ScubaPro MK2/R190 question

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Even though the MK2 is a piston design, I have heard it has excellent cold water performance. I would think that low 40's would be fine, but I've personally never taken it below 50. Aquamaster should know... if he doesn't chime in, maybe you could PM him.
 
Back home (frozen north) they were used by numerous divers with an affection for Scubapro for ice diving until the Mk 17 came along as the Mk 25 is not really up to the task. A few PSD teams in the area also used them for cold water use.

You can freeze a Mk 2 up but you have to abuse it and basically ignore good cold water technique. A search for "cold water technique" should turn up some prior posts on the topic in various codl water diving threads.
 
Thanks for the replies so far. I dive mainly the Great Lakes and I have a Mares proton 42 metal as my primary and a Sherwood Blizzard on my pony. Both of course are rated for cold water. The Scuba Pro that I'm asking about was origionally on my pony but I didn't really trust it since it wasn't "cold water" rated and plan to keep it for warm water dives like down south for example.
However I may want to lend it to a buddy sometime but i'm wooried about taking him below the thermocline with it. I have had regs freeflow before that weren't specifically cold water rated so I'm a little hesitant about trusting the MK2/R190, especially since it is not sealed.

Jason
 
they are a great shallow cold water reg we used them for years on our 20 ft stage bottles . I also used for some under the ice stage stuff but fell out of favor for my better breathing stage regs . They will feeze in sub 40 deg water i sold mine to upgrade to a mk17/g250v on my 02 stage .

Big down side to the mk2/r190 combo is that its a hard breather even at 40ft other than cost there is no real up side to using it when 150$ more wil get you a mk17/g250 , atomic z2 seald , diverite g2500
 
Big down side to the mk2/r190 combo is that its a hard breather even at 40ft

I have not found this to be an issue. I bought this exact set up to train my students. I just finised an AOW class where we took them down to 105 feet in water temp at about 52 degrees with no problems whatsoever. I checked with the SB gurus before making the purchase and heard very good things about their ease of breathing and their durability. I understand that for deeper diving most divers prefer the "high end" regs, but this setup has worked well and performed as expected in cold and relatively deep (100') waters.
 

Back
Top Bottom