Which developer for Agfa Copex?

I bought few fresh roles of Agfa Copex Rapid Black and now am thinking how am I going to develop it at home. From what I've read people had great results with Spur developers, but many of them are either not possible to buy in US (Spur Dokuspeed SL) or are no longer made (Spur Modular UR).

 

Other options I've seen is highly diluted Rodinal, anywhere from 1:50 to 1:100 to 1:200. Another option I've seen often mentioned is Caffenol LC+C, e.g. here.

 

I see various options listed on the massive dev chart here.

 

Can you share your own experiences and any recommendations. I would prefer a commercial solution, rather than mixing my own.

 

I'm fairly new to doing my own B&W, I started only few months ago, developing primarily TMAX 100, 400 and Delta 3200 film in TMAX 1:4 developer to keep things simple. Things are going pretty well so far, made few mistakes along the way, but am able to get repeatable results now.

Here is my method for Copex in both 120 and 135-36 formats. Exposure is asa 50 using Pilot selenium meters and Pyrocat HD chemistry which is available at various resources here in the US.

3.0 ml of Pyrocat A and 3ml of Pyrocat B mixed into 450 ml of Distilled water.

I use a Nikor 450 ml stainless steel tank assembly, with spacers on the bottom for either of the135-36 or 120 films.

3 minute presoak with DI water. Develop for 12 minute, with 30 sec of constant, but slow, inversions the first minute. Regular inversion (1 over and up...about 3-5 seconds) at the 1 minute marks.

Water only stop bath, two times.

Non acid fixer for 2x clearing time. Copex is a very thin emulsion and my experience is that it will clear under 2 minutes.... watch this step !!

"Standard" wash procedures. My final "wash" is DI water with one drop of Photoflo wetting agent for 3 minutes. My films are mist sprayed with DI water upon hanging to dry.

Have fun ! Aloha, Bill

Thank you Bill for the advice. Reading now about Pyrocat on the web to learn what it's about. How do you like the results? How contrasty do they come out? Have you tried other developers or different dilutions/ratios of A and B? Some of the quick reading I've done mentions problems with streaking and people trying to control it via different A:B ratios or inversion method/timing - have you had any streaking problems? Thank you.