Do you physically release your buddy's weights during the buddy check?

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With all due respect, that's stoopid. First you heave the BC onto a tailgate or a bench, then you load it, then you don it and jump in. Or, if there's no tailgate or bench near you, load the BC while it's on the ground, sit down with your back to the BC, don it, get up, jump in. Heaving a loaded BCD from the ground and up is a pretty effective method for pulling a muscle or three. I needed only one or two dives with a weight-integrated BCD with 5kg in each pocket to understand that. It's not rocket science.
Really you propose for a person to sit on the ground, get into their bc, and somehow lift it, with tank, and weights. That is a great way to get a back injury. Try getting your buddy to help, or try something like this:
How to Put on a backpack properly « Hiking



I see you believe in good and constructive pre-dive buddy communication. :shakehead:

And since I often dive from a small boat, SOP being to release the weights and hand them up to the boatman before climbing aboard, I'll never consider a weight-integrated BCD with a ripcord system. YMMV, of course.
I see you have never touched a Zeagle BCD before. the Ripcord is not for normal removal or placement of weights, instead you have this magical thing called a zipper. The ripcord is to quickly release the lead.
AFAIK, there's only one way to release a standard issue weight belt. :D No problem there. The (potential) problem comes when your buddy has a weight-integrated BCD and you aren't intimately familiar with the release system. Of which there - again AFAIK - are at least a half dozen different flavors. Are you always 100% sure that you know how to operate the specific flavor of your insta-buddy's quick releases?

So you think there is only 1 flavor of weight belt? what about the big heavy free diving weight belts with a more traditional buckle?
MAKO Freedive Weight Belt

Also what happens when your buddy puts his belt under his crotch strap?
 
Really you propose for a person to sit on the ground, get into their bc, and somehow lift it, with tank, and weights.
Yes, and I do that rather often. Just like a few guys I've dived with, including a couple who were using twin-set BP/W rigs that were a bit heavier than my single tank setup.

That is a great way to get a back injury.
Not if you do it right.

Try getting your buddy to help
That's also an option, and both options are better than heaving the whole rig from the ground up. But donning a BCD while it's sitting on the ground is a lot better than donning a BCD that's being lifted by someone who doesn't have the body strength to hold it up in a stable way.

Yes, I know that method for putting on a backpack, I've been hiking since I was a kid.

beargrylls_manvswild.jpg

It may work well for some, but IMO it works a lot better with a backpack than a BCD/tank setup.

So you think there is only 1 flavor of weight belt? what about the big heavy free diving weight belts with a more traditional buckle?
MAKO Freedive Weight Belt
As you've just shown me, there's obviously at least two flavors. However, I have only encountered one flavor. Maybe that's because I usually buddy up with SCUBA divers, not freedivers...

Also what happens when your buddy puts his belt under his crotch strap?
I expect my buddy to show me during the pre-dive briefing how to quickly and easily open his crotch strap to ditch his weights, just as I show him how to open my QRs. And if the fertilizer hit the AC system and I hadn't been shown how, I'd just use my knife and cut his crotch strap. Maybe also his weight belt, for good measures
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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