Best style regulator for CO2?

[Brokeass_baller]

I'm not asking for brand or anything like that. But in my years of paintball, and my years of doing industrial maintenance, I've basically come across two types of pneumatic regulators: a plunger type, and a piston type with a seat.

The reason I'm asking is I have a bunch of regulators in my stash. Good regulators. I'm not in the market for any new ones. But, my local renegade outfit has been having a really hard time keeping their air compressor working, and fills are expensive at the scuba shop. Luckily, Dick's still offers CO2 fills. So I was thinking about setting up an Autococker for CO2 use, so I can keep playing when the air station goes down.

So which regulator style handles the occasional liquid chill better? Which o-ring material shrinks the least? It's been a long time since I used a constant air C02 setup, and last time I did, I only had an expansion chamber on a Spyder for it. I plan on doing it up properly, with an angled bottom line and anti-siphon. I just don't know what reg I should use.

[Euphie]

Straight up the best regulator I ever used on co2 was the maxflo (manifold style) regulator. It has the air go into the middle to move a piston in and out of a reg seat (though in this case the "seat" is two pieces of metal sandwiching a 009 UR90 o-ring so no proprietary parts).

When I played tournaments on co2, I used a Smart Remote with the built in expansion chamber hooked to a gas thru stock to a bottomline maxflo (high pressure, not the sub 300 PSI version) and I had that hooked to a male Palmer stabilizer. I remember having to mess about with my cocker a bit to get the lowest pressure possible as that was a thing everyone was obsessed with back then, but I remember once I had the setup tuned in, co2 was never an issue. No matter how much I fired it just kept on working out fine.

Based on my previous setup I assume that means that the urethane o-rings are best as that is what most co2 pin valves use and the maxflo uses them as well. I had bad luck with a Dye Hyper 2 on co2, and that uses the other style the plunger with a hole in it that plunges down into a reg seat, so I assume that style is worse. I also used the low pressure version of the maxflo with no additional regulation and it worked out really well even in tournament conditions on the Shocker and Impluse, but I think that may have more to do with the fact that liquid co2 is very pressure dependent than the design of the regulator itself.

[scottieb]

I think the Palmer's Stabilizer is awesome with co2.

[Brokeass_baller]

I've always had good luck with Palmer stuff. I just don't want to spend $100 on a new reg when I have a bunch already.

[Jordan]

I'll second the MaxFlo, followed by a Stabilizer. The Stabilizer is going to be much easier to find than a HP MaxFlo, too.

All I used 20+ years ago was Co2, in both cold and hot weather, and I used a Stab. (And once I knew what an anti-siphon was, I used that as well.)

If you don't need to adjust output pressure more than once, I'd also recommend the stock WGP reg. It works surprisingly well with Co2 as well, just not easy to adjust.

[Brokeass_baller]

Hmm. Maybe I'll keep an eye out for an HP Max-Flo. I do have a few stock WGP's lying around, and a couple ANS Unireg clones. I'll try one of those and see if I can make them freeze up. Lol

[Matt Drown]

Wgp reg or wgp ergo reg if removing the bottom cap on the non ergo is a pain. Runs fine on co2. Cheap and should be easy to find.

[Cunha]

The best easiest way to use co2 is an anti siphon 20oz tank (20oz because the larger diameter makes the anti siphon more effective) into a palmer female stabilizer, and then that into a secondary regulator.

You really benefit from 2 regulators, which makes co2 on par with HPA for amount of regulation it is getting.