UKC

I am fairly new to sport climbing and just getting into leading. I have led using a friends quickdraws which had different colour karabiners so you knew which end was for the rope and which for the bolt.
I have found some DMM prowire quickdraws on the V12 website but both ends seem to be the same. Am i just not seeing the difference or is there a way to tell which end is used for what ? Any advice would be appreciated.

In reply to skooch:

If both ends are the same, choose one krab and mark it (with electrical tape or whatever)

Always use the same end to clip the bolt and the other to clip the rope. The theory is that falling on bolts can leave burrs inside the krab which could damage the rope if it's then run through the damaged krab. HTH.

In reply to skooch: often one end will be held in place (so it cant rotate) clip this end into the rope and the other into the bolt/gear. (this reduces the chance of the krab not in the bolt spinning into an awkward position if you pull the rope leaving the draws in the route for your mate to lead or to try again after falling). dont know the exact draws in question that well, i have some live wires which are held with little band things (20cm) or just by one end of the draw having less space (10cm). if you're worried confused then post a link to the draws n someone should be able to tell you if they have an obvious difference in ends.

Thanks for the advice. The draws I was looking at are here :

http://www.v12outdoor.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=938&osCs...

In reply to skooch: the top right krabs are light silver, the bottom left ones darker silver; the darker ones have slightly less room to move so there's less chance of them spinning around on your harness/when pulling ropes making them awkward to clip the rope into (the other end shouldn't rotate as it'll either be clipped onto your harness or into bolt/gear. so clip the light silver into the bolt and dark into the rope... maybe put a bit of electrical tape on one end of each of them if this will avoid you getting confused (and so you know what's your gear so your mates dont nick it!), though you only need to remember racking up at the bottom of the route cos then it will be right on your harness and therefor on route.

In reply to skooch:

I bought Wild Country ones with red & blue ends so I didnt have to think about it too much. Helps if you rack them on your harness the same way every time too, just whip the blue end off and straight onto the bolt. Job done.

In reply to skooch: oh, dunno if you want length advice, but for sport i'd go for 12cm. if you're thinking about trad too then 18cm is useful for helping to reduce drag on long pitches, i find 25 too long on my harness and you can make 20cm draws with slings which are easily turned into 60cm draws for runners which need loads of extension (a whole other thread there)

In reply to skooch: The V12 prowires (well mine anyway) come anodised w/ one dark silver, one blue. The blue one is the 'fixed' end so silver for gear, blue for rope.

In reply to skooch: I bought the V12 ones too, and one end is silver the krab on the other end is blue (rope end) and held in place with a rubber grippy tube thing.

Was considering the problem myself and thought I would have to tape one end.

In reply to skooch: Straight gate on the clip, bent gate on the rope...
It allegedly helps the rope feed in, with a curved gate.

Keep that way round when starting Trad, and ANY metal goes into a straight gate... Rope only goes in the curved end.

TTG

In reply to skooch:

As someone else has mentioned, the bottom (rope) krabs look like they are are anodised a darker silver - it's not that obvious in the photo, but I have spectres in the same colours and it's pretty clear when you have one in your hand.