wooden guns - JBL

[portinfer]

Hey, I have been using a cheapo aluminium gun for a while and have been looking at the wooden guns.
The Riffe cost too much for me, has anyone used a JBL Woody Magnum or Sawed Off Magnum ?

Do you like it ?

Is it too powerful, not powerful enough ? Any good points / bad points ?

Thanks if you can help. Ed

 

[ebusso]

power, range, kind of fish

Hi there... your case seems a lot like mine. I had a small cavalero, got some fish but lost a lot more. I upgraded to a JBL Competition Magnum, could not afford the Magnum XHD. I a pretty happy with my gun: pro's: extremely tough, seems like it will last a life time. con's: noisy, and lacking power and range, although I got a 17 kg Cubera Snapper.

I depends on the kind of fishing you want to do, the conditions, and your prefferences, most of my friends have european style guns, Sporasub Viper, Beauchat, etc, they are great, light and manuavarable, just a little difficult to cock, with only one big sling. Another problem they have is that they keep loosing shafts, but I guess you just have to keep checking your line for wear. Price wise they are much cheaper than the american ones including all the accesories and parts.

I just bought a used Riffe Metal tech M4 from a friend for $280 and it is a different story. Today I got a huge milk fish, must of been at least 20 kg, lost it at the end because of my mistake trying to drive the shaft through with my hands instead of just keep pulling... well it was the first day I used it. It has much more power and range, but hey I will keep my JBL for around the rocks or cave hunting...

So in the end it amounts to the fish you are interesting in getting and the amount of money you have.

I hope I have been of some help, bye

 

[icarus pacific]

That's a whole bunch of help, ebusso. Nice job. Very correct in that you need to look at your intended usage.

Keeping an aluminum barreled gun in one piece is only slightly harder than a wooden barreled gun. Both need to be rinsed and you'll need to keep an eye on where there is a stainless fastener going through the aluminum barrel as this is where the electrolysis forms causing gun rot. With wood you still need to rinse it and keep the thing stored properly so it doesn't take a sag or bow and oil it. With either gun, you'll need to keep up on the trigger but that's more a matter of self preservation than anything.

Riffe's a sold on ebay from a couple of vendors routinely so give it look. JBL's are also very common there and often go for a song. Good luck.