MARES XR BCD

[Ankush Mittal]

Bryan, I have three questions about the wing: First, what is the bladder material? Neither your video are the Simply Scuba one actually unzip the wing. Second, are the wing fittings standard? Most wings are the same except for Apeks, I want to know if Mares went their own way also. Finally, does the wing have pull dumps on both sides? It may seem stupid question but someone posted a photo showing two fittings at the bottom of the wing. One was had the dump while the other was plugged.

I read somewhere that Apeks wings could be fitted with any backplate. What specifically do you mean by Apeks being different vs say a Hollis?

 

[Ankush Mittal]

Great questions. The inner bladder is made from Black Polyurethane. The outer bladder is made from 1200D BulletProof Nylon and 600D Polyester Exterior. And unfortunately, there is only one kidney pull dump on the right hand side. Lastly, I can not answer the last part. I have not tried to retro fit any fittings from other manufactures onto my wing. However, the internal o-ring is the same as with any other Mares BCD's from the recreational line. But I don't know if the thread size is the same with other manufactures.

Bryan, Mares is known in the recreational market for the go to cost effective dive equipment and hence many dive shops use Mares for their rental equipment. Is the quality for the XR range at par or close to the others such as Hollis and Apeks? Specially the wings?

 

[Lake Hickory Scuba]

Bryan, Mares is known in the recreational market for the go to cost effective dive equipment and hence many dive shops use Mares for their rental equipment. Is the quality for the XR range at par or close to the others such as Hollis and Apeks? Specially the wings?

I have been using the XR line for over a year now, in multiple capacities. From overhead environments, haz-matic waters, cold water, and even in warm tropical waters. Testing the material on the single bladder system with multiple detergents, a must when you dive in sewers like I do, and all seem to not have any negative effect on the material. With the backing of HEAD, Mares has really spent a ton of money on the R&D side of manufacturing gear. Recently I snagged the bladder on my XR Single Bladder during a recent Public Safety Training Event, and had to remove my gear to get free. This included tugging and tugging to get it free, and thankfully I had no frays, or any signs of wear and tear on the wing. In my opinion, the quality is very high, and meets all others if not exceeds. Now all this being said, I will give you a little industry secret. 9 out of 10 times, most manufactures buy their material from the same place. Meaning, the material on the Mares XR gear, is quite possibly the same as Hollis, Zeagle, Halcyon, OMS, etc. Purely speculation on my part, especially with the manufacture names, but I will say, I have heard and seen things in the industry that leads me to believe this being the case, WINK, WINK. Hope this answers your question, with out me sounding one sided towards Mares.

Note: Mares in the past, unfortunately never had a MAP system for their dealers to follow, so dealers could sell the gear dirt cheap. This is part of the problem why divers thinking Mares is an inferior company. Even with some of the down falls they had like the original MRS weight system, the perception that the whole company is bad or inferior because of a bad design flaw is way off base. I've been very fortunate to dive and sell practically every gear manufacture on the market, at least all the big boys, and I love it all. And at some point in time, I could easily pick out a product from any line, and show flaws or down falls in that particular piece of gear. One bad apple doesn't make the whole tree bad. One bad piece of gear doesn't make the whole company bad. I will give you an example. Back in the day, I sold Sherwood, and when the SR1 first came out on the market, it was really talked up by Sherwood (Peter Skop Industries) as the greatest improvement in regulator designs. It was also Sherwood's first real high performing regulator. Unfortunately, they rushed it out on the market to compete with other companies like Aqua Lung, Zeagle, Atomic, etc. In return, it had so many down falls, is was pure junk. I personally owned 2 of them, and the first stage on both literally exploded as soon as I turned the tank on. Now to me, this was a very bad design and good for nothing more than a paper weight. But I still love Sherwood, and personally own 4 Sherwood regulators, all from the late 80's early 90's. To this day, my oldest daughter, who is 6, uses a Sherwood BCD, and a Sherwood Regulator from the 1980's (my first regulator).

 

[ams511]

I read somewhere that Apeks wings could be fitted with any backplate. What specifically do you mean by Apeks being different vs say a Hollis?

Apeks wings can be fitted to any plate IF you use a single tank adaptor. If not, then the slots of the plate need to line up with the slots on the wing. What I was referring to is Aqualung Apeks use different fittings on their BCs and Wings. I have a WTX3 and the inflator uses a different size connection than other wings on the market. So you are more or less locked into Apeks / Aqualung if you need a replacement. I am not sure if they changed that for their new line of wings.

 

[Ming o Impiedoso]

Hello. I have been using an IST kit until recently and can vouch for the construction quality and overall design of their 16kg wing/plate/webbing. The outer bladder was made of 1680D cordura which appears to be sturdier than the competition. Sadly I lost my kit in a freak incident but would buy the same again if available.

A dive buddy showed up for a dive recently with a Mares XR kit fitted with a 10kg bladder and my overall impression was real good. The bladder has a trimmed design similar to the Apeks 18, nice feature.