MAKO Spearguns - Poor quality made in China

Quote from Dan

Yep, the dude is so lame he even copied my name, and added an O at the end to pass it off as original.

for real out loud

Quote from Dan

Yep, the dude is so lame he even copied my name, and added an O at the end to pass it off as original.

Don

Quote from Dan

Yep, the dude is so lame he even copied my name, and added an O at the end to pass it off as original.

hahhahahhahahahhahahahha, you are a friggin genius

Now they are claiming to be "American built" http://spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=153213&page=2

American "assembled" maybe... Yeesh. I hate when companies lie about this. A double slap to American labor.
1) we don't use you
2) we pretend we do. Ouch

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I see a big difference between unethical or unscrupulous behavior and the same behavior that effects me personally. If I had been wronged by another company for doing something that is, at least dick, and at most illegal, I would be telling everyone about it.

Speaking of Mako wetsuits, I have a question.
I have two of their "old" style I guess., bought in 2010 I think A 1.5 and a 3 mm. The 1.5 has done something that I've never seen on any wetsuit I've owned. (maybe 12 or so?) The three hasn't had much water time. It isn't made for my body type and doesn't keep me warm enough.
the neoprene in the butt, back along the zipper and shoulders....just kind of dissolved. It's gone and you can see right through the cloth. I have some wetsuits much older than those hanging around with a lot more water time. They get kind of stiff and hard but the neoprene is still intact.
What the hell is that about?

Quote from Dan

American built LOL. Joe, post this link in that thread and see how long it lasts Taiwan Sports.

Ill ask him about it for sure
I'd really like for mako to be clear on this

The spearfishing business seems to be an ugly place. Everybody hates everybody else for doing crap they do themselves. This isn't Coke and Pepsi, Ford and Chevy. The market is much to small and margins much to low to give a crap about all this finger pointing and industry "exposure". My goodness, all this worry to shoot a few fish?

So I just wanted to add something here from a different perspective: So I can remember a few years back when Guy Skinner bought out JBL, I knew several people who said they were cheap or that guy is making products cheap, etc.. Personally I've had some great experiences with Guy Skinner, the price for his wetsuit and new trigger mech was "cheap" when it first came out, people hated on the camo, eventhough it worked great for me, or didn't like the new gun ( I did a few mods my own). Now I currently dive in Cressi 5mm, but I do have some Mako lycra tops for the summer that are awesome, I know a few people who dive in the Mako wetsuit and love it, no issues. I also use to work PT in a dive shop and can tell you that when Sporosub was going out of business before being bought out, the Sea Star mask has since been somewhat copied and renamed/rebranded by atleast 3 different Main line companies.. So all this talk about cheating and stealing...WTH..patents and show me how Dano "stole" 100% of the mask..How many masks out there in the market look VERY similar, but have small differences like rubber type, straps, etc.. I know a few Riffe, JBL, Mako, TechniSub, Mares, Oceanic, and Atomic masks throughout the years that have been awefully close to each other, but different enough to rename them. Now I will give credit to Mr MORI for the best design of a slip tip , EVER !!! Since then it has been somewhat changed by no offense but Darryl Wong and Dano. They are almost identical, my Mako tip is as good as my Mori. Now I haven't shot any of his guns, but no a few club members who love them. I have an arsenal of a few different name brands and when you look at how close several hybrids are to each other these days, ofcourse they borrowed some ideas from each other, and yeah it's pissed off some people, but that is kinda how the business has gone. Putting Freediving to the side, look at how scuba diving products are soo similar, minus that ones with True Patents like Suunto, ScubaPro, Cressi, etc; but then you have other products like masks/snorkels/fins/wetsuits that are extremely close to each other.

I've personally done business with Dano because he is a San Diego Freediver Club sponosor, he has sponsored several of our Blue Water Meets, and I've never had one complaint with his products. So please don't hate on Dano, just because you're pissed and do it relentlessly on a Forum, that's really not cool. Don't do business with him directly. Me personally, I know that guy has some mad freediving skills and he's a great guy to do business with. I love their fins and composite fiberglass blades, flopper shafts that I've bought for my Cressi Geronimo Pro 115 and for my Riffe Islander. The only product that I'm not crazy about are the socks..they work, but I got big ass feet and I F'up everything except Argos..BTW Omer are the worst offenders for freediving socks..but that's my opinion.

I don't own any floats by them, but a few of my dive buddies dive and have less problems with their Mako Floats than with my Sporosub Float, but I fix it and make it work, I don't go on a gripe fest like a lil baby. Tons of people outsource, maybe not all their products, or they need a starting point on their wetsuits, or trigger mechs, etc... you gotta look at these things with any Dive Product, no matter who the Manufacturer is:
a) Does it meet MY Standards?
b) Do I like doing business with you? Customer Service?
c) How easy is it to fix via phone hassle or DO IT MYSELF??( I really hate lazy people, BTW)
d) Just like any gun/speargun you buy, Do I like the trigger pull and does it effeciently kill stuff?
e) If not, how can I modify it to MAKE IT WORK for me?
f) Is this within my budget? ( Dude, I make decent money, but I have a wife that only works PT cause she's taking care of our 4 month old, 2 yr old is in Preschool and that ain't cheap, and step daughter too, so I can't just go drop 1 G or 2 on dive gear just because, especially when my wife dives too) Different people are on different budgets, so they do the BEST they can with what they got. Or they KNOW how to take ANY Product and make it better.

** If you are any experienced Freediver and you don't modify your own gear..WTH are you doing diving????

So instead of blaming the manufactorer, just do business with someone else. I give my business to various places for different things, local and online or at Scuba shows, if I think I'm gonna get a great deal on something. Our dive community is a pretty tight niche, just think we could treat ALL our people that make products for us in a better way. Just saying with my 2 cents, I've seen a lot of changes happen in the last 25+ years, companies come companies go.. I've seen a bunch of Chinese knock offs on a bunch of US stuff too., but once again look at a-f) and if they don't line up with your standards, buy your stuff elsewhere.

I don't know about their impropriety in dealing with patents, but the gun I bought from them when I was first starting out was poorly made and malfunctioned frequently. Now I have a gun I don't like, used for four months or so, and don't want to sell to unload a lemon on any poor unsuspecting newbie. I don't like bashing a company online but they took my hard earned money and sold me an inferior product.

Wow !!.... finally a fin a diver can just hide at the beach for the next dive.

Cheers, Don

They just announced new "high stretch wetsuits" and carbon fiber fins with aerospace grade carbon also. I shouldn't have bought my wetsuit from them (Velcro beaver tail is shitty) and instead ordered the speardiver ones. Ugh! A learning experience I suppose. Next one will be the red speardiver one. Gotta save my coins!

but Dan even tough i have never held a mako i have to say that people are learning . yesterday when i was testing my build i met a guy surf fishing and he told me that he and his friends are trying to get into spearfishing . they said that they were upset with the absolute crap that was ''affordable'' . when my dad and i were looking at buying the speargun [ before the build ] we did see some guns that looked like mako and the store owner said they were made in Italy and France [ absolute lies ] . they were so poorly built i would not load it once .there is a real gap in the market in terms of quality [ absolute crap then Riffe] but believe it or not the prices on the crap are around 75% that of a riffe . so the guys i spoke to said they were sort of stuck having to wait and save for a riffe , but i would admit that if i lived in the US i would buy something like your Speardiver Teak because even if you buy a shorter gun to learn on , that gun should be kept as a reef gun even after you graduate to blue water hunting . Dan keep on doing what your doing ., if people don't speak up about the lack of quality in the market things will never progress .. :thumbsup2: