After a miserable failed attempt, several months ago, at sidemounting my AL80's for eventual CCR Cave, my instructor helped me to get my cylinders lined out. Some of my issues were from using a Golem Gear sidemount butt plate mounted on the back plate. While a nice tool, it was too low for me. It is not adjustable & with my short arms, it was very difficult to reach the rails to attach the cylinders. The other issue was I had really no reference of where to set the cam bands on the cylinder. The one time I took the configuration to the pool I fought & fought to attach the cylinders & with a lot of struggle, I succeeded. A few weeks later I tried to take it to the quarry & after another huge & unsuccessful struggle, I gave up. In the time following, I just got very familiar with my normal AL40. Well,... Hopefully I will be starting my CCR Cave course in Oct. So,... now I'm back to having to deal with the AL80 bailouts. I changed out the the butt plate with a butterfly style D-rings that have 2" slots to fit on my crotch strap. I adjusted it up to my tail bone area, that I could easily reach. My instructor measured me from the D-rings to arm pit, then we adjusted the cam straps the same length from the center of the burst disc nut to the end of the short rope the bottom clip was on. I took the configuration back to the pool & it was nearly what I needed. Only change I had to make was to add a pound of weight to each shoulder, to counter act the cylinders pulling me down at the feet. After that, I was perfectly trimmed out, the bottles resting in line with my body & tucked in nicely. I think this may actually be doable. :cool2:
