Bands breaking shouldn't be a consideration on when to cock the gun during a dive. Bands are a pre-dive (pre-boarding the boat, for that matter) check item.CBulla:Re the loaded weapon on descent - I have made practice of setting the bands early after the coaching of some fairly experienced spearo's sharing with me some basic tricks. That has come back to be a friend in that when my bands broke this summer I was near enough to surface and get some new ones without much hassle. It would have completely sucked to have tried to set those bands at 60' when i had the hogs lined up like cows at a trough in front of me, which I have witness to, and have those bands break.
Good point. I've only had bands break on me once. All three at within 5 minutes because I was in too big of a hurry to check them on a gun I hadn't used for a few months. Lucky I had another gun on the boat. (that used shorter bands) But for me it's not so bad, like getting to 60 feet and having it happen, because I'm only free diving anyway.
I do not recommend cocking the gun early in the descent for a beginning spearo. FWIW, in my own spearing adventure, there was a time when cocking came very early; now it comes later - either during the descent when I see likely targets on site, or, if I don't, then after "settling."
Rick