Zeagle Ranger vs. Seaquest Balance

[donooo]

Hey Cazman, just went thru all of this stuff. Don't have the experience to back up my thoughts , but did do a lot of thinking.
1) First BC I wanted was the Balance. Loved back inflation, loved the weight integrated. Needed to do more research.
2) The big LDChain tried to sell me the Ranger, back inflation, weight integrated. I didn't like the weight system.
3)Then I found the TransPacII. Back inflation, multiple bladders. Weight belt or weight integrated, my choice. And modular, something goes wrong, fix that part. 1 Bladder for the stuff I dream about and the option of a different bladder for the other stuff I dream about.

I felt "I" had more options with the TranPacII where the others systems were pretty well defined.
Everyone else can talk BP ,,,, not me.

adios don O

 

[finster]

See Cazman. Told you that you'd get some good info from this Board! Let me know when you want to hit the water.

 

[scuba_adventurer]

I know that I am definately in the minority here, but I don't like the Ranger. It feels cheaply made to me, and it's weight system is a joke.

I would also echo that if you are interested in tek, you should go with the black diamond. It is far more versatile as far as mounting options for tanks, pockets, weight system, etc. It is a very comfortable bc as well, and has better positioning in the water compared to the divers I see wearing zeagles.

I also intend to complicate your process a little more.

SeaQuest just came out with a new bc, and you might want to see it before you decide. It is called the Raider, and it looks very tek with tons of lift and attachment points. It is going to be the Pro Unlimited of Back Flotation BCs, and i have no idea what it will cost.

Also, my next bc will be the DUI Wings. I have never heard it being discussed on this forum, so I don't know what the board's opinion of it is, but I think it is a fabulous bc. It is a little tekie, but not bad at all. It is completely modular, and there are numerous bladder and weight system options. Most importantly, it has a very comfortable harness, and provides excellent positioning in the water. It is not that expensive, either (unless you have to have every option with it). I am a huge fan of this bc. You should check it out before you buy.

 

[TexasMike]

Scuba_Adventurer....

You're not going to get away easily on that opinion..... When we get dissenting opinions, we usually like to know your reasons.

Can you explain why you feel that the Ranger BC "cheaply" made and "the weight system is a joke"?

Also to understand where you're coming from, what is your diving experience with the Ranger?

 

[donooo]

Texas Mike

Even you gotta admit re-stringing those weight pockets would get old if you needed to dump more then once. Or heaven forbid "practice".

I still don't know anything aboutBP/wings and I still don't like those weight pockets.

DIW don O

 

[scuba_adventurer]

Hey Texas, here are my reasons. I realize they are kind of long, but you asked for it.

I have never dove a Ranger, so everything that I know about it is second hand or what I have seen, not experienced.

The weight system is a good idea, but not a good application in my opinion. I can't imagine what a nightmare an accidental ditch would bring with that BC.

The only person affiliated with my dive shop that has worn one ditched it in favor of the Black Diamond. His problems were many, and many of those may have been caused by his lack of experience on the bc. He ended up ditching the weight system because of it's complexity and jus putting shot bags in the zipper pockets. As a padi dm, I am supposed to look down severely on a non-ditchable weighting system, so naturally I had a big problem with something that encourages it's divers to abandon safe diving practice. He also had a lot of trouble with his positioning in the water. One thing that I did notice about his bc that I think is the source of much of it's positioning trouble unless it is placed on the tank perfectly is the distribution of air in the bladder. Most successful BF bc's, such as the Scubapro Nighthawk, Superhawk, and Black Diamond from Seaquest all do a good job of keeping most of the air low in the air cell, or in the wings. My friends Ranger had all of the the air accumulating around his shoulders, and it compounded his problem of being over weighted by giving him bad water positioning.

As far as the cheap thing, it just did not appear to be the same quality as the competition from Seaquest and Scubapro. It is a heavy material, but I did not think that all of the components went together very well. Compared to other modular systems, this one does not look as well thought out (mainly compared to DUI).

Now I will make concessions. I have never dove it, so I have no idea what experience on this bc would do for a diver, but I will stick to my SeaQuest stuff.

 

[TexasMike]

It's true that stringing the ripcord system after you were to use it would be a pain, but think of it this way...

1. If you were in serious trouble, wouldn't you want a very fast way to shed the weights out of the pockets?
2. If you were only in minor trouble, you can still just open the pockets by the zipper and grab the weights "from the top"
3. The ripcord system is well protected from accidental pulling
4. You shouldn't be getting yourself into a situation where dumping (or as your post implies, REPEATEDLY dumping) you weights in the first place.

And there are too many other "pro's" about the Ranger to balance out this perceived "con". And if you haven't had the chance to dive with the Ranger, I still encourage you to give it a try and put it through its paces before denouncing it.

 

[TexasMike]

Originally posted by [red]scuba_adventurer[/red]

[red]S_A: The weight system is a good idea, but not a good application in my opinion. I can't imagine what a nightmare an accidental ditch would bring with that BC.[/red]

• TM: Please see my previous post on this

[red]S_A: The only person affiliated with my dive shop that has worn one ditched it in favor of the Black Diamond. His problems were many, and many of those may have been caused by his lack of experience on the bc. He ended up ditching the weight system because of it's complexity and jus putting shot bags in the zipper pockets.[/red]

• TM: This reads like the gentleman didn't either
  1. understand the user's manual,
  2. seek personal instruction from an experienced Ranger user to overcome his problem, or
  3. there is something else happening that we don't know about.
  Personally I have never had any troubles that required me to "put the shot bags in the zipper pockets". So there must be something about all of this we both don't know about or you haven't explained yet.

[red]S_A: One thing that I did notice about his bc that I think is the source of much of it's positioning trouble unless it is placed on the tank perfectly is the distribution of air in the bladder. Most successful BF bc's, such as the Scubapro Nighthawk, Superhawk, and Black Diamond from Seaquest all do a good job of keeping most of the air low in the air cell, or in the wings. My friends Ranger had all of the the air accumulating around his shoulders, and it compounded his problem of being over weighted by giving him bad water positioning.[/red]

• TM: When I first got my Ranger, I too was a relatively new diver, and suffering from typical "new diver overweighting". As such, I also had problems with position in the water due to having to add too much air to the bladder (I was all over the water column). Now that I have shed more than 1/2 that weight, I have no problems with positioning.
  
  As far as swimming position, all BC's will influence this if they are not positioned on the tank correctly (too high or low). It does take several dives to find that "sweet spot". I have also found that how tightly you wear the BC can affect this. Even if you have found the sweet spot on the tank, wearing it too high or low on the torso will affect your center of buoyancy.
  
  If the air was always around his shoulders, that leads me to beleive that he was in a very "heads up, feet down" swimming position, causing the air to seek the highest point. And I can see that this was compounded by being very over inflated due to the overweighting. Personally, now that I have determined the proper weighting for my rig, I am finding no trouble at all with air being trapped disproportionately in the bladder when I change positions (rolling on my side, pitching upright and then back down, doing barrel rolls, etc). Like many experienced divers such as yourself, I have figured out that I need a very minimum amount of air in the bladder to achieve neutral. So in a nutshell, I've overcome the problem you described. Perhaps if your friend had worked on it more, he too would have conquered it.
  
  Having never handled or swam with the BC's you mentioned, I'd like to know more of how they are designed to "keep the air low in the cell".
  
  Also, if you haven't seen/read it already, be sure to check out the Sept/Oct issue of Dive Training (the one with the endangered species on the front). It has an excellent article about your center of gravity and your center of buoyancy and how to fine tune both for improving your diving experience.

[red]S_A: As far as the cheap thing, it just did not appear to be the same quality as the competition from Seaquest and Scubapro. It is a heavy material, but I did not think that all of the components went together very well. Compared to other modular systems, this one does not look as well thought out (mainly compared to DUI).[/red]

• TM: Interesting comment. My thinking the opposite (very well constructed and good modular system) is one of the reasons that swayed my purchase. And also the fact (and I am working on verifying this with RainReg) that Zeagle is one of the few BC manufacturers that is on the US Military's purchase list. And you don't make that list with poor construction or design. (Again, don't quote me on this until I get an answer back from RainReg).

[red]S_A: Now I will make concessions. I have never dove it, so I have no idea what experience on this bc would do for a diver, but I will stick to my SeaQuest stuff. [/red]

• And more power to the Sequest stuff. I always encourage divers to choose the system that best works for them, whether it be SeaQuest, Zeagle, Halcyon, or "Bob's BC's". But I do hope you will one day avail yourself of taking the Ranger out for several dives so you can have some personal experience first hand like.
  
  And thanks for your additional comments. It's "debates" like these that help our membership understand both sides of the world. And it helps reinforce America's FREEDOM OF SPEECH![red]GO U S A!!![/red]
  
  (PS. I see you're from KC, Missouri. Ever dive Bonne Terre Mine? That is one of the places on my "must dive" list.)

 

[Zagnut]

I am pretty new to diving and I must say that I have never had any problem with positioning using my Ranger. When I put my BC on my tank, my thinking has never been to position the BC to allow for better body positioning in the water. My thinking has always been to position the BC on the tank low enough so I don't bang the back of my head on the first stage and high enough so that I'm not dragging the tank in the crack of my butt and down by my hamstring muscles. This thinking has always served me well as I have never really had a problem with positioning. I pull my shoulder straps good and tight when I dive and it has never caused a problem with positioning for me. As for the threading of the ripcord on the weight system, I had the LDS onwer show me how to do it before I bought the thing, and then I practiced threading it a couple of times. It's really pretty simple to do and it only takes a couple of minutes. I would recommend doing it a couple of times each season just to stay in practice because you really shouldn't have to be ditching weights very often. If your always having to ditch weights, I would think you've got bigger problems with scubadiving than worrying about threading your ripcord. To me the quality of the Ranger seems to be about the same as other makes of BCs. It has a lifetime warranty. I remember checking out the Seaquest Pro Unlimited before I bought my ranger, and thinking to myself that it looked like it was built like a brick "out"house as far as quality is concerned, but with a price tag around $1,000.00 as opposed to the Ranger at $400.00, it seemed to be a bit excessive for me. Now that I'm done defending my Ranger, I will say that I looked at Seaquest BCs before buying my Ranger and almost purchased a Pro QD. I didn't like that the pockets were hard to get into while wearing it, and found the back inflate more comfortable. I've used Seaquest BCs as rentals and they are fine BCs. I think that they are high quality equipment. I guess my advice would be to decide what you can afford, try out all the BCs you can a couple of times that fall in that price range, and go with the one that gives you that warm fuzzy feeling(suits you best).

 

[cazman]

After all of the great advise it is my great pleasure to announce that a purchase has taken place. Texas Mikke I have to thank you for all of your comments. As well as all of you. They helped greatly. After careful consideration and a few hours in the pool at the LDS, I walked away with, you guessed it, THE RANGER. And I must say YAHOO!!! What a comfortable piece of equipment. Compared to those rentals that I have been using, it's like it isn't even there. Suggested in other threads I also decided to go with the yellow weight pouches. Maked things a little easier to load and FIND if needed. All in all I am very happy with my purchase.

Now, I might add 3hrs after my joyous jaunt to the LDS I took the opportunity to dive this baby in the open waters of Catalina Island, off the coast of So. Cal. This experience had proven to me that I did not make the wrong purchase. Could I have gone with a different BC and have been happy, probably. But points being the Ranger is a very customizeable BC, will alow me to get techy with it and it is a very comfortable BC. All around thumbs up.

Of course with this whole experience a valuble lesson has been learned here that I feel I must pass on to others. I am sure that I am not the only one hooked on purchasing items over the Internet. Why pay $535 in the store when I can pay $395 on the Internet? For those of you who ask the same questions let me tell you in my opinion why you should pay the $535 in the store.

My LDS personnel had over a 100 years of combined diving experience. You can't get that on the Inet. These guy made sure that this was the BC for me. I even had one guy tearing the Ranger apart on more than one occasion to insure that I got the best fit possible. While of this was going on they had a whole rack of other BC's waiting if the Ranger did not work out. I say again you can not get that on the I net.

Last but not least, upon leaving, the dive shop owner stated "if you ever have any problems bring it back and we'll fix it. For LIFE. For FREE". You can't get that on the Inet. Think about all of the shipping costs should you try that on the Inet. Not for me thank you.

Of course I have to give a plug here. Hats off to Liburdi's dive shop, Irvine, CA. For a new comer to the game I have been in alot of shops researching for my newest purchases and I have never been treated so well as I had there. And here is the bonus. After a little haggling it cost me $70 more than the Inet. Small price to pay for that kind of service. Something to think about.

Once again, I want to thank everyone who posted here. It helped greatly. Will see you on the boards.

Cazman