Thx for your answer :) Indeed my version of the gun needs a proper adjustment, actually I was about to sell it because I wasn't happy at all. But as a matter of fact I'm leaving very spontaneously to Tonga in 7 days, so I have no possibility of testing any equipment or buying a new gun etc. I will take this gun with me despite the fact of me having so many problems with it... Indeed I agree with you, making the rubbers and loading is just a big hassle for tied dyneema. On top the biggest problem of the mechanism not shooting when under tension is a nightmare, lost so many fish because of this... I use a snubber release to partly fix this problem. Your posts were really helpful, as the mass of my special edition is anyway much bigger than the standard version, I think that putting an evacuated pipe in the middle for buoyancy will be a good idea... I will actually rely for this trip on three 180cm 8mm spears with 3x14.5smallIDs and one 8.7mm spear with 4x14.5mm smallIDs, all at 365%... Again this setup is not tested, it is based on your tests and my experience with my other guns (the fact that I take those 8mm spears is simply because they are lying around in my house :)). This should be a good setup, what do you reckon?
+Jario Luigi Martens I think 180cm shaft is just too long for the OB 125, the extra over hang will cause the shots to go very low. Better is to use a shorter stiffer shaft like a 160cm shaft and if you want more power than 8mm you can go to 8.5mm. I tried many many different setups and the one in the video gives you the best performance with excellent accuracy. If you add too much power you could cause too many oscillations in the shaft flight which will actually give you less power down range as the shaft will not fly efficiently. 4 x 14.5mm will give you very poor results as it will have too much recoil ... and again will affect shaft flight and accuracy. Much better is to keep 3 x 14.5mm bands, even with 8.7mm shaft. Just reduce the length from 180cm to 160cm.
+majdq8 Indeed I agree to all your points, BUT, I only mentioned in a earlier post, which was my answer to Jseb011 . I got the OB 145 Special Edition, with higher mass bigger volume etc. A 160 spear will just not work:-( Sorry for the confusion :-) So what do you think about my proposed setup for that gun :-) I know its bad to answer on the same question again, but a 125 Oceanborg vs a 145 Oceanborn Special Edition, is like two different guns I reckon:-) By the way, me to I tend to minimize overhang as much as possible, but on the 145 a 180 shaft is actually already short:-)
+Jario Luigi Martens I did try the OB 145 for a short while but unfortunately I did not have enough time to get good results. It was setup with 4 x 16mm and an 8mm @ 190cm and 185cm shaft and it shot terrible. I tried also 3 x 16mm and was not very good. If I were to choose a setup for that gun it would probably be the shortest shaft I could find @ 8.5mm ... maybe 170 or 175cm @ 8.5mm ... with 3 x 14.5mm small ID bands with 360% stretch. The longer shaft is heavier, but you also have 20cm extra band stretch, which is a lot.
+majdq8 Indeed, your experience is right. In my opinion no matter which gun you use, after 120cm it gets only worse... Very difficult to setup the guns and the long shaft makes things worse... I will go for some of your proposed setups, 8.5mm 175 spear :) 3 bands with 365 percent and see how it performs :) I will let you know ones I find a good setup...
+Jario Luigi Martens Thanks Jario for the link! You are right, we have the same gun, except yours is OT and mine is ET. I did a bit of pool testing last year and having 4x16mn RA bands at 360% strech was essentially too much for a 180cm/8mm shaft and the accuracy was pretty random due to the recoil. I then downsized to 3x16mm RA bands which gave decent results. Though this was in a pool (no loss of power due to depth/pressure), but I was also happy with the shots at sea. This year I will try 3x16mm sigalsub extreme and 190cm/8mm/double-barb shaft (hence slightly longer than before), 360% strech, I will update on how it performs as well. Cheers
No I haven't ... although I did shoot one once. It was probably not setup well and had very high recoil. I would need to test it in the pool to figure out the best setup ... but for sure 20cm extra of band stretch would be a lot of extra power. My guess is a very good setup would be 3 x 14.5mm bands and a 180cm @ 8.5mm shaft.
ehab mohamed Should work well, but I find that you get better performance with thinner bands and higher stretch. You get a longer distance of band pushing the shaft, so the shaft goes out smoother with better velocity. Also the reduced weight of the bands means less recoil and thus better accuracy.
i am confused...which gun is more accurate:raptor 115(your best setup) or ocean born 125 with 2x14.5 sigalsub bands small id with sigalsub shaft 160 cm 7.5 mm
+Ivan Ivanic Both are equally accurate when properly setup but the OB 125 has about 10cm extra band stretch and can take 10cm longer shaft (which has more mass and thus more power). I do think a Raptor 125 would perform equal to an OB 125.
Even a 7mm shaft @ 160cm will shoot accurately on the OB if you reduce the load so that the shaft will not whip. Accuracy is equal on the 7.5mm or the 8mm, but of course the 8mm is much more powerful and better for larger fish.
Hi maj, can you do any tests to record the shaft velocity with different setups? A setup might have great penetrating power, but what if it is too slow to reach the fish in time?
I have a few other tests I am doing. The C4 I had some problems with how the bands are held in the muzzle and wanted to change that as I felt that was not optimal. Also the trigger uses a polynesian line release and I decided to change that to a new trigger with side line release. Also decided to test the gun with a new 8.5mm @ 160cm shaft to test maximum performance. Hopefully soon.
Hi Jseb011 , you can find hunt shafts on the following website...shop.deepbluesub.com/IT/Categoria.aspx?Z=ZONAPRODOTTI&C=184 I think you got the OB Limited Edition, as it is exactly the same as Im using, but I got the open track... @ majdq8, what do you think of the OB when the bands are attached on front of the barrel via Dyneema, instead of having circular bands, as you can see on this link, its the picture on the lower left (www.bleutec.eu/en/speargunsaaccessories/spearguns/item/230-oceanborn_se.html). As well I must admit, my gun has kind of a ballasting system which fills up with water, it makes the gun terribly heavy, I think I will put a small evacuated pipe inside in order to add some buoyancy, I don't think this will have bad impact on recoil...
+Jario Luigi Martens The idea of using dyneema tied to the front is in theory to reduce felt recoil. I find it really is too much hassle as the bands go all over the place and your chances of getting a band tangle are much higher ... no need for that as the gun in video setup is very controllable and accurate. As for ballasting ... yes that is very important ... a heavy gun might help absorb recoil better but it is hell on water to swim with if you go deep or even just swimming around for a long time. I don't believe in water ballasting at all for those reasons. Again if the gun is controllable and accurate and has enough power, no need to fix anything.
Hello and thank you for all these reviews, very interesting! I was wondering what would be your set-up recommendation for a 145cm Oceanborn Limited Edition (ie thicker barrel) with enclosed track. I removed the Bluetec original bands straight away as they are too long/poor quality and used the gun last October with 180cm 8mm spear single barb and 3x16mm Rob Allen bands (set at 3.5x extension coeff) which gave decent results but I felt I could have slightly more power on the longer shots for less spear drop... This year, I am moving to 190cm 8mm DOUBLE barbs spears (a bit heavier/longer/less streamlined), so I was considering using 3x18mm Rob Allen (or 3xRiffe Gorilla 19mm). On the other hand, I see that the sigalsub bands you are using seem pretty high performance (ie this test above with 3x14mm bands for 160cm/8mm spear) so perhaps I could use 3x16mm sigalsub extreme (or even 17.5mm given the enclosed track). Look forward to hearing your thoughts! Thank you
Jseb011 The Sigalsub 14.5mm are extremely powerful and probably more powerful than most 16mm bands. They seem to be made by Primeline and you should realize a difference between the small ID bands from Primeline and Sigalsub or Hunt etc... Although the formulation might be the same the diameters of the Primeline bands can change from batch to batch. I think for your 145 OB, a good setup would be 3 x 14.5mm Sigalsub at 350% or 360% (if you can pull that). I would go with a thicker shaft like a Hunt 8.5mm @ 175mm or 180mm. An 8mm shaft might not perform well as @ 180cm as it is very long and might oscillate. Too many oscillations rob you of shaft velocity and adding more band power only makes things worse. Try 3 x 14.5mm Sigalsub Extreme at 350% or 360% stretch using an 8.5mm shaft from Hunt ... I think you will be very happy with results ;)
Jseb011 Ahhh ... just realized that you have an ET on your OB. I didn't realize they made it that way. An ET is terrible for shaft velocity as the friction of the track totally destroys velocity. I would recommend you open up the track from top and try and keep it Open Track. ET guns are good in some cases and they can fix a lot of errors in a poorly designed gun. The OB is very well designed and doesn't need it and the ET actually hurts its performance.
majdq8 Thank you for the feedback - the point of the ET though is to be able to increase the power without having these oscillations you are referring to... Agree that you lose a bit of shaft speed but that is supposed to come with zero oscillation and you can compensate the loss of speed from friction by bumping power up. A lot of the multi-bands (>=3) bluewater guns have ET these days, if I'm not mistaken... I can see 2 types of sigalsub bands, would you mind clarifying if you are referring to the "Extreme" (black rubber) or "Reactive Evo" (amber rubber) please? All the best. www.spearfishing.de/product_info.php?info=p1133_Rubber-Sigalsub-Extreme---14-5-16-17-5-mm-.html www.spearfishing.de/product_info.php?info=p1233_Rubber-Sigalsub-Reactive-EVO---14-5-16-17-5-mm-.html
The Sigalsub Extreme bands I am uing are the Black Sigalsub Extreme. Also good is the Hunt (which I think is Alemmani) small ID 14.5mm bands red + amber inside ... but the Hunt are a little softer and should go up to 380% stretch. With regards to ET ... if you had asked me 2 years ago, I would have told you I would not shoot any gun unless it was ET. But in testing I found that it ET causes way too much sacrifice in velocity ... even in best and straightest shaft, there is almost 30% to 40% drop in velocity. The penetration results on target were terrible in testing. That means to get equivalent performance you need to add more than one or 2 bands of power to compensate for losses caused by friction. More bands mean more recoil and less accuracy unless you add a ton of ballast to the gun. The OB is a relatively light gun for 4 or 5 bands and recoil would be terrible with 5 bands. I think a 5 band ET might even have less performance than a 3 banded OT gun with exactly same setup. If you can keep shaft oscillations in check and keep the track open then you need much less band load for equivalent performance. Check out this video of an Abellan Denton 130 test with only 3 bands @ 14.5mm pushing a heavy 8.5mm @ 160cm shaft and 130cm band stretch (730 grams of mass). The OB 145 probably has 155cm of band stretch and I would think even 2 x 14.5mm bands would easily be enough to push a 180cm @ 8mm shaft (also 730 grams of mass) to its terminal velocity while dramatically reducing recoil. Even with only 2 x 14.5mm bands the Denton 130 performance pushing a 730gr shaft is remarkable. I have 5 banded bleu water ET guns that can't get anywhere near the performance of the Denton 130 in the video. Trust me on that. Here is the test with Denton 130 ruclips.net/video/KYFTrQPOk0Y/видео.html
majdq8 Thanks a lot for all the info, really appreciated! It is true that you can be capped by recoil on these mid-weight guns... I guess I'll have to get a new one again :-)
@majdq8 Can the Oceanborn mech take spears that have the mono going into them (Like most euro type spearguns) or does the mono have to go through the shark fin? Which type of spear would you suggest?
+Eckart Benkenstein I feel best is connection to the shark fin as when you fire the gun the line goes behind the shark fin and hides behind the hydrodynamic flow and will not hurt accuracy. If you mean connection to the shaft as in the back of shaft, I don't like that too much as the mono can be damaged when you force the shooting line into the mech. If doing a back end shaft connection, then a good idea is to tie a small "O" with spectra and have that in the mech and tie your shooting line to it. Spectra is much more resistant to chaffing than mono.
Thx for your answer :) Indeed my version of the gun needs a proper adjustment, actually I was about to sell it because I wasn't happy at all. But as a matter of fact I'm leaving very spontaneously to Tonga in 7 days, so I have no possibility of testing any equipment or buying a new gun etc.
I will take this gun with me despite the fact of me having so many problems with it...
Indeed I agree with you, making the rubbers and loading is just a big hassle for tied dyneema.
On top the biggest problem of the mechanism not shooting when under tension is a nightmare, lost so many fish because of this...
I use a snubber release to partly fix this problem.
Your posts were really helpful, as the mass of my special edition is anyway much bigger than the standard version, I think that putting an evacuated pipe in the middle for buoyancy will be a good idea...
I will actually rely for this trip on three 180cm 8mm spears with 3x14.5smallIDs
and one 8.7mm spear with 4x14.5mm smallIDs, all at 365%...
Again this setup is not tested, it is based on your tests and my experience with my other guns (the fact that I take those 8mm spears is simply because they are lying around in my house :)).
This should be a good setup, what do you reckon?
+Jario Luigi Martens I think 180cm shaft is just too long for the OB 125, the extra over hang will cause the shots to go very low. Better is to use a shorter stiffer shaft like a 160cm shaft and if you want more power than 8mm you can go to 8.5mm. I tried many many different setups and the one in the video gives you the best performance with excellent accuracy. If you add too much power you could cause too many oscillations in the shaft flight which will actually give you less power down range as the shaft will not fly efficiently. 4 x 14.5mm will give you very poor results as it will have too much recoil ... and again will affect shaft flight and accuracy. Much better is to keep 3 x 14.5mm bands, even with 8.7mm shaft. Just reduce the length from 180cm to 160cm.
+majdq8 Indeed I agree to all your points, BUT, I only mentioned in a earlier post, which was my answer to Jseb011 .
I got the OB 145 Special Edition, with higher mass bigger volume etc. A 160 spear will just not work:-(
Sorry for the confusion :-)
So what do you think about my proposed setup for that gun :-) I know its bad to answer on the same question again, but a 125 Oceanborg vs a 145 Oceanborn Special Edition, is like two different guns I reckon:-)
By the way, me to I tend to minimize overhang as much as possible, but on the 145 a 180 shaft is actually already short:-)
+Jario Luigi Martens I did try the OB 145 for a short while but unfortunately I did not have enough time to get good results. It was setup with 4 x 16mm and an 8mm @ 190cm and 185cm shaft and it shot terrible. I tried also 3 x 16mm and was not very good. If I were to choose a setup for that gun it would probably be the shortest shaft I could find @ 8.5mm ... maybe 170 or 175cm @ 8.5mm ... with 3 x 14.5mm small ID bands with 360% stretch. The longer shaft is heavier, but you also have 20cm extra band stretch, which is a lot.
+majdq8 Indeed, your experience is right. In my opinion no matter which gun you use, after 120cm it gets only worse... Very difficult to setup the guns and the long shaft makes things worse... I will go for some of your proposed setups, 8.5mm 175 spear :) 3 bands with 365 percent and see how it performs :) I will let you know ones I find a good setup...
+Jario Luigi Martens Thanks Jario for the link! You are right, we have the same gun, except yours is OT and mine is ET.
I did a bit of pool testing last year and having 4x16mn RA bands at 360% strech was essentially too much for a 180cm/8mm shaft and the accuracy was pretty random due to the recoil. I then downsized to 3x16mm RA bands which gave decent results. Though this was in a pool (no loss of power due to depth/pressure), but I was also happy with the shots at sea. This year I will try 3x16mm sigalsub extreme and 190cm/8mm/double-barb shaft (hence slightly longer than before), 360% strech, I will update on how it performs as well. Cheers
awesome can't wait. sounds like the set-up will be 2x14.5 sigalsub cut @ 360% with 7.5mm shaft sigalsub @ 160 :)
+Ayman Abdin The C4 once setup properly can take 3 x 14.5mm no problems and shoot an 8.5mm shaft.
wow sounds promising, should get mine in a week time, will wait for your setup recommendation :D
My setup is major modification, including a new C4 trigger. Maybe yours comes already with the new trigger. But I also modified the muzzle and handle.
Have you tested OB 145 ?
No I haven't ... although I did shoot one once. It was probably not setup well and had very high recoil. I would need to test it in the pool to figure out the best setup ... but for sure 20cm extra of band stretch would be a lot of extra power. My guess is a very good setup would be 3 x 14.5mm bands and a 180cm @ 8.5mm shaft.
The gun is neutral with shaft diameter 8 ??
what about 2*16 mm bands small id prime line at 330% with 8mm*160 cm shaft
ehab mohamed Should work well, but I find that you get better performance with thinner bands and higher stretch. You get a longer distance of band pushing the shaft, so the shaft goes out smoother with better velocity. Also the reduced weight of the bands means less recoil and thus better accuracy.
i am confused...which gun is more accurate:raptor 115(your best setup) or ocean born 125 with 2x14.5 sigalsub bands small id with sigalsub shaft 160 cm 7.5 mm
+Ivan Ivanic Both are equally accurate when properly setup but the OB 125 has about 10cm extra band stretch and can take 10cm longer shaft (which has more mass and thus more power). I do think a Raptor 125 would perform equal to an OB 125.
+majdq8 when i want better accuracy with OB 125 then is better 7.5 mm as 8 mm?
Even a 7mm shaft @ 160cm will shoot accurately on the OB if you reduce the load so that the shaft will not whip. Accuracy is equal on the 7.5mm or the 8mm, but of course the 8mm is much more powerful and better for larger fish.
Hi maj, can you do any tests to record the shaft velocity with different setups? A setup might have great penetrating power, but what if it is too slow to reach the fish in time?
The velocity test is measured by the drop you see at 6m. Faster it shoots the flatter it shoots
Majdq8, have you ever tried the C4 Uruky or Graphite, and if we compare them to bleutec Raptor and oceanborn, which one will be the winner you think?
+Ayman Abdin Yes I am at the moment testing the C4 Urukay 120. Will have to wait a little for final results.
thx, Majdq8, how long you think?
I have a few other tests I am doing. The C4 I had some problems with how the bands are held in the muzzle and wanted to change that as I felt that was not optimal. Also the trigger uses a polynesian line release and I decided to change that to a new trigger with side line release. Also decided to test the gun with a new 8.5mm @ 160cm shaft to test maximum performance. Hopefully soon.
C4 Urukay will vastly out perform this gun : Recoil,accuracy,power,buoyancy, style , build quality the list goes on
+majdq8
any news about the Urukay :D
Could you try a Mythicon Erevos Speargun?
Unfortunately I don't have that gun to test.
Hi Jseb011 , you can find hunt shafts on the following website...shop.deepbluesub.com/IT/Categoria.aspx?Z=ZONAPRODOTTI&C=184
I think you got the OB Limited Edition, as it is exactly the same as Im using, but I got the open track...
@ majdq8, what do you think of the OB when the bands are attached on front of the barrel via Dyneema, instead of having circular bands, as you can see on this link, its the picture on the lower left (www.bleutec.eu/en/speargunsaaccessories/spearguns/item/230-oceanborn_se.html).
As well I must admit, my gun has kind of a ballasting system which fills up with water, it makes the gun terribly heavy, I think I will put a small evacuated pipe inside in order to add some buoyancy, I don't think this will have bad impact on recoil...
+Jario Luigi Martens The idea of using dyneema tied to the front is in theory to reduce felt recoil. I find it really is too much hassle as the bands go all over the place and your chances of getting a band tangle are much higher ... no need for that as the gun in video setup is very controllable and accurate. As for ballasting ... yes that is very important ... a heavy gun might help absorb recoil better but it is hell on water to swim with if you go deep or even just swimming around for a long time. I don't believe in water ballasting at all for those reasons. Again if the gun is controllable and accurate and has enough power, no need to fix anything.
Hello and thank you for all these reviews, very interesting! I was wondering what would be your set-up recommendation for a 145cm Oceanborn Limited Edition (ie thicker barrel) with enclosed track. I removed the Bluetec original bands straight away as they are too long/poor quality and used the gun last October with 180cm 8mm spear single barb and 3x16mm Rob Allen bands (set at 3.5x extension coeff) which gave decent results but I felt I could have slightly more power on the longer shots for less spear drop... This year, I am moving to 190cm 8mm DOUBLE barbs spears (a bit heavier/longer/less streamlined), so I was considering using 3x18mm Rob Allen (or 3xRiffe Gorilla 19mm). On the other hand, I see that the sigalsub bands you are using seem pretty high performance (ie this test above with 3x14mm bands for 160cm/8mm spear) so perhaps I could use 3x16mm sigalsub extreme (or even 17.5mm given the enclosed track). Look forward to hearing your thoughts! Thank you
Jseb011 The Sigalsub 14.5mm are extremely powerful and probably more powerful than most 16mm bands. They seem to be made by Primeline and you should realize a difference between the small ID bands from Primeline and Sigalsub or Hunt etc... Although the formulation might be the same the diameters of the Primeline bands can change from batch to batch. I think for your 145 OB, a good setup would be 3 x 14.5mm Sigalsub at 350% or 360% (if you can pull that). I would go with a thicker shaft like a Hunt 8.5mm @ 175mm or 180mm. An 8mm shaft might not perform well as @ 180cm as it is very long and might oscillate. Too many oscillations rob you of shaft velocity and adding more band power only makes things worse. Try 3 x 14.5mm Sigalsub Extreme at 350% or 360% stretch using an 8.5mm shaft from Hunt ... I think you will be very happy with results ;)
Jseb011 Ahhh ... just realized that you have an ET on your OB. I didn't realize they made it that way. An ET is terrible for shaft velocity as the friction of the track totally destroys velocity. I would recommend you open up the track from top and try and keep it Open Track. ET guns are good in some cases and they can fix a lot of errors in a poorly designed gun. The OB is very well designed and doesn't need it and the ET actually hurts its performance.
majdq8 Thank you for the feedback - the point of the ET though is to be able to increase the power without having these oscillations you are referring to... Agree that you lose a bit of shaft speed but that is supposed to come with zero oscillation and you can compensate the loss of speed from friction by bumping power up. A lot of the multi-bands (>=3) bluewater guns have ET these days, if I'm not mistaken...
I can see 2 types of sigalsub bands, would you mind clarifying if you are referring to the "Extreme" (black rubber) or "Reactive Evo" (amber rubber) please?
All the best.
www.spearfishing.de/product_info.php?info=p1133_Rubber-Sigalsub-Extreme---14-5-16-17-5-mm-.html
www.spearfishing.de/product_info.php?info=p1233_Rubber-Sigalsub-Reactive-EVO---14-5-16-17-5-mm-.html
The Sigalsub Extreme bands I am uing are the Black Sigalsub Extreme. Also good is the Hunt (which I think is Alemmani) small ID 14.5mm bands red + amber inside ... but the Hunt are a little softer and should go up to 380% stretch.
With regards to ET ... if you had asked me 2 years ago, I would have told you I would not shoot any gun unless it was ET. But in testing I found that it ET causes way too much sacrifice in velocity ... even in best and straightest shaft, there is almost 30% to 40% drop in velocity. The penetration results on target were terrible in testing. That means to get equivalent performance you need to add more than one or 2 bands of power to compensate for losses caused by friction. More bands mean more recoil and less accuracy unless you add a ton of ballast to the gun. The OB is a relatively light gun for 4 or 5 bands and recoil would be terrible with 5 bands. I think a 5 band ET might even have less performance than a 3 banded OT gun with exactly same setup. If you can keep shaft oscillations in check and keep the track open then you need much less band load for equivalent performance. Check out this video of an Abellan Denton 130 test with only 3 bands @ 14.5mm pushing a heavy 8.5mm @ 160cm shaft and 130cm band stretch (730 grams of mass). The OB 145 probably has 155cm of band stretch and I would think even 2 x 14.5mm bands would easily be enough to push a 180cm @ 8mm shaft (also 730 grams of mass) to its terminal velocity while dramatically reducing recoil. Even with only 2 x 14.5mm bands the Denton 130 performance pushing a 730gr shaft is remarkable. I have 5 banded bleu water ET guns that can't get anywhere near the performance of the Denton 130 in the video. Trust me on that. Here is the test with Denton 130
ruclips.net/video/KYFTrQPOk0Y/видео.html
majdq8 Thanks a lot for all the info, really appreciated! It is true that you can be capped by recoil on these mid-weight guns... I guess I'll have to get a new one again :-)
Are you going elegant hunting with that thing it can probably kill an elephant
Could you Try a mythicon Erevos?
Do you have mythicon erevos?عزيز الدويكي
@majdq8 Can the Oceanborn mech take spears that have the mono going into them (Like most euro type spearguns) or does the mono have to go through the shark fin?
Which type of spear would you suggest?
+Eckart Benkenstein I feel best is connection to the shark fin as when you fire the gun the line goes behind the shark fin and hides behind the hydrodynamic flow and will not hurt accuracy. If you mean connection to the shaft as in the back of shaft, I don't like that too much as the mono can be damaged when you force the shooting line into the mech. If doing a back end shaft connection, then a good idea is to tie a small "O" with spectra and have that in the mech and tie your shooting line to it. Spectra is much more resistant to chaffing than mono.
Powerfull gun