rjack321:Ken, what's your SAC?
I dive LP95s filled to 2800-2900 and get a good 50 minutes out of them. I come up with 1000 psi most times. My SAC is about 0.5 cf/min in a single.
I have some HP119s, but I can almost never get them low enough to PP fill them (at home) since I don't have a booster. So I end up dumping some gas or only filling them to 3000. If I had 130s, those issues would be exacerbated.
I also have double HP100s and like those for tech dives.
Depth, temperature, exposure suit, working, drifting, open ocean, confined water, etc, etc... I'm usually sitting at about a .39 to .43 for confined spaces (like a park or a bay or something) and maybe up to .45 - .53 for open ocean stuff.
I dive a BP/W (11.5# home-made plate), Drysuit, 4# of lead on the belt, cold water year round, average depths from 35 - 50 feet (sometimes average to 55... but rarely) for the long dives we do. My dives in SoCal usually last between 70 to 100 minutes on my 130. All this info is for "diving" and not Lobstering (which isn't diving, but "hunting...")
And, like you, I often come up with 4-digit gas. So what? I have no issues being the team back-up gas supply. I'm not home brewing, so its no biggie if I got gas in the can. An HP100 simply limits my diving. IN the 130, if we're down and we see something great and want to change the plan, we change the plan. No biggie. We have the gas, we're smart, we stay out of NDL and its all good.
With an HP100, my local dives which typically reach 100 to 110 feet would require much tighter dive planning. With the 130, I have much more latitude. I'm also a photographer - so I love having more mass. Makes for steadier shots.
And if handling the tank isn't a big deal, neither is the gas. A full fill or a 2/3 fill still costs $4. If I was paying for gas by the pound, I may think differently.
I haven't found the hill or the stairs in SoCal that I can't haul a 130 up and down. So I can't see the point of going in with less than the maximum amount of gas I can comfortably schlep. For me (and more and more of us SoCals every week) that's a 130.
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Ken