UKC

An important consideration when using quickdraws is being totally consistent in which carabiner of the pair is used for connecting into the protection and which is used for connecting to the rope.

This is because some types of protection, especially old steel pegs and steel plate bolts, can damage the inner surface of the relatively soft aluminium carabiner when loaded, leaving small rough burrs and score-marks.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/news.php?id=4272

In reply to UKC Gear: Good video. This is one of those things that I think I've always known, but was never quite sure how serious and likely a risk it was. But DMM have very clearly shown us that, yes, keeping your rope and gear end krabs very separate is clearly the right thing to do!

In reply to TobyA: although I know that this can happen, I would liked to have seen how the crab they used was damaged to create the damage on the rope

In reply to higherclimbingwales:
you get a glimpse of it and it looks like it's significantly more burred than any of my biners in fact I'd probably have retired it by now even if it was used only on the gear end

That said I do try and keep my biners seperate, but let's face it, with other people using your rack and mistakes made etc, it's impossible to keep them 100% seperate.

Some of my biners are floating and get used for multiple uses (screw gates fall in to this category for me as well as some snap gates). I'll think I'll continue doing this TBH and just visually inspect the biners from time to time and retire them a bit sooner from this use if they start burring than the ones I know are going to be gear only.

In reply to CurlyStevo: I agree. it is a major concern and I too find it hard sometimes to keep track of which crab has been used for what end. Maybe i'll become more aware of it because of this vid and I hope others do too.

In reply to higherclimbingwales: I think the speed they get damaged depends on a) if you sport climb much (more falls and falls onto metal gear) and what the standard bolts are in the areas you climb. Check out my review of the DMM shadows a couple of years back: http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=1140 you can clearly see a gouge in the second photo, from a krab that was still very new at the time, caused by the type of bolt in the first pic. Nowadays where I climb those bolts are getting rarer and rarer, virtually all bolting now is glue ins which just don't gouge the krabs like that. So if you climb only on trad, or sport climb on glue ins you're unlikely to see such damage. But anyone who sport climbs on those older design hangers is likely to have such gouges in all their QDs.

In reply to TobyA: fair point and one that the video omits to mention in greater detail.

In reply to TobyA:
I've climbed a fair bit (for a brit ) on both types of hangers and the gouges in that video are a fair bit worse than in any of my biners (I normally inspect mine about once per year and retire them if there are any big gouges). Mine have seem some pretty big falls on to those type of hangers too.

In reply to CurlyStevo:


If you have bent and straight gate krabs its pretty easy, with my wire gate QDs I just tell anyone who is borrowing them my system - I have small krabs at the gear end and bigger krabs on the rope end. Seems quite intuitive, plus most of my QDs nowadays have a rubber thingy for the rope end.

In reply to TobyA:
yes for my quickdraws I also have a captive end and I use coloured biners for the gear end and normal ones on the rope. That said people still make mistakes (including myself

In reply to UKC Gear: the fact is that the gouges arent the problem, it's the burrs which cut the sheath. these can easily and safely be removed with a file or emery paper.