RonFrank
Contributor
I don't own steel tanks but have rented them on occasion. For my diving (rec) I like the HP 100's if I am doing deep flat profiles, or just want some extra margin of safety.
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Why compare LP104/LP108 with HP100?
The appropriate tanks to compare are based on size, not on volume of gas that they carry:
LP104 => HP130
LP96 => HP120
LP95 => HP119
LP80 => HP100
To first order, an HP130 is just an LP104 that you can fill to 3500psi, so there would be very little reason to get an LP104 -- unless you could find an LP tank cheaply and easily get cave fills.
Some technical/cave divers like the LP tank buoyancy characteristics better than the HP tanks, but that isn't much of an issue unless you are doubling them up.
So anyone lugging an LP104 might as well be lugging an HP130 in which case the thing to focus on is not that they the HP130 has a "problem" getting fills to its service pressure -- but that the HP130 can always get as good of a fill as the LP104 and can get better fills when the fill monkeys won't do a cave fill on the LP104...