I hope Steve & Ted forgive my intrusion... but Steve did mention my name, heh...
Actually, both Steve and my Avanti's are well within the design param's all up weight. In all fairness to the Avanti, I think it's worth mentioning for onlooker's to these threads that both Steve & I missed the design C/G by a bit. Mine was an inch and a half behind where the plans show when I first built it. My initial flights were with a 1.5 ounce nose weight (still a half inch back from plans). I got stupid and took the weight out and retrimmed the plane.
Oh, that's another thing. Stability. I wouldn't have called what I experienced a true "hunt" but more a typical "tail heavy" instability. I know that was used for lack of a better term, but mine never porpoised, or went one way then over compensated in another direction, etc like a true hunt.
For quite a while, I pig headedly tried to make the rear C/G work, and narrowed the handle spacing to 3.25", and it was sort of OK, but it wouldn't glide well on landing, it wouldn't whip very well either, if I landed it slow it would land tail down & when the field winds got turbulent, it was harder to fly a nice level lap. Typical tail heavy symptoms. If it was a true "hunt" I don't think I would have been able to clean it up with handle spacing (Oh, and a 3blade prop, and I dialed out a little elevator).
I didn't want to mess with that setup because the KOI was looming. That rig was still good enough to place in Adv.
Since then, I've retrimmed the airplane to the config that Steve mentions in his post. I'm now within a hair of design C/G and have put my handle spacing back out to 3 3/4", etc. The plane is groovy, tracks well in the straight legs and and glides properly etc.
It bugged me a little to take my welter weight ship and turn it into a median weight ship to get the C/G right, but in hind sight it was well worth getting the better trim package. Oh, Ty - I think the wing could carry another 5 to 7 ounces with ease and still be competitive.
EricV