Maule:
I took this quote from another thread but it got me to thinking. I see alot (good) about Zeagle BCD's on this forum and I want to ask. What about the Zeagle BCD's makes everyone love them so much more than other BCD's?
Alot of things. I was OW trained in a scuba pro jacket style BC. I noticed my instructors wore Zeagle Rangers when they happened to be out on a "fun" dive on the same boat we were on. During training they wore the same gear as we did.
We asked around and then found a shop where we could rent 2 rangers. One dive and we bought them. They give you more room in the front than a jacket style. They are very comfortable, and you don't get the squeezed or cramped feeling that we had in the jacket style bc's.
A few years and a 147 dives later, I now dive a Zeagle bp/wing. My wife with far fewer dives still loves her Ranger LTD and I use my Ranger when I am helping an instructor with OW students.
Other than comfort and fit, we like the way they are constructed. Very high quality. The bladders are removable. If you pucture one, you can unzip the balistic nylon carrier and remove the bladder. Some BC's have a sealed seam, no way to repair or replace the bladder, you end up getting a new BC.
Everything on a Zeagle BC is interchangable. They are modular, if you want to dive doubles, it's easy to modify the bc for that purpose. If you want a bigger bladder for a particular dive, no worries you can remove the standard bladder and put the larger one on and then go back to the smaller bladder as necessary.
Zeagle will customize the bc if you want something added. More D rings, a zipper here. Although they do come with pony bottle adapters and many other options.
There manufacturing facility is right here in Florida and there gear gets a lot of use. Everywhere we go, we see folks in Zeagle gear. Even when we go to Australia, we find folks diving Zeagle gear.
All of this said, there are a lot of good BC's, BP/Wings out there. You need to find what works well for you and makes you feel good (and safe) in the water. If you have not made a purchase yet, try to rent a variety of equipment and dive it.
I can tell you that when I went to rent my Zeagle from my LDS that he did not have one in his rental gear that would fit me. He was confident enough about the product that he pulled a new one out of the box that was my size and sent me off with it as a rental item. When I came back to make the purchase, he counted the rental as part of the purchase price. I think that speaks volumes about my LDS and the Zeagle brand.
If you have any specific question please do not hesitate to send me a pm
Cheers