Package or piece together

[SecondRound 0]

Looking at buying a complete rig. What has been your experience, is it a better bargain to buy a package from a dealer or to shop for individual pieces and put together a rig that way? There may be no one right answer, but I want to hear your input based on your experience.
Thanks.

[Squeak 17]

timing is everything, if buying everything brand new, then the package deals are good.
if you can stomach 2nd hand then there are some very good bargains around

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[sammielu 3]

The lead times for any new container give you plenty of time to find used canopies; a big cost savings. Talk to your rigger and get the word out to your local community - people have stuff in closets that are not posted for sale but will go for $ to a local!

[Joellercoaster 6]

What Squeak said - if you're going all-new then some of the package deals are extremely good value.

Second-hand you might also see people pricing their old rig for a quick sale and unwilling to separate. But if you're patient, you can do really well putting it together over weeks or months.

There is also a middle road: Buy a new container, knowing it will fit you perfectly and look how you want (trust me, everyone's rig design taste sucks except yours), and put second-hand canopies in it for cheap. This is what my last couple of rigs have been

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[JWest 0]

After I talked to my people about canopy sizes I waited it out during the winter. I was lucky enough to snag a container, AAD, and reserve for an awesome price. I was also able to get am older year canopy that had zero jumps to put in there. It took a total of about 5 months to find everything.

Most importantly talk to your people and decide on a safe reserve size. Base the container size off of that and finally get an appropriately sized main that will also fit the container you purchased/plan to purchase.

[riggerrob 558]

Search webs of major dealers: Chuting Star, Para-Gear, Square One, Square Two and Square Three, etc. to compare prices.

Often major dealers offer discounts on complete rigs. At a minimum major dealers offer free assembly and pack (more than $100 value). If the dealer's rigger assembles the rig, you can be sure that all parts are compatible.

[mcordell 2]

riggerrob

Search webs of major dealers: Chuting Star, Para-Gear, Square One, Square Two and Square Three, etc. to compare prices.

Often major dealers offer discounts on complete rigs. At a minimum major dealers offer free assembly and pack (more than $100 value). If the dealer's rigger assembles the rig, you can be sure that all parts are compatible.

Hey now...there's nothing wrong with a smaller dealer

www.facebook.com/FlintHillsRigging

[betzilla 56]

Lots of good advice already given!

The best of this (IMO) is... if this is your first rig, buy used gear if you can find used that fits you (physically and otherwise). When you find a used rig that appeals to you, run it by someone knowledgeable before you buy it (your instructors and/or your rigger), to make sure it's a good choice and a fair price.

Someone suggested a new container and used canopies - GREAT idea, especially if you have a non-average body shape.

Someone else suggested that a "large dealer" will have everything in stock. That's largely untrue -- we mostly just pull off the manufacturer stock lists at customer request. Many large dealers will have a pretty good selection of used gear, though, so that's worth looking into for sure!

Places to look for new gear on-the-quick are the Mirage facebook page (their photo albums are where you'll find their stock containers, and they have a LOT of new stock containers), Sunrise Manufacturing's (Wings) website has a good stock list, and the PD webpage has lots stock canopies. Sunpath also has a wicked-good stock rig program which gets you a hot-looking Javelin container with the harness built to fit you like a glove (and plenty of custom options available), with a 2-week delivery.

Good luck in your quest! new (and new-to-you) gear is the best!

[SecondRound 0]

My beer rig was used and worked out fairly well. Looking to add a second rig for short calls and to set one up for serious FS and possibly bigway jumps. Got my first suit made to measure after buying used and was surprised at the difference. I am hoping to see a similar improvement in fit with a made to measure harness and container.