C80 aluminum cylinders? Are they good as doubles?

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CephBirk

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Location
Ebensburg, PA, USA
# of dives
200 - 499
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?
 
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.
 
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
 
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
 
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.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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