Posts by kmo

Snapped this 7.5mm shaft at the base of the thread on Christmas Eve. Was my second fish shot with the shaft and weighed in at a little over 16kg gutted and gilled. Was a little too close to the fish and the gun was pushed back and split my chin open.
Swam back to the boat, collected my 90cm gun and luckily found the fish and finished the job.

PS For other Aussies - this is a Western Australian blue groper and we are legally allowed to shoot them here. It was my first one in several years and I've let a number of larger fish swim free in that time.

PSS Not a speardiver shaft

To satisfy my own curiosity, I just did some quick sums on this for a gun with a 1.4m stretched rubber length.
If the rubber holes are in the centre of the stock for an 80mm deep stock, the angle of pull is roughly 1.5degrees. Assuming 4 bands and 45kg force on each band (100lbs), thats a total of 4.8kg downward force. If you move the rubbers up 10mm, the angle is reduced to 1 degree, and the downward force comes down to 3.1kg.

A pretty big reduction percentage wise, but I'm not really sure what effect this will have on the spear or the feel of the recoil, which is where real world experience comes into it I shoot mainly a single 18mm rubber on a 1.2m railgun. 5kg vs 3kg would feel pretty different on an outstretched arm I would guess.

As the shaft moves down the stock the angles increase but the forces decrease, so I think at trigger pull would be worst case. I'd be interested to see in super slowmo at what point the wishbone loses contact with the shaft. I imagine it is pretty soon after release.

Thanks guys

Quote from Don Paul

You ever run into Barry Paxman and his kids on the west coast?

I used to dive quite a bit with Barry before I bought my own boat and see them all at Bluewater club meetings a bit. Barry really helped me out when I first started out and he is still a great spearo getting well into his 60s.

Thanks Don

Long time lurker, first time poster. Keen spearo from Perth, Western Australia with a small family and a small boat.The small family tend to keep the small boat drier than it used to be, but will post the odd report if I can get onto some decent fish.
Had the pleasure of meeting GR when he came over for the interpacs a few years ago, its good to see the occaisional photos of him on here smashing the big bluewater species.
Love reading the boat and gun build reports, and any dive reports from calico to marlin give me an urge to travel.
Cheers
Cam