Zeagle Ranger

[scubatoys]

Scott,
Thanks for the reply. I have been pondering on buying it at that site and actually my question should have been aimed at them. Sorry about that. Hopefully I can get one here soon a turn a few heads at the LDS here as most prefer back inflate BCs and the costs here are ridiculous! Thanks again.

jason

Well heck... Just to help out, you can fly me on over to Guam for a week of diving, and I'll bring a couple sizes with me.

Actually, if you give me height and weight, we virturally never miss on sizing. We even order a lot of the Brigades and Rangers with cross component sizes... For example, I'm 6'4" and about 220 lbs. An XL works great for me, but if I had the same waist size and was below 6foot, I would want shorter shoulder straps. But that's the beauty of the BC, you can just swap them out.

Now at Dema, Scott showed me the new Rangers coming out - you can't do that... the shoulders are sewn in. To get the "Personal Fit System" (changable shoulder panels) you have to jump all the way up to the Ranger LTD. We decided to leave the Brigades with the Personal Fit System, although costing more money - it makes it more versitile, and can work for virtually any body type.

We customize them up all the time for tall skinny, short fat, etc...

So Bigkidneys... If you want to give it a shot - USPS to Guam is not that expensive, and we can hit the sizing without much problem. I've got Escapes, Brigades, Rangers, and Ranger LTD's all in stock with the Personal Fit System.

 

[ScottZeagle]

Walter,

I did not mean to imply that I ran outside and tested your theory - for the record, though, we do have a test tank right outside the building, so I could have - had I wanted to.
What I meant was that I have used the Ranger BC many times (as well as all our other BCs) and have never duplicated your complaint. I have also been on dives with many people using the Ranger BC and they never had that problem either.

You keep saying it is flawed, and I (and other happy Ranger divers) will keep defending it. We can take up lots of of space and waste tons of bandwidth that way...or not...

Larry - nice sales pitch. Have you lost weight since I saw you last week???

Scott

 

[Bigkidneys]

Well, I do believe I will be picking up a brigade possibly sometime this week. Thanks for the reassurance Larry. By all means, mi casa es su casa! I am from Texas (galveston) and pretty much anyone on this board is more than welcome to stay at my home here in Guam! I have been an avid golfer which took pretty much most of my play time the last 4 years until I discovered diving here! Now, its like my crack can't seem to get enough! Plenty of diving here and Palau is only like 1.5 hours away and very cheap from here.

Jason

 

[jonnythan]

The Ranger is a fine BC, but it's still a BC. How's that?

 

[Gator Diver]

I used both the Ranger and the Escape when I did my OW course.
Both are excellent BCs and as mentioned earlier the Escape is
definitely more portable and travel friendly than the Ranger.
Unless you are going to do some heavy duty diving, I would
go with the Escape due to the added flexibility. I dive with
a Seaquest Balance so I am would say my opinion about Zeagle
is an impartial one. Happy Diving!

 

[crpntr133]

Now at Dema, Scott showed me the new Rangers coming out - you can't do that... the shoulders are sewn in. To get the "Personal Fit System" (changable shoulder panels) you have to jump all the way up to the Ranger LTD. We decided to leave the Brigades with the Personal Fit System, although costing more money - it makes it more versitile, and can work for virtually any body type.

Zeagle is changing the Ranger harness??? Scott, I think that is a inferior design. I do have to admit that it was one of the reasons that I chose to go with the Brigade and a bunch of the guys that I dive with wish they had it.
I forgot to mention that I did a review on the Brigade here on SB. Simply do a search for "Brigade"

 

[Kestrell]

A third reason? They've discovered it's poorly designed.

I have no problem with my Ranger. It doesn't trap air at all. In fact it is excellent in every way.

It is good to get the yellow weight bags though. They make it very easy to load and unload your weights.

I'll probably step up to a BP/W some day (probably a Zeagle as well) but not until I decide to start using doubles.

 

[jonnythan]

Wouldn't it make more sense to change one major piece of gear at a time, instead of swapping out two at once?

 

[Geezer]

I had an air-trapping problem when I first started using my Ranger - Couldn't get down because I couldn't get all the air out. Even came out of the dive with a bladder half-filled with water from over venting.

On the next dive, my dive buddy suggested I lean back a little, and drop my right shoulder - wow! Once I figured out how to position the inflator at the highest point (instead of trying to stay completely vertical) the "problem" went away completely. The water collection went away as well, because I wasn't fiddling with my inflator any more.

Never had the problem with my Scout - had the techinque right before I got it.

 

[ae3753]

Wouldn't it make more sense to change one major piece of gear at a time, instead of swapping out two at once?

You can use the Ranger wing with a backplate. Zeagle's backplates are designed to accept the Ranger wing, but others have rigged other manufacturer's backplates to work with the Ranger wing as well. There are some threads on this here on SB.

As for trapping air, I actually trap more air in my Dive Rite Trek wing than the Ranger wing. But as Geezer says, it's about getting in the right position to make sure that the vent is in the highest spot. Personally, for singles, I like the donut style wings.