America vs Australia: spearguns

    I am Australian and make spearguns.


    I have noticed that Americans prefer a much bulkier speargun and teak is by far the most popular.


    Of course conditions are different over here but the general trend is to laminate harder woods than teak and give them a two part hard finish. Also Americans seem to be alot more creative and artistic, some of your guns would be considered art work over here.:thumbsup2:


    I would love to send a few of my guns over to America to see what people think.


    If I were to try and get a few guns going in America what dimensions should I be going for.


    There is also a brand of reel made over here that I think would be very popular over in America so I might try and do a couple of reel guns aswell.


    Anyone can chime in and list their favourite gun maker/model/size or dimension. I would love to hear it and learn as your market is many many times bigger.


    Keep up the great work with the site and guns.

    Let me know I'll try one, I personally like a light gun with a deep open track around 57" rear handle plus with a self resetting line release and an inverted trigger.

    Not all Americans prefer bulky wood guns, this is mostly a west coast thing. You can see my preferred gun and the dimensions here http://spearfishing.world/spea…-made-a-new-speargun.html


    The sculpted "artistic" guns you speak of by their nature increase the size of the stock considerably. For this reason I stay away from them. The only production guns made to my preference as far as stock dimensions are the Riffe competitor series. These are good guns but have one major drawback, the handle.


    I'm all for another manufacturer stepping in and filling the gap. However it will be hard to compete with Riffe prices and at this point firm grip of the market.


    If you sell from Australia you will not do well here because shipping costs are too high, the number of competitors already making guns, and those trying to enter the American market. If you sell through a distributor, and I were said distributor, I would only buy the stocks, meaning the guns would be shipped without shaft/bands/bungee/mono. So you're looking at having to price competitively a piece of wood with a trigger. To compete with the other manufacturers this piece of wood would have to be teak, and would have to be laminated, and guaranteed for a few years.


    That said lets see some pics of your guns.

    Dan,
    What dimensions do you usually make your gun stocks?


    I dont make spearguns full time and dont intend on making it harder for those that do however I wouldnt mind getting a few of my smaller stocked guns out there for people to try.


    I will post pics asap.


    thanks

    Quote from Dan

    Not all Americans prefer bulky wood guns, this is mostly a west coast thing. You can see my preferred gun and the dimensions here http://spearfishing.world/spea…-made-a-new-speargun.html


    The sculpted "artistic" guns you speak of by their nature increase the size of the stock considerably. For this reason I stay away from them. The only production guns made to my preference as far as stock dimensions are the Riffe competitor series. These are good guns but have one major drawback, the handle.


    Like Dan, I prefer slimmer, rear-handled wooden guns. Being a west-coaster, I live in the epicenter of the massive, mid-handled wood gun culture, but I've just never liked them.


    My go-to gun is a Riffe Euro X, but with a hard finish that apparently is also liked by the Aussies.


    As far as artistic, sculpted guns go, I think the Europeans do that even more so than us. Case in point , Abellansub, et al.

    Alex

    The riffe euros are pretty popular over hear but alot of our diving is shore based so the oil finish gets scratched up alot hence why people like the hard finishes alot over here.


    I think the euros are pretty poorly made also. The wood is not great and the finish is poor. However they are a nice gun to use.

    Lunkerbuster that is what my own personal guns are.


    If using a 9/32" spear I do a 7mm deep track with the router after sanding it is around 7.5mm but then comes back to about 7mm deep after final finishing of the gun.


    I may be wrong but I feel it is more accurate than a shallow track and is less of a compromise as a enclosed track.


    For guns with more than 1 band I occasionally make the track deeper than the actual spear depth.

    Quote from luxemburg

    Dan,
    What dimensions do you usually make your gun stocks?

    I'm not a gun maker, I make a gun here and there because I can't get what I want another way. My preferred dimensions are of the gun in the link I posted.

    Quote from luxemburg

    I may be wrong but I feel it is more accurate than a shallow track and is less of a compromise as a enclosed track.

    What do you mean is less of a compromise?

    By less of a compromise I mean:


    1 an open track is faster to load than a fully enclosed track.
    2 open track is less costly than an enclosed track
    3 a bent spear can still be used in an open track.


    For a big tuna gun the enclosed track comes into its own however I was talking guns around the 1.1-1.3 mark for general spearfishing.

    My experience has been that an enclosed track gun is not slower to load, maybe even faster. Do you open the first few inches of the track?
    Open track is more expensive in the sense that the only guns on the market with an enclosed track are custom guns and therefore more expensive. But for me an enclosed track gun costs the same or maybe less to make than an open track, I save on the line guide.
    I wouldn't want to shoot a bent spear, I try to straighten a bent spear right away, loading a shaft into an enclosed track will give you a clear idea if a shaft is adequately straight.


    That said I like deep open tracks, for the power I like on my gun I don't think the enclosed track makes a difference in accuracy. What I like about it are the small details; eliminating the line quide, faster loading, some other things I can't remember :)

    LunkerBuster, I tried PMing you but it did not work.


    Do you have an email?


    thanks.

    Quote from luxemburg

    The riffe euros are pretty popular over hear but alot of our diving is shore based so the oil finish gets scratched up alot hence why people like the hard finishes alot over here.


    I think the euros are pretty poorly made also. The wood is not great and the finish is poor. However they are a nice gun to use.


    I am in agreement. Most of my diving is off of rocky shores, so an oil finish is not the best protection (or lack thereof). That's exactly why I did the hard finish.


    As far as quality of manufacturing, teak is a pretty soft wood with a high oil content, so A) it gets scratched easily and B) there is a tendency of the guns to delaminate. That is what happened to mine, but I caught it early, and the epoxy finish saved it. The gun is now about as perfect as it can get (for my own diving and hunting style that is) thanks to the increased stability and durability. However, if they made the euro series in padauk that would be very interesting...


    My other go-to gun is a carbon fiber Aimrite.


    Post pictures of your guns already! I think you've been lucky enough to find a forum with people with similar-enough tastes in spearguns.

    Alex

    Ryddragyn,


    I will post pics as soon as possible.


    I do a penetrating epoxy with a hard two part gloss over the top.
    The gloss is thick and self leveling which makes it easier to work with as well as scratch resistant and water proof.
    The penetrating epoxy stiffens the wood, seals it and gives the gloss a better surface to bond to.


    My go to gun is a slight variation of a riffe euro. It is made with hardwood and is carbon reinforced but is all scratched up now.

    Looking forward to seeing your guns luxemburg.


    The gun I shoot is a Andre 120 Euro. It is a deep open track rear handle gun. It is a slender gun with shaping that allows easy turning and tracking in the water.

    Quote from Dan

    Ben, I wouldn't call your Andre speargun slender, not by a stretch. It is precisely a west coast style gun.


    by slender i meant the height... as in the shape of it isn't just a block of wood that is square shaped. it has that shape to where it is slender in height

    I was having a problem with the way people are using descriptive words. Slender, meaning thin, can refer to height and width equally. Bens gun is very slim top to bottom. Maybe half the height of my Tito, but it is wider.
    I see the same in the Ruffe euros, not much mass from top to bottom but considerable width. I don't know of any production gun, other than maybe a Nile-tec that even focuses on reducing the mass of the stock in both dimensions.


    I always viewed it as another compromise we deal with, you need mass for strength and recoil but you also want to track smoothly throughout the movement of the gun underwater. So, reduce where you can in sticking with whatever works for your diving style.

    i like to spear fish

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