Posts by Guest

Yes, more pics please! And tell me more about the handle and trigger mech. Home made, or an adaptation of something else? I'm with Pargo, beautiful lines!

Any dive that ends with everyone safely back at the dock is a good one. Looks like a beautiful day.

Quote from pargo

One swallowed what I believe to be a big fish head that it couldn't get down so his throat looked like it was going to explode.

I have seen the blue herons around my parent's house eat some amazingly big fish. Even hardhead catfish, which seem like they would kill the birds. Funniest I ever saw, though, was a pelican trying to manage a big blue crab right at the shoreline. The pelican couldn't get a handle on the crab, and eventually dropped it, at which point the crab grabbed hold of the pelican's foot and wouldn't let go. Pelican take-offs aren't the most graceful events in any case, but watching one try to get airborne with a big crab latched to one foot left me rolling on the dock.

Just another weight mold.

I think it's human nature to bash a store with bad quality or service, so I think it's only fair to share a good experience as well.

I have ordered aluminum from www.onlinemetalsupply before, and found their prices to be better than anyone else's when I just want a small 2' or 4' section of something. Saturday morning I ordered some aluminum bar for a project, but Saturday afternoon, I discovered that I already had a piece that would work. I called their 1-800 number first thing Monday to see if I could cancel the order, but wasn't optimistic.

To my surprise, a real person (a very POLITE lady named "Diane") answered the phone on the second ring. Not only did she say that I could cancel my order, but when I asked if there was any sort of penalty or"restocking fee", she sounded like that was the silliest thing she had ever heard. She added that I should have the money back in my Paypal account before lunch, and true to her word, I got my refund in less than an hour.

I haven't really compared the prices on stainless steel or the other materials they carry (even some titanium and plastic), but their aluminum is around half the price from McMaster.

Edit - Dan - I put this in "General Spearfishing" because the materials they carry are relevant to building guns or other stuff, but feel free to move it to "off topic" if you prefer.

You are right about the ballast.

I like to add just enough lead so that the gun will just float with the shaft out (with a reel added if appropriate). To me that's a no brainer - there's no way around F=MA. In dealing with recoil more mass is your friend.

I don't disagree about the open track for shooting under rocks.

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I'm very interested to see how it turns out! Are you going to temporarily plug the slot with paydough or clay, or coat the inside slot surfaces as well? You mentioned that the plasti-dip needs to totally encapsulate the object, but is that also true of the Herculiner?

Right. I just thought that the "appropriate" materials might be cheaper and easier to stash in an emergency bag than a solar still.

In the book "Adrift", the author mentions that an enema can be used to absorb water that is otherwise undrinkable. But I think he was referring to "undrinkable" in terms of dirty, or unsterilized. I don't know if the technique would work for salt water.

I think that the concentration of salt in seawater is about 35 parts per thousand by weight. Water is 1000 g/l, so if you drink 2 litres of water a day, you would consume about 70 g of salt per day. A quick google search says that the recommended daily allowance of salt is 2.7 to 3.0 grams per day, so you will be consuming around 25 times the suggested daily allowance.

Sounds unwise to me.

I must admit, the slip tube seems flawed to me, but I've never used it. You have a long cylinder (the tube) slipped over a considerable length of cylindrical shaft. If that fit is too tight, then the tube would not easily slide off. Unlike the tapered adapters on blue water tips, the cylinder over cylinder doesn't get any looser as it moves.

If that tube is too loose, then the open end will get fish scales and guts jammed in it . . . and not slide off.

You also have a line attachment point welded to a thin walled tube. This seems to me like it would have a high likelyhood of deforming the thin tube in the area of the weld and again . . . not slide off.

In the pictures that I have seen, I don't think the tube had a little prong or wing to catch on the backside of the fish and help it deploy, so I would be worried that it would pull right back through the hole in the fish.

But as I said, I've never used one, so maybe they work fine. I don't understand how a bumblebee stays airborne either, but they do.

I have in fact shot fish with a busted tip. What would make me cry, were I using a $90 slip tip, isn't the knowledge that I have dulled the point, but knowing that I may have damaged the fit of the adapter and tip to to the extend that it won't work properly. Or that it is bent and causes the shaft to be inaccurate.

My ideal slip tip would be:

Robust enough to survive reef / wreck impacts
Have a replaceable point, like those above
Be easy to replace the spectra or cable rigging
Be inexpensive enough that I won't hesitate to shoot down into a wreck, knowing that I may lose the tip.

I don't know if the artwork of Mori and Kitto and others can be improved much for a blue water tip. If I were paying lots of money to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, where I might only get a single shot at a trophy fish, I would absolutely want the best.

I'm just hoping to come up with something for my own day to day wreck diving, that won't make me cry like a little girl when I hear the tip clang up against a concrete culvert.

I disagree.

I have an enclosed track hybrid that I shoot all the time with 4 - 5/8" bands using a 5/16" shaft. It shoots like a dream. I took 3 wahoo with the first 3 trigger pulls. A friend who had never used it before was shooting cudas for chum when a small yellowfin came zipping through between him and the rig. The fish was about 20 feet away. He spun the gun and pulled the trigger hitting the fish mid body. My point is you don't have to "learn" to shoot accurately with this gun. I attribute much of it to the fully enlcosed track, which also has the added advantage of bringing the plane of the shaft down closer to the handle. This reduces the vertical component of the recoil, enhancing the accuracy.

In addition, the enclosed track is very nice if you ever want to freeshaft with the gun. Growing up in the Keys, we did it all the time, while freediving in shallow water.

No, I just didn't have shafts in them when I stuck them in the holder.

I bought some of these to play around with making my own slip tips. On the far right is a standard "Muzzy" brand broadhead arrow tip, with a 9/32" OD and a #12-28 tpi (threads per inch) internal thread. I recently found the two larger tips. The middle one is a Muzzy brand bowfishing arrow tip. It's 5/16" OD, with a 1/4"-28 tpi internal thread. The one on the far left is a "Cajun Jackhammer" bowfishing tip. It's also 5/16" OD with a 1/4"-28tpi internal thread. All of these are very hard, with the Cajun Jackhammer advertised as being a 50 on the Rockwell "C" hardness scale. 17-4 stainless shafts are usually about a 44, and the Rob Allen shafts about a 47 on that same scale. They all run about $2.00 each.

They almost fit a 6mm thread (argh!). The 1/4" diameter is close enough to work, but the 28 tpi threads are just a little too far off of the 1.0 mm metric pitch threads to fit.

Anyway, the larger tips were news to me. Those Jackhammer tips seem perfect for reef hunting, so maybe someone out there can figure out a clever way to use them.

VERY good guns!!! They are well thought out, with input from a group of solid freedivers.

Yep, me too. I use a ski/snowboard bag that I got from a ski shop at the end of the ski season for $35. Had it for years.

Yep, I keep forgetting that most guns are a whole bunch longer than what I usually use.

I agree that while keeping caps on all spears is a good idea, it isn't practical in most cases. The only time I've heard of it being done is when your diving out of a boat with inflatable sides. Suddenly the PITA factor goes down a bunch.

Thanks for posting the story of your friends accident. I feel pretty good about the placement of a vertical holder in my boat since it's not in a location where anyone should be above it at any time. Also, the dividers make a huge difference in not allowing the guns to lean.

I used it once before without the dividers and will not do that again.

While I like the concept of the upside down holder, I just don't see it working for a 65" tuna gun.

What keeps the weight of the gun from resting on the spear tip? If the handle is supported by the top tube, then how would you accomodate guns of different lengths?