C80 aluminum cylinders? Are they good as doubles?

[CephBirk]

Is anyone still manufacturing C80 aluminum cylinders? Catalina seems to be done making them?

I am looking into getting a set of doubles and I found one C80 for a very good price, but I'm concerned about finding a matching one. I like that the buoyancy characteristics are much more similar to most steels (neutral when empty) which is attractive for doubles. Are there downsides to C80s that I should be aware of?

 

[halocline]

They weigh a ton. If you have never tried regular (S80) AL80s as doubles, I would do that first. You may be surprised by how well balanced and stable they are. The bands/manifold add ballast. I have found that my doubled AL80s are less buoyant, substantially, than single AL80s. That was unexpected.

 

[Billy Northrup]

S80's fall out of tree's here in Fl, if I needed the weight I'd go with LP85's and gain capacity at least. I just hit Craigslist in Tampa and see a gagle of tanks under $100 bucks. It depends but you may have a hard time getting a full fill on those C80's as well. Enjoy

 

[rjack321]

C80s work, but you are rarely going to get a proper 3300psi fill in them and they are worthless as stages so their only resale value is as singles or maybe doubled up. In FL salt water in a wetsuit you are much better off in S80s. In FL caves you are much better off (in a drysuit) in actual steel tanks.

This is probably why you found a cheap one on CL

 

[JackD342]

If you haven't been talked out of it yet, the current Luxfer and Metal Impact "Neutral 80s" have specs that are very close to the Catalina C80. About 1/2 pound less negatively buoyant when full.