palmers stabilizer/expansion chamber question

[ftsagm]

ok so in coenen's uber sticky FAQ he states that an expansion chamber must go before a regulator when using C02. i'm thinking of putting a palmers stabilizer on my a-5. i don't need an expansion chamber first correct? i can run straight from the bottle to the stabilizer right? because a stabilizer is different than a regulator i'm guessing. every review i've heard about this palmers a-5 stabilizer says it's the bees knees.

[Coenen]

Yes, you can run the bottle straight to the Stabilizer and then run the Stab straight into the marker. However, it would behoove you to have your CO2 tank anti-siphoned before doing so to keep as much liquid CO2 as possible from getting into the Stab. The Stabilizer is the best reg on the market for use with CO2, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and help it out a bit.

The part about having an expansion chamber was simply in reference to those who might be thinking of using one in conjunction with a Stab or any other regulator; having an expansion chamber is by no means a necessity. If you did want to have both an expansion and a reg you would need the gas to flow through the expansion chamber first. Simply put, if you were to have the expansion chamber after the reg it allows the regulated CO2 to further expand and essentially to de-regulate.

[ftsagm]

ya that's what i was thinking.

the only problem i have is i have NO paintball shops in my area that could anti siphon my 3 20 oz tanks. closest one is outside of nashville over 2 hours away. have you ever anti siphoned one yourself? it couldn't be to hard with the right tools.

thanks for the good info coenen

[Coenen]

It's better to have a professional do the anti-siphon job. If you do it wrong you run the risk of having the tank unscrew from the valve and turn into a missile. People have died from poorly done A/S jobs causing tanks to detach and go flying.

The Stab should still run just fine without the A/S installed.

[Curly Fry]

Anti-Siphon isn't really needed, its more of the icing on the cake type of thing, you'll get close to the same performance with or without it.

[Corrupted355]

... a stabilizer is different than a regulator i'm guessing...
Coenen kind of touched on this, but I'd just like to elaborate. The Stabilizer actually IS a regulator. It's just the name Palmer has given it, due to the way it "stabilizes" the inherently variant pressure of CO2.

And as Coenen said, the Stabilizer is arguably the very best regulator on the market for CO2. There are better HPA regs, but for pressure compensating CO2 compatibility, there are none better.

The type of help (again, as Coenen was describing) you give the Stabilizer, be it X-chamber or A/S, kind of depends on whether you plan on running a remote or not. Really, if you do run remote, there's no need for either since the bottle is held upright.