Hey,
Having not been out in a while I took the opportunity a few days ago to head up into the Peaks. I decided to top rope a couple of climbs to get back into the swing of it.
I used a new carabiner to run the rope through. As I was setting up to ab down I put my weight onto the rope and was watching the carabiner, It seemed to flex pretty heavily under load. I had never seen this before or at least not to such a large degree. I inspected the carabiner and it seemed that there was a small gap between the gate and the metal which allows it to flex. It is rated to 22kN. I've included a photo, the gap is small but the flex it allows is quite a large amount. The gap is definitely large than all my other carabiners.
It concerned me enough to remove it and replace with some other HMSs I had (I also had a mini word with myself for not doubling it up in the first place).
My question is has tech moved on to allow flex to absorb shock or could it be a design flaw?
Thanks