The "C" shell is the "Continental Shell". The only shell actually designed for use with the Surge Belly Milker! It accepts a wide range of inflations from narrow to medium to wide bores.

Then there was the Vacuum Saver shell. A small barrel shell which was introduced with the Surge siphon style milkers used in the early pipeline systems. It is often misconstrued as a shell for small teated Jerseys or goats. It's small barrel design was intended to save on vaccum requirements, as the siphon style milkers had open vacuum (meaning there was a constant vacuum loss during milking).

The 3rd common Surge shell is the Jet-Flow shell, introduced with the newer and still commonly used Surge take-off claw milkers, These accomodate a larger bore inflation than the V/S shells.

Vacuum Saver shells can be used with belly milkers, but a lot of things must come into place for them to work properly.
Surge had many style buckets and many style lids, some bucket spouts are flat on top, while others are slanted, Surge lids also came with different length milk ports and different angles also.
V/S shells work best on buckets with flat spouts and lids with shorter milk tubes. The reason for this is the teatcup assemblies with V/S shells are lighter in weight than the assemblies with Continental shells. As we know, the teatcup assemblies must hang down to seal vacuum in the bucket. As V/S assemblies are lighter, if they are used on the newer slant spouted surge bucket or pushed onto the longer milk spout lids they do not hang down enough to seal vacuum very well in the bucket.
So which style is best for your Jersey, would actually depend on your bucket/lid style. Generally the Continental ("C") shell with a narrow to medium bore inflation is the best bet as it works with any Surge bucket/lid combination. However if your vacuum supply is limited and you have a flat spout bucket with short milktube lid, you can't go wrong with the V/S shell set-up for Jersey milking.

Hope this helps you some, if you need more info, feel free to ask.

Thanks

Last Edited Guest on 14-Mar-2006 11:49 PM

Hi Lesli, the widebore inflations we discussed on the phone are in the mail.
Bill

Last Edited Guest on 1-Nov-2006 11:33 PM

I would gladly send you the pulsators that I have and the one set of metal shells as I would rather not use them if you can find a use for them better then collecting dust here.

Nola