Looking for new gun

Makos are still nice guns despite what you read. I have two and they work fine, and kill plenty of fish. Plenty accurate. Barring that.... Id go with Rob allens next, or salvimar. Andrew at Nautilus spearfishing carries the salvimar guns.

Around here the Riffe #3 was a common step up from the Billers. You have a lot more options nowadays. I would look into building a gun.

I've owned two makos and while they will work, I think you'd be best off skipping the mako phase of life and getting a decent gun. I really like my speardiver gun http://spearfishing.store/30-spearguns and you could get the carbon one for well under your budget's max. Even though the biller's wood it is going to be more like a pipe gun in how it feels under water (in my experience after owning a biller and shooting multiple pipeguns and wood guns) so don't jump into a woodgun till you've used one for a day in the water. just my :twocents:

There are so many ways you can go and they are all a step up from where you are. You have a very good budget. I would suggest you borrow as many guns as you can from dive buddies and see what you like and don't.

I assume you don't like the billers slide ring and lack of power. All other guns will be better in those areas

I use rob Allen's. the speardiver guns are all great. Making your own guns is the best.

I just saw your welcome thread and see you are in south Florida. If we can meet up for a shore dive I will let you use my rob Allen and you can see if you like it.

Going from an hip loader to a chest loader is a big change too

I shoot a Speardiver carbon 120 and can't recommend it enough. At the same time I think the non carbon Speardiver pipegun is awesome for the price. Both are awesome guns and speardiver/spearfishing.store is local in Fort Lauderdale.

I had a Mako gun. it broke the first day. but the broken piece was cosmetic. so i used it for a while until I held a Speardiver 120. I immediately got one and I gave the mako to my dad. It could kill fish. but I find their handles (basically the heart of a pipegun) to be worthless thoughtless crap. Both in form and function. Everything else works but is meh.

I find Rob Allan's to be a bit too un ergonomic for my taste. I also like a butt for chest loading. But they otherwise seem like very solid guns.

one of the reasons i love this forum is because there are a lot of build threads that you should look at . everything taste better when it was harvested with your own build . i don't want to brown nose but the speardiver teak looks great , it has heavy duty hardware and is just within your budget . good luck .:thumbsup2:

I've never used a Mako so I can't say anything positive about them. I have used rob allen, speardiver, cressi, omer, beuchat and seac sub guns and I can tell you that I prefer the speardiver. It's built the way I want it from the get go with open muzzle, dyneema wishbone, 7 mm spear with the perfect overhang and it weights less than the rob allen so tracking is even easier. That being said I do agree with Lunker, try (in the water ) as many as you can get your hands on.

I've used RA, Omer, Sporasub, Beuchat, Picasso, Aimrite and Riffe. I prefer the RA over all of them. Built to last and kills fish. I wouldn't be comfortable using a Mako because I've heard of too many handles cracking. It's also odd that a lot of the used makos for sale have rust on the triggers... does that mean theres rust in the mech too?

To be fair, I have never used the Speardiver gun, but I would like to try one some day.

I've had the Speardiver alluminum in my hands and it feels very solid and well built.

Quote from ausspearo

. It's also odd that a lot of the used makos for sale have rust on the triggers... does that mean theres rust in the mech too?

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The predator pros have plastic triggers. Iconic and oceanic pros have metal triggers.. never seen rust on them but anything metal Ive used diving eventually gets some rust on it somewhere.