In reply to mike kann:
CAMP, whatever is our personal judgement on the single product, has made lots of gear for other companies, including BD (at less, before BD began making most of its hardware in China). Their manufacturing is at high standards, not lower than any other company in the outdoor business.
As far as I know there are no more failures or problems with CAMP climbing hardware than with DMM, BD, Wild Country, Petzl etc.
When I was a boy, my first quickdraw set was CAMP. They were not the most refined, but worked well for years, at less than half the price of Petzl.
There’s a lot of italian engineering in the world. But this has nothing to do with the quality of climbing hardware, which is still the product of a relatively low technology industry. Crampons are not diesel motors or airplanes. I have not ceased considering reliable my Tech Friends because Rover made probably the worst cars in western Europe.
As is well known, Italy has a strong tradition in the climbing gear business. Four of the biggest companies in the world (CAMP, Grivel, Kong, Salewa) are italian (of course, “big” is here always relatively small, we aren’t speaking of IBM or General Motors).
I wonder why a thread on a climbing company has involved national or even nationalistic issues.
PS
I’m not related with CAMP in any way.