In reply to plexiglass_nick:
> (In reply to Silum)
>
> [...]
>
> Actually if you read the report, used Camalot and Metolius cams were tested as control samples which both failed well above rated strength.
>
> The second most disturbing thing IMHO was the off-centre drilling on the lobes resulting in a wildly variable cam angle. There is software which lets you analyse the lobes of your cams from digital images (linked in the report) but more often than not Aliens seemed to be misdrilled.
Ooo good, someone who did actually read the report before coming to conclusions on their own. I will agree that clearly minds are made up, though I'm not quite as arrogant as you may think I am. I have a blue alien and will continue to trust it but I probably wont buy anymore, simply because their are now more small (unequivocally safe) cams on the market and for larger sizes I prefer BD anyway...
Aliens being 'misdrilled' is indeed the reason for all these failures. But its a very loose definition of the word failure since the cams didn't actually fail in most the cases, it was generally the smaller sized cams that this 'misdrilling' caused the steel rig to cause the lobes to deform quicker than they should and exceed the critical angle. Most slipped out of the rig due to the lobes deforming. You can either view this as a hardness problem or a rigging problem. The larger cams didn't suffer this as much, just as the other brands tested were larger. So for the interesting bit... There is plenty of discussion in that thread about real world conditions where cams are placed in sandstone and granite and not in steel, where this critical angle of 30 odd degrees won't be reached solely due to lobe flat spots. Also, look at all the drop testing done out there with Aliens and others, a year or so back when I cared about all this there was plenty of data out there.
...Hence why they continually pass CE and UIAA standards and are deemed perfectly safe. Again, clearly no minds are going to be drastically changed here but my choice is between unvalidated results off the internet and a mountaineering federation.