UKC

Quick question. Should the gates on quickdraw carabiners face the same direction (mirror image) or be in the opposite direction? And...why? Been given contrasting advise, but no one seems to be able to support their reasons! Ta.

In reply to bigwow:

this has been (and will be done again) to death on here and is another
one of those religious war type things

personally i have them facing the same direction for a number of reasons
primarily that way the i know both the gates are away from the rock,

people have them the other way cos they say it's easier to clip, i read an
article that said you should some of each (which is confusing to my mind)

pays yer money and takes yer choice ...

In reply to bigwow:

is this a trick question?

In reply to bivy spirit:

Get some big floppy slingdraws and you can't even tell which way round they are

I wouldn't worry about it, any performance gains are going to be very marginal. I couldn't tell you which way around mine are though I suppose that means they're almost certainly mixed.

jk

In reply to lithos:

Absolutely with you - both the same. Just occasionally on red points it can be easier to clip if you face the lower krab the other way... depends if you are prone to fumble-clipping in one particular direction.

But you won't get a consensus.

In reply to bigwow:
As this is a matter of personal preference there is no final answer.
Mine face the same way.

In reply to mrjonathanr:

Personal preference, maybe, but there is a final answer in my book, but apply mainly to sport routes and a lot less to trad routes...

If say, you clip a bolt and traverse left from it, the gate of the top karabiner should face right - to prevent the bolt snagging in that little notch next to the gate. (See the thread about testing little krabs recently - yes, I know that was when used with wires). The lower krab should also face right to prevent it from coming into contact with the rock (the lower krab, to my mind, is slightly less important than the top one.) If the gates face different ways, you can't achieve that.

And yes I've held a fall where a krab snapped in a bolt when clipped the 'wrong' way. It was a big chunky Simond krab, not a tiny lightweigh job.

Just three observations: 1. On overhanging routes the orientation of the lower krab is of little importance. 2. The snagging I referred to is not likely to happen when clipping big glue in rings. 3. I think when trad climbing there's every reason to have both krabs free and the orientation doesn't matter so much.

In reply to bigwow:

Page 2&3 of this should give some hints on avoiding stuffing up QDs.

http://www.petzl.com/files/all/en/activities/sport/tech-tips-sport-climbing...

Although in the pictures the gates face the same way on the quickdraws they don't specifically which way they should go. If petzl ain't bothered I would worry.

In reply to bigwow:

I prefer mine horizontal, then I know I have got both options covered...

In reply to jon:

exactly as I understand it- and though it is still a small risk it applies for trad as the diameter of the cable on a nut is just the right size to sit in the notch of a krab.

However, in practice I don't give gate direction a moments thought and the gates on my QDs face whatever random way I clipped them together last- reckon it is one of those theoretical risks that are small enough that I've ignored it.

In reply to petellis:

The Petzl link doesn't spell out exactly my points above, but the sketches do show gates facing away from the direction of a traverse. It also shows quite clearly the effect on a krab where a bolt is snagged in that notch by the gate. They've shown it as a result of the quickdraw being used 'upside down' - the captive end into the bolt, but importantly it is also because the qd is facing the wrong way. In the incident I refer to above of the krab snapping, the quickdraw was simply the wrong way round - ie when we picked up the pieces it was indeed the top krab that had failed.