hunt smaller snapper up to about 18" is what we find on the shallow reef and grouper up to 26". fish these size at 10' from the spear tip is a sure thing with the 100cm Omer! for bigger fish i would want a thicker shaft, and if you are looking for longer shots then free shaft/ move up to a longer gun. i'm sure my 100cm would drill a snapper at 15' if i was free shafting but i don't want to loose the spear so it stays tightly secured with the shock coard/reel! Keep your a** down and your head even lower! be safe!

 

[Pinoy Sniper]

When I started spearfishing in the 80s, I made do with an aluminum gun, an Arbalete or JBL, I think. When we needed a longer gun, we made our own aluminum stocks, adjusted our bands accordingly as well as the shafts. Later on and having prospered a little, I was able to get a second hand woodgun - a Riffe Standard No. 3. It was a huge step up and I never went back to an aluminum gun. My current gun is a slimmer but longer version - a Riffe Competitor No. 3. The wishbones of the bands are high-strength Dacron lines and the whole set up works as advertised - "The Silent Hunter". These guns too can be modified.

I am sure aluminum guns now work just as well. Riffe is making aluminum guns now too. But I am too old to change, I guess. Here are some photos of the Riffe I am using:

Pinoy Sniper

 

[spar]

i am using triton invert roller 100
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ekfv1Q-ig"]TRITON ROLLER - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Big Bad Brown]

thanks for the info everyone. and giericd im sorry u spent soo much time over here but i am thankful for it. im aviation so its not so rough lol. and yeah im going to go with the omer. it seems to be the best choice, at least for me

 

[spar]

thanks for the info everyone. and giericd im sorry u spent soo much time over here but i am thankful for it. im aviation so its not so rough lol. and yeah im going to go with the omer. it seems to be the best choice, at least for me

you can use omer cayman et 3d camo, i have of 115 cm

 

[Bill McIntyre]

Or you could always use a gun made in Hawaii by a Hawaiian who dives in Hawaii, Daryl Wong.

 

[giericd]

Pinoy Sniper, looks like you have a nice set up there! Daryl Wong guns are awesome too but cost a lot like the Rob Allens, i would love to wake up Christmas day to find one under the tree! Big Bad Brown, you will be happy with your choice I'm sure. I looked in to the Omer ET and almost got it, the 115cm camo ET was on sale about $100 less than the 100cm camo Camen HF. the enclosed tracts are supposed to be more accurate, but i had a few concerns with it for my style of spearing so i didn't get it. if you will be doing open water or all ways taking shots at 1 1/2 spear lengths away or more it could be a good choice. if you ever try to shoot a fish under the rocks like we do all the time in the florida keys some times there is only inches from spear tip to the fish. with an open track that is ok, with an enclosed track the shark fins can damage the track doing that. also if you slightly bend a shaft with open track you can do your best to bend it back and keep spearing with an enclosed track you are done. also the price tag of shark fin shafts were quite a bit more than a regular shaft. i do like the muzzle on the Omer ET better than the one on the HF though. guns are like sneakers you get what you pay for, some are better suited for one thing and not for others, and every one prefers some thing different. if you are going with Omer i would strongly recoment the HF (open track) if you are looking for a do every thing gun. you can use it in open water and shoot in to holes in the reef and is very quick to reload, if you will be doing mostly open water and never plan on doing close up shots the Omer ET might be the way to go since it has a little more accuracy and range but it takes a little longer to load than the open track/open muzzle design. check out diversdiscountflorida.com they have decent prices $319 for the HF 3D camo 100cm