Sherwood Brute

[keyshunter]

I just got back from a trip to Costa Rica. I had a chance for a quick boat trip. Since it was only two dives in a week long vacation, I decided to rent gear. After this trip, my gear is going with me for every dive.

I could not believe how hard it was to breath after 50 feet. It felt like it was a struggle to breath. I definitely would not recomend the regulator to anyone diving below 45'. :11:

For many years, I have taken an annual trip to Little Cayman, which is my favorite fun and relaxation dive destination. The resort has always rented Sherwood Brut's. There are usually four or five divers on our boat using these rentals, and the first dive of the day is always fairly deep--100' (was 110' when I first started going there.)

This translates to about 50 or 60 divers--often relatively inexperienced--who did not have a reg related problem at these depths.

Is the Brut a great breathing reg--absolutely not, but it is certainly adequate for normal sport diving depths.

 

[scubafanatic]

.......my only experience with Sherwood was buddy-breathing off the DM's octo on several dives in Cozumel last summer........I did 2 'long-weekend' trips, those were my 1st blue-water dives, and I was pretty much the one who ran low on air first..........so I got used to hooking up with the DM when I was down to around 700---1000 psi......which bought the rest of the group a bit more bottom time.

They used Sherwoods (don't remember the exact model) and I wasn't impressed with their performance.....typically we'd be fairly shallow and near the end of the dives, so I'd start buddy-breathing at maybe 60 ft. deep, and we'd be relaxed, just drifting with the current, and I noticed the amount of air available was barely adequate for those mild conditions, but I could easily imagine overbreathing that reg had the two of us been stressed or swimming against a current, especially at greater depths.

My own regs are Poseidon Jetstreams/Mares MR16/Mares Ruby/Atomic B1T2......and those regs are lightyears ahead of that Sherwood in performance terms......they have a much greater performance reserve.

In all fairness, the DM's Sherwood probably got a lot of use, and there's something to be said for using a reg that can be serviced in remote locations, so while I'd never use one personally, I can understand why I do see a lot of Sherwoods around...they get the job done, at least under 'normal' recreational diving conditions.

Karl

 

[DPJ]

Is the Brut a great breathing reg--absolutely not, but it is certainly adequate for normal sport diving depths.

I own a Maximus and I am very happy with it. I have also dove with an Oasis. I would recomend anyone buying a reg, skip the Brute and go for one of the higher level ones made by Sherwood.

 

[bottomrunner]

hi
the brut is a bottom of the line reg more for training in shallow water
it is also a unbalanced first stage, meaning it gets easier to breath as your tank pressure drops
the reg had to be tuned down to sell all the other models
only difference is the moving orfice in the first stage
i would suggest that you get the reg serviced and tuned to your type of diving
most of the rental regs have been tuned down to avoid freeflows in current .
my brut has been modified with a moving orfice and has a poseidon jet stream for a second stage
works great.

 

[rescuediver009]

the reg had to be tuned down to sell all the other models

Uh, no. Not quite. It doesn't matter how you tune it. This reg sucks for anything more than Basic OW dives.

i would suggest that you get the reg serviced and tuned to your type of diving
most of the rental regs have been tuned down to avoid freeflows in current .
my brut has been modified with a moving orfice and has a poseidon jet stream for a second stage
works great.

Weren't we talking about a rental reg here that the originator would not likely use again?

 

[scubamax]

Sherwoods get an unfair rap since the Brut is most often an over-abused and under-serviced training reg in rental inventories, all Sherwoods can tend to get a bad rap...I guess guilt by association. I trained on a Brut for a few dives, did not like it and decided to get an Aqualung Legend (and like it).

I dive on a boat which uses rental regs (all Bruts). I have had buddies (on more than one occassion in the last year) who have used them and have had to call dives due to problems with being hard to breath (at like 40 feet!)...Is this a bad reg? No, but lack of service and abuse will make any reg a bad actor. Rescuediver099 is correct, the its not the easiest reg to breath to start with, and compound it with the abuse and lack of service and you can get trouble.

In general they (Sherwoods) are not known as "high performance" regs (they do not test as well on the bench as others), but for the majority of divers their better regs (i.e. NOT Brut) are not a bad bet.

If I had to buy another reg for my profiles of warm water rec diving at an average depth of 50 feet or less I would consider the Oasis.

Sorry to get a bit off topic, but back to the show....

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

I own one regulator, I have had it for 10 years. It is a Sherwood Brut. My Brut has been to 100+ on a few occassions, and have never noticed a difference in performance. I never considered hard to breathe off of until I borrowed a buddys reg for a dive this summer. The Brut suddenly seemed heavy and clunky. So, I took off to my LDS to explore options of a newer reg. My LDS who knows me, my diving (warm shallow diving), and my pocketbook, keeps talking me out of buying a new reg. Why should I get a new one when the old one works so good? Oh, yes, I abuse it, since most of my dives are also beach dives, ya got to have rugged equipment for those dives.
Glad to know I have a reg comparible to a reliable Chevy..

 

[darkstar]

My first reg was a Brut that I still use on a pony bottle. When I bought my second reg, (Sherwood Blizzard), my wife started using the Brut and we practiced sharing air (using the octo) off of both regs. The Brut was OK for one person in the 60 - 100' range, but with two divers on it below about 65' I often felt like I wasn't getting enough air, even on a full tank. Not something I would want to experience in a real emergency or when working in strong current.

The Blizzard on the other hand was just fine for two divers (up to 120' which is the deepest I've ever tired to share air with it). I've used it a lot while working against strong current and never felt short of air.

I did have one other problem with the Brut, which is probably only going to happen to someone using it as a pony reg. A buddy who carried my pony for a few dives was disturbed by the small stream of bubbles coming from the Brut first stage (normal for Sherwood regs) and turned off the pony valve. The reg flooded (through the dry bleed port) and then sat on a shelf for two weeks. I noticed that it was breathing like crap during an equipment check and brought it to my LDS for a rebuild. It's now back on the pony and breaths better than ever.

I'll bet the rental reg down South was just in need of some service.

 

[rescuediver009]

Sherwoods get an unfair rap since the Brut is most often an over-abused and under-serviced training reg in rental inventories, all Sherwoods can tend to get a bad rap...I guess guilt by association. I trained on a Brut for a few dives, did not like it and decided to get an Aqualung Legend (and like it).

In general they (Sherwoods) are not known as "high performance" regs (they do not test as well on the bench as others), but for the majority of divers their better regs (i.e. NOT Brut) are not a bad bet.

If I had to buy another reg for my profiles of warm water rec diving at an average depth of 50 feet or less I would consider the Oasis.

Sorry to get a bit off topic, but back to the show....

I agree that the brut gets a bad rap for two more reasons. They are often underserviced because of the skill level of the divers they cater to, and secondly because some people are foolish enough to base their opinions of an entire brand on their bottom end product.
I don't think it is fair though that you compare it to the legend. That is like saying I was unimpressed with a geo metro so I went out and bought a corvette.
The oasis is good though. Its cousin the blizzard is likely the most popular recreational reg around here because of its price to performance ratio.

 

[rescuediver009]

I own one regulator, I have had it for 10 years.

I guess you changed your faceplate then for you profile pic.......