I've been an avid wood gun user for a long time. One of the main reasons for this is that I find chest loading very uncomfortable, and prefer a hip loading gun. A hip loading gun requires a butt extension which as a rule is not incorporated into pipe gun design.
Today I used the new Pursuit speargun, which has a shaft with two sharkfin tabs. I was surprised to have found a comfortable loading technique. I hip load the first band to the fist tab. It requires a little more time positioning the gun on the hip so it doesn't slip, with the handle angled along the groin, but it's not too bad. Now the 2nd band has always been the problem because it's that last 3" or so to the further tab that requires a range of motion that the muscles used in hip loading simply don't have. So what I did is load the 2nd band on the same tab as the first. Without removing the fingers from under the band, fingers held under the band with tension, I use this tension to raise the butt of the gun to the loading pad on my chest, and simply continue the loading motion to the last tab.
Obviously this would not be possible with a notched shaft, a shaft with small pins, or a shaft with mini sharkfin tabs, because you couldn't load two wishbones on one of those even temporarily. I was using this method all day today and I'm confident I can use a euro gun now provided the shaft uses sharkfin tabs. I realize this may be old news for some of you, but for me it's a sort of breakthrough.
