When you are diving with ditchable weights ...

[TSandM]

Integrated weights have always seemed to me to be trying to accomplish two diametrically opposed goals. They are trying to remain secure, while at the same time being easy to jettison. It is very difficult to do both well. My weight belt is secure, but non-trivial to jettison altogether. My husband's DUI Weight & Trim is the same way. My Libra had weight pockets that were altogether too easy to lose, but would certainly be much easier to ditch in an emergency than my weight belt is.

At about 1000 dives, I have yet to encounter a situation where I needed to ditch weight urgently. But I have lost weight from my belt. So my n=1 experience is that it's better to make the weights more difficult to get rid of and reduce the risk of losing them when you don't intend to.

 

[Thalassamania]

There are two ways to carry ditchable weights without any fear of ever having the belt come off on it's own: wire bail buckle on a rubber belt or the "SeaQuest" style buckle. Both are positive closure devices, the rubber belt is self tightening and the "SeaQuest" style is exceeding easy to keep snug.

 

[Akimbo]

There are two ways to carry ditchable weights without any fear of ever having the belt come off on it's own: wire bail buckle on a rubber belt or the "SeaQuest" style buckle. Both are positive closure devices, the rubber belt is self tightening and the "SeaQuest" style is exceeding easy to keep snug.

The buckle in your image is now sold by Trident. It was developed by Mark Olsson who founded DeepSea Power and Light. I still have one of his manually machined prototypes from the early 1980s. It is very reliable and works with Nylon webbing but not rubber. Trident's part number for the buckle's is WB34 and the buckle with belt is WB33. I recently picked up a buckle for less than $8.00. It is funny that very few dive shops have ever seen one.

A rubber belt option that I find easer to adjust and even more reliable than the wire bail is the Marseille buckle popular with freedivers. The advantage is you have a lot of mechanical advantage to stretch the belt and there is no possibility of accidentally rubbing against something that will trip the release. The nice thing about a tightly stretched rubber belt is you can wear it very low on your hips and it won’t move even on a 2-piece 7mm wetsuit.

Sporasub Marseille Belt With Holding System

Mako has a good quality Marseille belt for $25.
MAKO Spearguns - Freedive Weight Belt

A good choice for heavier belts is the parachute harness release, they are hard to find in Brass though and are a pain to use with Scuba weights.
miller commercial weight belt

The pin buckle in the attached image has been used for years by commercial divers. I think it originated in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are images of one I copied more than 35 years ago and never had a concern over accidental loss or the ability to quickly dump. It depends on a stiffer belt than Nylon webbing.

 

[Thalassamania]

The buckle in your image is now sold by Trident. It was developed by Mark Olsson who founded DeepSea Power and Light. I still have one of his manually machined prototypes from the early 1980s. It is very reliable and works with Nylon webbing but not rubber. Trident's part number for the buckle's is WB34 and the buckle with belt is WB33. I recently picked up a buckle for less than $8.00. It is funny that very few dive shops have ever seen one.

A rubber belt option that I find easer to adjust and even more reliable than the wire bail is the Marseille buckle popular with freedivers. The advantage is you have a lot of mechanical advantage to stretch the belt and there is no possibility of accidentally rubbing against something that will trip the release. The nice thing about a tightly stretched rubber belt is you can wear it very low on your hips and it won’t move even on a 2-piece 7mm wetsuit.
...

Yes

I can't say that I care for the Marseille buckle, it's kind of an unsure release with one hand.

 

[Akimbo]

Yes

I can't say that I care for the Marseille buckle, it's kind of an unsure release with one hand.

Interesting, I find the Marseille buckle the most reliable release of all. I use it mostly for freediving.

I was consulting with Underwater Kinetics on a different project when Mark developed the buckle, also as a consultant. Did you know him then or after starting Deep Sea Power & Light? I didn’t notice his buckle was on the market until about a year ago. I hope he made something for the effort.

 

[Thalassamania]

What I'm looking for in a buckle is a single handed, single motion release. The Marseille buckle does not provide me with that, Mark's buckle and the wire bail buckle do.

I knew Mark first as a grad student at Scripps and later for his Deep Sea Power and Light. The belt came out many, many years ago, maybe mid to late 1980s. It was first marketed by SeaQuest but never caught on. I guess most divers and most instructors just don't understand how poorly suited the conventional buckle is to the task it is supposed to perform.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

What I'm looking for in a buckle is a single handed, single motion release. The Marseille buckle does not provide me with that, Mark's buckle and the wire bail buckle do.

I knew Mark first as a grad student at Scripps and later for his Deep Sea Power and Light. The belt came out many, many years ago, maybe mid to late 1980s. It was first marketed by SeaQuest but never caught on. I guess most divers and most instructors just don't understand how poorly suited the conventional buckle is to the task it is supposed to perform.

Not sure why you say that? I know the Marseile buckle is one-handed release?

Also, I really like the wire bail release for freediving, but for scuba diving not as much because it is slightly more prone to being accidentally opened and lost. If a line gets caught under the wire bill, the rubber weight belt is popped off instantly and with little force, especailly when there is not much tension on the buckle.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I went back to a traditional weight belt after having lost a weight pocket out of my old ScubaPro BCD not once ... but twice. With 15 lbs in each pocket, the ride to the surface was ... interesting.

Fancy buckles and stretchy weightbelts are all well and good ... I have found that a basic one works very well ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[cmburch]

Yes, a Marseilles buckle is one hand release. Nothing fancy about about a rubber belt or a buckle. Rubber has been around for a hundred years before nylon. Some divers used cotton webbing belts before nylon was widely available. A buckle with roller has been around long before QR. Nylon webbing is what US divers are use to. Nylon lasts ¨forever¨ compared to rubber that needs to be inspected for deterioration.

 

[TSandM]

I always look at these discussions of rubber belts and special buckles with interest . . . but the problem is that, since I went to metal instead of plastic buckles, I have never had my plain old webbing weight belt come loose or even come close, so it's hard to muster the motivation to spend money on a better mousetrap.