UKC

Looking for the best advice on racking cams..

Do you..

1 - Have 1 carabiner per cam or have a few cams on 1 carabiner?

2 - Any thoughts in using micro-carabiners for cams / generally?

(e.g. - http://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Rock-Climbing-Equipment/Karabiners/St...


Any advice would be greatly appreciated

In reply to anon60521:
I use phantoms one biner per dragon and the same colour as the dragon.

Works great in summer, I don't have any issues clipping phantoms. They have a reasonable gate clearance for a micro biner and are pretty burly but not quite the lightest, depends what your preferences are.

In winter I carry less cams and phantoms wouldn't be nice to handle with gloves on so I normally rack them as a bunch on a larger snap gate.

In reply to anon60521:

The few I have (4) are on DMM Phantoms, I would imagine multiple cams on one krab would be very fiddly, with good drop potential. Especially as I tend to use cams in "fast placement" (thank f*ck) situations.

Adam

In reply to butteredfrog:

For me VS and under I can normally place cams fine racked together as the holds are normally quite big and stable positions to place gear quite plentiful so a bit of faff is fine. At HVS and above I find quick cam placements more necessary.

In reply to anon60521:

Each cam (Wild Country Helium) on a colour coded DMM Phantom

In reply to anon60521:
Each cam on colour coded biner... DMM cams are great as you can extend the sling and use the attached biner, thus saving on QDs.

I use these... http://www.climbers-shop.com/9931737/products/dmm_spectre_2_5_pack.aspx

In reply to anon60521:

just to go against the grain, I rack them on biners. 3 small ones together, 3 medium ones together and 2 large ones together. Never had a problem or dropped them. Plus if I've got a tricky placement that is hard to read, I know I've got a similar size ready to go.

In reply to anon60521:

Used to rack one cam per biner, but now happily pairing them up per biner, so have two very small, two small and two medium flexi cams per crab. I still however have my larger rigid cams size 3 and 3.5 each on its own crab. I like having two chances to get the right size cam without too much faffing on and off the harness.

In reply to anon60521:

Agree with most people one the Dragon camms and coloured spectre 2 krabs.
Makes it really easy to just pick the one you want off your harness.
I also use 2 gear loops for my cams, 00, 0, 1, 2 & 4 on the front loop and 4, 5 & 6 on the rear loop. More than 5 on one loop gets a bit cluttered and i find they hang better with the larger ones at the back.

In reply to anon60521:

4CUs each on their own colour-coded Spectre. With the extendable sling I often don't bother extending them, so having them on their own krab makes sense and saves on quickdraws.

In reply to anon60521:


If I found myself climbing with someone who put more than one cam on a krab, I would bin them and get another partner. It is an appalling crime.

In reply to anon60521:

I dont think theres a Proper way to Rack anything, just trial and Error and whatever works best for you.

In reply to anon60521:



Personally I wouldn't carry any gear that isn't fully rated - you can guarantee that when you are gripped and have almost run out of gear you will be left with some crappy little racking crab to clip into!


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:


^^^And this^^^

In reply to Chris Craggs:


Andy Kirkpatrick wrote on his website about getting to the top of a pitch with only one karabiner left to set up a belay and belay from - and that was the one from his nut tool. Nice story

In reply to Chris Craggs:
I think the OP was referring to smaller snap gates like the phantoms NOT accessory biners.

Needlesports call them micro wiregates for example....... He did link to the 19g krab in the opening post!

In reply to anon60521:

Larger cam (camalot 0.5-3) have a biner each.

4 smaller cams (Metolius purple to orange) share a biner. It's harder to judge the placement size as they get smaller so being able to quickly try the next size up/down is pretty useful.

To echo others, I don't carry anything that's not rated.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Yes. First against the wall when the revolution comes.

In reply to anon60521:

1 - each cam on it's own karabiner - if I'm using a cam, I want it in quick!

2 - I've got some of the smaller DMM cams/camming nuts. I've placed them, more out of psychological help than any hope they'll actually hold!

In reply to anon60521:

There is no 'proper' way. Whatever works yor you. Personally I rack all friends (and hexes) on their own krab. That way I've spare krabs left when I run out of quickdraws.

In reply to LastBoyScout:

I trust my small cams (smallest is a 00 WC tech friend - 10 kn) which is smaller than any cam dmm make. I fully trust it in good rock in a good placement pretty much as any other cam on my rack.

The Ballnuts I will admit can be a fair bit harder to gauge but then again its all about the placement/rock.

In reply to anon60521:


The 19Gs are impressively light but they are very small. If you're not carrying a big rack or climbing in the alps or similar I'd go for more normal sized krab. You can clip them fine vimeo.com/69471594 but from choice I'd go for something a bit bigger for my everyday rack.

In reply to anon60521:

c4s 0.3-3, doubles of 75 and 1 on the same biner (spectre 2)

In reply to TobyA:

phantoms are a good compromise imo - strong and light but still ok to handle and decent gate opening.

In reply to anon60521:

As others have said: one per cam and always colour coded.

Re the 19g carabiner. I have some of these and they are too small to clove hitch to with ropes bigger than 7.7mm. So, no, go for the next size up. Such as a camp nano wire if you use double ropes, and larger if you like a good old fashion 10.5mm rope. Also the 19g's only come in two colours I think.

Or on multi pitches you could each carry 3 extra larger carabiners (e.g. heliums) for setting belays with.

Hope that helps.

In reply to TobyA:

Where are you climbing in this video, Toby?

In reply to anon60521:

I use a mixture of colour coded phantoms and spectre 2s on my gear. These are both really light for their size, and are pretty much the same design but the spectre 2 is the bigger version. Pick the nicest for you to clip. Both carabiners follow both the DMM and Black Diamond colour coding for their cams.

I'm non a fan on the ninteen gram ones, but how small is too small? If it's true that they won't accept a clove hitch for most ropes then they take a big hit on their versatility.

In reply to gdnknf:

Some pretty crappy road cut rock just next door to Helsinki IKEA. http://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crag.php?id=2732