lead shot

[Dave White]

Hi all,

I was wondering whether anyone could advise on a good place to get some lead shot pouches...being quite large I seem to need a lot and they aren't cheap. 2nd hand would be fine although there isn't anything in the Nottingham area on ebay.

If anyone has some they want to sell on or knows a cheap place to purchase them please let me know.

Bought a BCD online with integrated weight system and thought I was saving money on weights and belt...Aeris include the weights and Mares don't (a lesson for any other newbies out there). As you can guess I bought the Mares and got some empty MRS plus pockets thrown in,

Many thanks
Dave

[bythesea]

The price of lead is really high at the moment so don't expect any bargains.

If you are happy to sew the pouches yourself try somewhere like a gun shop you will pick up loose shot by the bucket full, get some decent medium thickness canvas and a sewing machine, a set of scales, job done.

Still not going to be cheap though.

Or keep and eye on Ebay, you need a local seller though as postage racks the price right up.


BTW, where did you find an Aeris that included the weight, most unusual unless it was a special deal.

[AllynCarter]

If anyone has some they want to sell on or knows a cheap place to purchase them please let me know.
Dave

I have some that are surplus to requirements. They were destined for eBay, but this might work better for both of us. I think I have something like 10kg in 1kg bags, but I'll have to check. I'll PM you with the details.
BTW, I'm in Halesowen, so not too far from Nottingham. I could meet you half way, or at Dosthill, if you ever go there.

[AllynCarter]

PM sent.

[Woz]

Try Ely (East Anglia) or Gamebore (Hull) for lead shot. Both are shotgun cartridge manufacturers.

[Dave White]

Thanks very much for your support everyone, Allyn may have enough to get me neutral in a wet suit....will look at your suggestions should I need more thank you Woz.

Bythesea....I was originally looking at the Aeris EX100 and EX200 on SimplyScuba that sounded as though it may have pre-weighted systems in place from the advert.....
Features
•Low profile rear inflation air cell made of 1000 denier ballistic nylon
•1600 denier nylon pocket
•Shoulder panel construction
•Includes 20 lbs integrated weight system and two trim weight pockets accommodating an additional 10 lbs

I now realise that I had just been naive and having found online shopping easier not seen that they actually contain no weights. I thought from the information available that the lead shot was in these systems already when budgeting. I obviously hadn't researched thoroughly enough...a lesson learnt!

Cheers everyone :)

[ChristianG]

If you are happy to sew the pouches yourself try somewhere like a gun shop you will pick up loose shot by the bucket full, get some decent medium thickness canvas and a sewing machine, a set of scales, job done.
In my experience, unless you have a commercial sewing machine, such as upholsterers and their ilk use, your sewing efforts are going to come apart at the seams sooner rather than later. Conventional sewing thread simply doesn't cut the mustard and proper commercial thread isn't going to pass through a conventional sewing machine - period. If you want a proper pouch that will last you will need one made from close to the denier of your wing/BCD - that's what mine are made of and I've been using them for some 20 years virtually without any signs of wear.

"Being quite large I seem to need a lot" is a questionable statement. Are you a relative beginner diver? It's quite surprising what you can toss away weight-wise when you really know how and that's quite certainly where I would start if it has relevance.

[Dave White]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your input, I don't have any kind of sewing machine TBH.

Being quite large was the issue with weight according to an instructoer I dived with last year...he had broken English but stated that my structure meant that I needed 10KGS in a 3mm shortie when the other 2 guys who were slightly taller and reasonable build only needed 6kg. I have no idea how right he was...I took it on board without questioning as I am not experienced enough. I'm 5'11 and around the 16 1/2 stone mark, usually an XL because of shoulders and about a 44 inch chest.

I am certainly a beginner diver....2 dives abroad (Dom Republic & Cyprus), just done PADI OW and now doing my 5 quarry dives to complete the course along with a dry suit specialty - although I have to say I am not keen on the dry suits XXL on loan which strangles me half to death and gives me pins and needles in my hands.

[PeteM]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your input, I don't have any kind of sewing machine TBH.

Being quite large was the issue with weight according to an instructoer I dived with last year...he had broken English but stated that my structure meant that I needed 10KGS in a 3mm shortie when the other 2 guys who were slightly taller and reasonable build only needed 6kg. I have no idea how right he was...I took it on board without questioning as I am not experienced enough. I'm 5'11 and around the 16 1/2 stone mark, usually an XL because of shoulders and about a 44 inch chest.

I am certainly a beginner diver....2 dives abroad (Dom Republic & Cyprus), just done PADI OW and now doing my 5 quarry dives to complete the course along with a dry suit specialty - although I have to say I am not keen on the dry suits XXL on loan which strangles me half to death and gives me pins and needles in my hands.

Sounds like way over weighted, In the sea I dive with 1Kg in a shorty and I am hardly svelte. In fresh water I am over weighted with nothing.

Most try dives they just dump loads of weight on you to make sure you can sink. Unfortunately a lot of instructors do this as well which then causes other problems like high gas consumption and far harder buoyancy control.

First few dives it is difficult to break what you have been doing all your life, i.e. treading water and holding your breath when going under water. Before you add loads of weight make sure your sinking technique is good. Make sure you are not finning or waving your arms around, people do this with out realising - I always got my students to cross their ankles and cross their arms. Then breath out hard, then a bit harder, then a bit harder still.

[Dave White]

Sounds like way over weighted, In the sea I dive with 1Kg in a shorty and I am hardly svelte. In fresh water I am over weighted with nothing.

Most try dives they just dump loads of weight on you to make sure you can sink. Unfortunately a lot of instructors do this as well which then causes other problems like high gas consumption and far harder buoyancy control.

First few dives it is difficult to break what you have been doing all your life, i.e. treading water and holding your breath when going under water. Before you add loads of weight make sure your sinking technique is good. Make sure you are not finning or waving your arms around, people do this with out realising - I always got my students to cross their ankles and cross their arms. Then breath out hard, then a bit harder, then a bit harder still.

Good advice, will bear this in mind and make a conscious effort to avoid any finning or flapping. I have been using a hell of a lot of air as well which figures. Thanks for that Pete, I am interested to see what I can get away with now in terms of weighting because the prices are very high on lead at the mo!

[Orphus]

An interesting conversation about weighting. I'm intrigued Pete that you need no weight at all in fresh water. What equipment do you carry that helps with this (if any)?

I'm keen to try out what I'm going to need when i hit the sea. I'm using two kilos in the pool right now in a 3mm shorty and this seems fine. Wondering how much lead im gonna have to fork out for in a drysuit in the sea. hope it's not too much! :confused:

J

[ChristianG]

An interesting conversation about weighting. I'm intrigued Pete that you need no weight at all in fresh water. What equipment do you carry that helps with this (if any)?J
You could pretty well say that all beginner divers are overweighted.

If in the tropics, as in this pic (http://forum.divernet.com/album.php?albumid=2&pictureid=43), I use:

• a lycra full skin suit
• no weight belt, or weight, at all
• an aluminium tank and pony, you can see the base of the pony at my left shoulder
• a simple, plastic, holes in it to let the water in and air out, tank holder - a more modern ali backplate does the same thing - I suppose
• no BCD/Wing
• Oh, and a camera, of course

That's because all of us hooman beans are actually weightless in the water, depending only on how much lung capacity we are using and this configuration does exactly the same. My lungs are my sole buoyancy control (whether I'm at 50 m where I'd just been or at 8 m as here and decoing) and in the pic I'm wishing the hell that Cory would bluddy get out of the way - I had no idea that he was taking a pic of me rather than the rear end of the giant clam. The point is that I'm hovering in the water, you can clearly see my stationary fins and my hands are all over the camera so I can be doing nothing less than hovering - some of my expended air is still in the water above and behind me but I'm breathholding (shock, horror!).

In local temperate waters I use steel tanks. With one (and an ali pony) I use 4 kilos of shot weight, in twin tank mode I use none at all. That's in a 5mm semi dry, you know them, those things some on these forums love to hate. That weighting changes slightly if I choose (rarely) to use my trilam dry suit (the surrounding water gets to a chilly 16 C or rather, when stepping out of a nice dry suit makes more sense than exposing wet skin to the surrounding elements).

I'm not saying that these configurations are for you at this stage but they could be something that you could try for as you gain more experience.

Edit: BTW, I'm 188 cm (6'2") and 90 kg (198 lbs).

[Richard Whitcombe]

Wondering how much lead im gonna have to fork out for in a drysuit in the sea. hope it's not too much! :confused:

J

Impossible to say. Depends on drysuit type, drysuit fit, undersuit choice and so on.

I just had to pay over £30 for 2 x 2kg lead blocks and im still in shock! No wonder people nick the stuff from a roof!

[PeteM]

An interesting conversation about weighting. I'm intrigued Pete that you need no weight at all in fresh water. What equipment do you carry that helps with this (if any)?

That is just 3mm shorty, standard faber 15L or dumpy 12L and a Buddy Commando (my teaching kit which I also tend to use tropical)

I'm keen to try out what I'm going to need when i hit the sea. I'm using two kilos in the pool right now in a 3mm shorty and this seems fine. Wondering how much lead im gonna have to fork out for in a drysuit in the sea. hope it's not too much! :confused:

J

With my open water kit I use 5Kg, plus a Stainless backplate and a Proteus 6 battery cannister.

Only way to work out what you will need is a proper weight check but in my experience most beginners are over weighted because not enough instructors get their students to stop flapping and breath out properly at the beginning of a dive.

[Orphus]

I agree that instructors probably overweight beginners.

When I turned up for my first pool session I was given six kilos and two 1kg clip ons. I'm 5'10 and 12stone by the way.

At the next pool session, a different instructor told me I had too much weight. At the end of the session he had me take off my weights, empty my BCD and breathe out. I sank like a stone and he hawked me back up. He told me no more than two kilos next time!

Every pool session after that, other instructors tried to get me to collect more weights until the instructor who had told me to take 2kg corrected them.

J

[Richard Whitcombe]

From the flip side of things new divers do often need more weight than expected. They tend to breathe using full lungs so adding to buoyancy, they often have new suits which haven't compressed yet and so on.

..but yes a lot of new divers are grossly overweighted.

[Dave White]

8kg at Stoney today in a dry suit.....much less than expected in freshwater!

[Dave White]

If 8kg is needed in fresh water how much do you think would be required in the sea?....also that was in an xxl wetsuit with an uggi 2 undersuit. I bought a 7mm wetsuit for personal use so I guess that will need less weight?

[Richard Whitcombe]

Typically for the sea around the UK you generally need 2-3kg more lead than an identical setup in fresh water.

The only way to find out the correct amount of weight is to do a proper weight check. There is no magic formula.

[Dave White]

Thanks Richard....you have been a great source of information and I really appreciate all of the advice.

I am also very keen to try the no mask and regs routine at Epcot now lol

[PeteM]

There is no magic formula.

Actually there is. Salt water is 2.5% more dense than fresh so if you weigh yourself full kitted and correctly weighted for fresh then the amount to add will be 2.5% of that weight.

But 2-3Kg is easier :D

[ChristianG]

Actually there is. Salt water is 2.5% more dense than fresh so if you weigh yourself full kitted and correctly weighted for fresh then the amount to add will be 2.5% of that weight
May I, at least to an extent, dispute that?

AIUI the salinity of salt water varies from ocean to ocean, sea to sea, temperature to temperature, current to current and, in some cases is relatively extreme. Witness the Dead Sea (not that anyone in their right mind would go diving there) but also the Black Sea which is generally significantly more saline than the virtually immediately adjacent Mediterranean Sea, which, itself is probably more saline at its Arabian end rather than the Gibraltar end.

Having said all that, with the exception of the Dead Sea I doubt that the salinity variations are enough to have any significant effect on weighting.

[PeteM]

Having said all that, with the exception of the Dead Sea I doubt that the salinity variations are enough to have any significant effect on weighting.

According to my research 2.5-2.7% (excluding Dead Sea)

[Richard Whitcombe]

Actually there is. Salt water is 2.5% more dense than fresh so if you weigh yourself full kitted and correctly weighted for fresh then the amount to add will be 2.5% of that weight.

But 2-3Kg is easier :D

Point taken but i actually meant you cant look up in a big "i weigh this, ive got this suit and this tank so i need exactly this much lead".

Also compare Arctic/north Atlantic salinity with northern Red Sea and its a noticeable difference in weight requirement for the same gear.

A proper weight check is the only way to establish correct weighting.

[Dave White]

Thanks everyone...2-3kg will do as a guide, I didn't have any scales at stoney for my kitted up weight and it would differ greatly when wet I imagine haha.

Appreciate everyones help....just wanted to make sure that the 12kg I was getting in 2nd hand lead pouches would be enough for every eventuality and it seems it should be. I want to start looking at how I distribute my weight so that I can get weighting and trim about right for myself...just getting a theoretical ball park figure as a point to start from.

[Dave White]

Firstly,
A big thank you to Allyn for the lead pouches....I got to dive with all of my new gear Saturday in my first BSAC pool session. Apologies if I was not very with it when meeting up Saturday...I have been on permanent nights for a while and I'm all over the shop, but a pleasure to meet you.

Secondly,
Used 6kg in the pool and that worked out about right for me in fresh water with a 1.5mm shorty rash guard and Mares dragon BCD completely deflated I could fin pivot in the pool so I guess about 8kgs in salt water should work. One other question though when fine tuning bouyancy...as there are pockets either side you are forced to use 2kg increments to avoid off balancing. I also appear to have no trim pockets on my BCD....is there another way to trim or can I find a way to attach singular kilos to try 5kg in fresh water?

[bythesea]

You are going to dive the UK in a 1.5 mm rash shorty?

Brave man.....

Plus, bear in mind, I bet you didn't stay in the pool long enough to drain your cylinder, the air in a standard 12 will weigh in at 2-3 Kg. So you start the dive over weight so you finish the dive neutral...

Start the dive neutral and at the end of the dive you will have issues in the way up....

[AllynCarter]

You're very welcome. I spent the cash almost immediately on a new Poseidon Mask, as my old mask seems to be disintegrating.

With respect to the trim weights, one approach is to thread a weight onto the cylinder cam band. Obviously, that's easier with solid lead, rather than shot pouches, but it has the advantage of being pretty much central.

Firstly,
A big thank you to Allyn for the lead pouches....I got to dive with all of my new gear Saturday in my first BSAC pool session. Apologies if I was not very with it when meeting up Saturday...I have been on permanent nights for a while and I'm all over the shop, but a pleasure to meet you.

Secondly,
Used 6kg in the pool and that worked out about right for me in fresh water with a 1.5mm shorty rash guard and Mares dragon BCD completely deflated I could fin pivot in the pool so I guess about 8kgs in salt water should work. One other question though when fine tuning bouyancy...as there are pockets either side you are forced to use 2kg increments to avoid off balancing. I also appear to have no trim pockets on my BCD....is there another way to trim or can I find a way to attach singular kilos to try 5kg in fresh water?

[Dave White]

Thanks Allyn will give it a try Saturday.

BTS.... I have a 1 piece full wetsuit for the open water 7mm and 5mm gloves boots and hood.

[bythesea]

BTS.... I have a 1 piece full wetsuit for the open water 7mm and 5mm gloves boots and hood.

All of which will add to your buoyancy, working out your weight in a 1.5mm suit in the pool only works if that is what you will dive in the open water. Neoprene is very floaty..

[Spirit_of_Guernsey]

Firstly,

Used 6kg in the pool and that worked out about right for me in fresh water with a 1.5mm shorty rash guard and Mares dragon BCD completely deflated I could fin pivot in the pool so I guess about 8kgs in salt water should work. One other question though when fine tuning bouyancy...as there are pockets either side you are forced to use 2kg increments to avoid off balancing. I also appear to have no trim pockets on my BCD....is there another way to trim or can I find a way to attach singular kilos to try 5kg in fresh water?

Mares Dragon BCDs have trim pockets just below and to the side of the backplate.

[Dave White]

Mares Dragon BCDs have trim pockets just below and to the side of the backplate.

Found them....quite well hidden on the inside and under the back comfort system...2 small mesh pockets. Thanks very much for your help :)