UKC

Looking for a cheapish rack for casual clipping and the BD 6 packs seem decent value at around £44/£55/£70 respectively.
Was thinking of getting the Posiwires in 18cm length and the Freewires in 12cm, using the Posiwires for clipping overhangs where the keylock biner boltside and extra length to reduce rope drag will come in useful. And the Freewires everywhere else where length isn't an issue and I can get away with a more tricky to remove biner boltside.
Any thoughts on these biners from anyone that has handled them or used them?
Was going to pair these with an Edelrid 60cm tech web sling with two BD Hoodwires. Surely that'd be enough to deal with almost any UK single pitch sport climbing? Would there be anything else needed for multi-pitch?

In reply to Hertz32:
Haven't used them, so cant offer any advice in that regard. However, you may or not be aware the Posiwire and Freewire wiregates are subject to a huge product recall by Black Diamond recently. This includes individual carabiners and quickdraw package deals.

Be sure to inspect before purchasing.

http://blackdiamondequipment.com/en_GB/recalls.html

In reply to Hertz32:

I used them for a year. They are very heavy. Good draws though. Can price match dmm spectres etc same price though so no reason to get them.

In reply to Hertz32:

Keylock biners on bolts, if you have dedicated QDs for sport. Wiregates and non-glue-in bolts are not a great combo... unless you want the QDs to become unclipped.

Which is why I have Positron QDs...

In reply to HeMa:


Perhaps that's true, but in 20 years of climbing on such a set-up, I've never had this experience nor has anyone I've climbed with.

In reply to Fraser:

http://dmmclimbing.com/knowledge/carabiner-and-bolt-interaction-vid/

And there has been actually incidents where the biner has failed (because it was in open position) and also unclipping. My friend being one of them.

Likely, prolly not. Can happen, why yes. So unless weight is a premium, better stick to solidgates (keylocks) for bolt ends... often cheaper as well.

In reply to HeMa:
The dialogue on that video is a bit misleading... they refer to wire gates when they mean non-shrouded nose. They contrast "wire gates" (meaning non-shrouded nose) to the alpha trad (actually a wire gate, but a clean nose design) and show the alpha trad won't stay in a hooked up position (look at 2:40).

In fact with modern biners, clean nose designs are pretty much all that's being made - at least with DMM gear, the new chimera looks to be a clean nose upgrade to the phantom. In 5-10 years I think we might consider non-clean-nose biners "legacy" gear

And finally, this is of course only a problem if you don't properly clip the bolt!!

So... nothing wrong with wiregates for sport, at least not in terms of bolt clipping safety. But hooked noses, be aware of that.

In reply to climbwhenready:


Nope, they also mean wiregates (Petzl Ange might be the exception), as if there is a bolthead or nut stickin' out, the wires will snag on said bolthead or nut. There's a bunch of material about happening... including UIAA reports and whotnot. And this is an issue with wiregates. Solid gates are just fine, as they simply roll off (unless the bolt is really badly placed and too much stuff is stickin' out).

I've seen it happen, friend did a lovely crater a few years back and I've read reports of it happening.

Still, as said, is it likely... maybe not. But if you're getting a dedicated sport quickdraws, simply get solid-gate ones on the bolt on to be safe.

In reply to HeMa:

So how are we meant to parse this information:

"As expected, we found the alpha, the shadow, and even the alpha trad with the completely shrouded nose wouldn’t even stay in that orientation on the rig - they simply spun back round. With the wire gates that we tested, we found then when loaded in this incorrect position, they were significantly weaker than when loaded correctly."

(emphasis mine)

Note that the alpha trad is the shrouded nose biner in their test, in contrast to the thor, spectre, etc.

In reply to HeMa:

By the way, this is something that's relevant to me personally as my draws are alpha trad ones! Primarily for, ahem, trad. However I'm happy to use them on sport - and would maintain (and I believe DMM's video backs me up on this) that this isn't me taking a risk with the biner type, but that it doesn't apply to shrouded nose biners.

In reply to climbwhenready:

Just as what it says.


How ever keylock/non-keylock is just one part of it.

Like I stated, the actual wires (nor the keylock area) can and will get stuck more easily than a solidgate one (in fact, for a solidgate biner this to happen, the bolt needs to be really badly placed and have way too much stuff stickin' out) on the bolthead/nut... causing the gate to open. And depending on the timing and QD movement, either stay open or become completely unclipped...

Due to only one wire, Petzl Ange might be a lot less prone to such thing (almost like a solid gate).

But why even worry, get a solid gate for sport draws.

In reply to Fraser:

I´ve seen three wiregates come off by getting hooked on the threads of the bolt, seen two solid-gates broken by nose hooking when clip-sticking. Solid-gate keylock all the way anyway, getting normal hooked gates off overhanging routes is the pits!

In reply to jimtitt:

Yeah, I'm not saying it never happens or can't happen, it's just pretty rare.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say '...nose hooking when stick clipping' - can you explain please? Is it the draw that you use to go in direct to the bolt you're hanging off gets twisted and somehow comes undone as you're reaching up with the clip-stick?

In reply to Fraser:

When you stick-clip a bit far away sometimes the hook of the krab catches in the hanger, give it a good tug to get it to drop in properly and things break. That´s when you work out a) karabiners are amazingly weak in the wrong orientation b)keylocks are better.

In reply to jimtitt:

Aah understood, thanks. I've not had that happen but even when the crab doesn't get properly clipped (and doesn't actually break), it's a complete PITA. I've usually found that to occur with one particular friend's draws and I really dislike them for that reason.