UKC

I'm looking to purchase approximately 3 micro cams has I start to progress more and more into the lower E-grades (E1-3).
I climb on sandstone (hard) mostly in Northumberland and a bit of Yorkshire grit.
I'm currently considering Wild Country Zero and Black Diamond X4s.
Any opinions or advice?

In reply to blackreaver:
US opinions on mastercams are pretty positive, UKC ones can be negative (I suspect!) due to seizing from corrosion from salt water (a non-issue for people with Yosemite as their main climbing area).

In reply to blackreaver:

I bought red, green and purple c3's (ie size 00, 0 & 1) and used them very occasionally in the UK.....mainly in nth wales on slate and rhyolite. I use them now on Oz sandstone even less.

I probably use the smallest camalot (blue 0.3) much more often. If would be surprised you really need smaller than this.

In reply to blackreaver:

I find the yellow zero useful, mostly on thin slabs. It comes out when the rp's do. It also helps it was on a cheap offer.

In reply to blackreaver:

Totem Basics? I love them, and though I wouldn't pretend to lead in the E grades, my partner, who leads HVS, is always thrilled to borrow them. The blue, as stated above, is very useful!

In reply to blackreaver:
I only use one micro cam. I replaced my seized up mastercam with a totem...

In reply to blackreaver:
I've got Aliens/Totem basics. Everyone who borrows them has a minor epiphany.

The green one often finds a home in those surprisingly deep finger tip sized pockets that show up in sandstone.

Durability is something that shows on the old Aliens. Maybe Totem has improved this?

Also got a Zero that stays in the gear cupboard: The lobes are narrower and the action is kind of gritty. To be fair it's a first generation one and WC has made some improvements since.

In reply to blackreaver:

Nothing very helpful. Only to say please be careful about putting too much faith in teeny tiny gear, cams especially - even 'hard' sandstone is pretty soft, and the smaller the gear the more pressure it's putting on the rock around it.

It would be easy to damage yourself, and more importantly damage the rock.

(I realise this is probably a bit patronising, but sometimes I think it is worth stating the bleedin obvious.)

In reply to blackreaver:

I think I've rules out mastercams as they don't work well around sea cliffs.
Many people say good things about the Totem Basics/Aliens, however they (CCH) have had bad rep in the past with their quality control. I don't know whether this is the same with Totem.
Does anyone find that the 6061 alloy deforms considerably faster than the 7075 alloy used by most other manufacturers?

I'm looking at micro cams as Andy Kirkpatrick somewhere said that micro cams would be more useful instead of standard cams below a Friend size 1.0 due to their increased flexibility.
I have helium friends 1.0-3.5 so I'm probably going to get equivalent (Zero 4/5/6, X4 .3/.4/.5 or Totem .5/.65/.75)

In reply to blackreaver:

As far as I'm aware, there have been no issues of poor QC with the Totem Basics. They are not Totem Basic/Aliens...they are TOTEM BASICS. Aliens may look similar, but they were different product from a different manufacturer. It is a bit of a wild leap to think that the same QC issues would transfer across...

I have a full set of Totems (not the basics) and friends have a few Basics - all holding up well so far, even to fairly hard aid climbing abuse.

In reply to blackreaver:
Totem Basic cams and Alien's are made by 2 different companies. I have basics and think they are great, narrow head for placements in small pockets and thin cracks and they just have a very reassuring 'bite' when placed. The kN rating is maybe slightly better in equivalent sizes for the X4's but i've never had a problem trusting the smaller basics (I've even taken a whipper onto the wee blue one before!).

I think the QC issue is with the original Alien's, which I gather were pretty much a home-made style operation. You can buy Alien's (As opposed to totem basic's) off needlesports, they are now made by a different company (fixe?) and presumably the QC issues are no longer there. Although the only real advantage of buying the fixe aliens over the totem basics, is that they make a size black and basics only go down to blue.

edit - didn't see Fultonius already beat me to it!

In reply to blackreaver:

In my experience, BD C3s are the best. I think the extra lobe of the X4 gives it a mammoth disadvantage in the micro-cam market: it is often a bit to wide for pockets or even uneven breaks, where an RP just doesn't work.

No experience of Totems/Aliens or WC Zeroes, but I have a had a play with the latter and they feel horrid.

In reply to ianstevens:

So you don't find the stiffness impacts on their performance?

A BD employee said this, but I'm not sure I buy it.

"Not only do we have tests to show that it (the ‘stiffness’ of the stem) is not a problem, but we have tests that show too much flexibility is a problem in certain placements. Think about how cams work in a perfect placement: you pull straight down on the cams, that force is converted to a rotational force on the cams, and the surface of the cams push against the rock surface. Now place a highly flexible cabled cam in a vertical bottoming crack (the stem is sticking out horizontally). Should be good right? Think again about how the cams need to work. Pull straight down on this placement and you’ll notice a large component of the downward force is acting parallel to the cam surfaces. This is not how the cam is designed to work. The cams will not push against the rock surface without a force perpendicular to the cams plane of movement. In short, it stops camming and acts like a nut placement. You need some torque on the placement to convert the parallel load to more of an outward one that can act on the cams. This torque is provided by the stiffness of the cable, or the length of the shank of head terminal, or some combination of both. In testing, the high flexible cables did not generate the torque necessary to hold the falls and the units slid sideways out of the placement at very low loads. We even made C3s proto types out of softer cable, only to watch them fail our bottoming crack test because of this issue."

In reply to blackreaver:

Nope, not at all. And I've fallen on the size 2, and my mate has fallen on the 1. Held both times.

In reply to ianstevens:


It's quite a bit narrower than an alien and they seem to work fine. It's really closed the gap between the C4 and the C3, it's not as narrow for sure but with those intergrated springs they're not far off at all.

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/108192461

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/108192467

In reply to FreshSlate:
X4 is quite a bit wider. Several placements a I've had recently on grit only just accepted a c3 by the skin of its teeth the extra width of a x4 would not have allowed a good placement. That said you have to weigh that against the extra security of an x4 in good placements.

The sort of placements I'm talking about is those not always brilliant ones you get on break to break climbing on grit.

In reply to blackreaver:

Hi, Been using a full set of BD X4s pretty much since they were released in the UK. To date I am very impressed. the 0.1 and 0.2 sizes extend below the smallest C4 (0.3) nicely. These replaced three C3's in the same range (head width not very different between C3s and X4s). I still carry a C3 000 at times but this is usually a last resort placement!

Never used Totem cams myself but some fellow gear obsessives say good things.

In a similar vein just acquired a 0.125 Tricam which is looking quite promising for "nothing else works" placements. Not really used in anger yet so still an ongoing experiment!

In reply to Wayne S:

What on earth are you climbing that's E3 (assuming your profile is up to date) and requires a 000?

The smallest I own is a 00, and that's for a specific project

In reply to CMcBain:

The reason being that Aliens (whether CCH or Fixe) moved the springs outside the cam on Blue and Black just like regular camming units which increases the head width quite a bit.

Totem refused to take this route because they see it as a cop-out, The Blue Basic Cam has internal springs like all the other totem basics and retains the narrow head width which is a key part of what makes them superior micro cams.

Putting internal springs in the head of a black is extremely tricky. Totem have been working on it on and off for a while and expect to get there at some point, but not for a while as they need to concentrate on other things this year.


In reply to Black Reaver:

The softer alloy in Basics (and Aliens) will deform slightly more readily but it also yields superior holding power to most small cams.

Other people have already commented on the QC issues not transfering between CCH and Totem. To elabourate a little, the original CCCH Aliens had a now famous brazing problem where some units had the brazed joint only partially filled. Those problems are absolutely not present in Totems. Totem use a brazing method pioneered by Hugh Banner which completely eliminates the problem of partial brazing that CCH had.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Yeah, they are slightly wider, although for most the aliens were narrow enough. Have a look at the picture below (alien vs x4). Somewhere in between the Alien and a C3, that's not a bad spot to be. Also you do sacrafice somewhat on the stability when you go narrower. So it's all a trade off really.

http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Climbing-Cams-Reviews/Black-Diamond-Camalot-X...

You have to scroll down, sorry.


There might be a placement that's around a milimetre or two too small for a X4 where you would get a c3. It's more about the overall package for me, the c3's are narrower than most (all?) cams out there so if you encounter a lot of extremely narrow and short cracks you'd expect them to have an edge there.

In reply to CurlyStevo:

Mate in some sizes there's more than a mm or two in it the yellow for example is 4.6 mm narrower than the equivalent x4, as mentioned this is quite a lot (around 14%)

In reply to blackreaver:

Stop buying gear! You don't need any more

Spend the money on going climbing!!!!

In reply to CurlyStevo:
The red and the gold (the ones I own) are 29.9mm wide. The equivalent C3's are 28mm wide. That definitely comes under the definition of 'a millimeter or two.'

In the larger sizes it's not all about headwidth, and I generally prefer other cams to the larger x4's. Would you sell your Dragon to get the silver x4 even though there's a 19% head width difference? Probably not and neither am I .

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/108192467

That's essentially the difference. Not bad considering you get an extra lobe in there.

P.S not my picture.

In reply to blackreaver: I've been climbing with WC Zeros for 12 years now and they are still my micro cam of choice. They are a great bit of gear, have the really useful extendable sling but equally importantly they are often available at 2/3 the price of the other options.

Currently BD X4s are available at £50 each, so three cams will set you back £150. Master Cams can be found for £45 each or £160 for four.

If you can find WC Zeros sizes 4,5 & 6 for £100 which was fairly common a couple of years ago, I still think you can't seriously go wrong with them. However if you are going to end up paying c.£40 each then it probably starts to get harder to argue against paying the £10 extra per cam for the newer X4s.

For regular sandstone climbing all the dedicated micro cams suffer from a relatively small contact surface. Therefore, it'd be quite nice to have a Metolius Fatcam 2 available as well as a Zero 6, Master Cam 2 or equivalent sized X4.

In reply to deepsoup:



Aha! So this explains why RPs were invented at/for Arapiles

In reply to FreshSlate:
I think you are under selling how much a wider head makes a difference on cams even up to a green dragon as I've had the purple and green one not fit well in to critical placements once each in the last year or two although I guess one can just 'man up' and climb on anyway. I possibly would sell my blue and maybe silver / green dragon to get the right micro cam at the right price. But really I'd be after one with a doubled up sling on it (as well as a narrower head).

I have the red C3 that puts it closest to the 0.3 Blue x4 and I placed it in at least two placements over Easter that likely wouldn't have accepted even a couple of mm wider cam never mind nie on half cm, sure the next size down x4 'may' have fitted some what better but I doubt it would have made as believable a placement as the C3.

In any case as mentioned its a compromise slightly wider head width does restrict placements a bit and in the smaller x4 / 3C it does seem less of an issue as you mentioned, but you trade that for greater stability of placements that do fit and also a single stem (which I prefer) but it's still worth considering especially for grit.

I guess if I was buying black diamond I think I'd tend to err on buying x4 up to size 0.2 but the 0.3 I need to think long and hard about - I'd prefer a narrower head.

The x4 axle desgin appears to be very clever and must increase security a little and allow more placements on the smaller cams that are harder to inspect as the increased range makes tipping out the lobes less likely.

In reply to blackreaver:

Would you say that more stability/smaller head width/extendable sling/6061 Alloy are more important for sandstone (Bowden/Kyloe) and grit?

In reply to AlanLittle:

Which as any fule kno is *exactly* the same as Bowden Doors. Gosh, I feel pretty silly now!

In reply to CurlyStevo:
Fair enough. Lets see what DMM come up with, genuinely should be good, I might get some doubles with the narrower heads. I get why the X4's do go up to a certain range, but prefer the stiffer, wider dragons/c4's in those sizes (much stronger too). However were I considering doubles (or triples) at any point I might select some kind of cam with a narrower head, maybe Totems as are aren't so sold on the X4's in the biggest sizes.

Fair play, well those placements definitely aren't taking my blue dragon either. The C3s aren't the rule though, they're the exception, most won't be factoring having a rack of c3's in the grade. They'd definitely be an advantage in some places. At the moment I just have a blue dragon in that size, I think at 40mm headwidth ish? So a massive difference between that and a c3.

True true.

Yeah exactly, they're still narrower than my dragon so still might be a fair improvement there if I do decided to get another cam in that range.
Could save it for those weird placements and plug the dragon in as long as it fits. But I'm definitely not buying out else this year!

In reply to blackreaver:

Nor me.

Have spent some time on the Northumberland sandstone though so just thought it worth mentioning, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, that it can be a bit soft.
(Very soft in parts, some of it is barely harder than the Southern sandstone - Southern England that is, not Southern hemisphere.)

In reply to deepsoup:

Yeah bits of it are awseomely hard and crystaly just like grit and other bits are like you say no better than the average bits of southern sandstone. (although IMO southern sandstone does win in the bad rock stacks by a long shot!). I think the general case is to be quite wary of cams on the rock. I've seen them pop out of pretty standard horizontal break placements for no apparent reason.

In reply to ianstevens:

Thanks for your concern....I also own a Size 6 Camalot which tends to keep my 000 zero company at the foot of the crag 99% of the time. The joys of climbing on-sight.

The OPs question was about micro cams, my point was the smallest X3 isn't as small as they come, not a recommendation to carry a 000 on all/any routes.

In reply to blackreaver:
As far as I'm aware, this is the main selling points of the individual brands. Please correct me if I'm wrong:

BD C3: Stiff, smallest head width, bad for walking
BD X4: Fairly flexible, fairly small head width
Totem Basic: Fairly flexible, softer alloy bites better but is less durable, 16' angle, slightly larger head width than X4
WC Zero: Very flexible, extendable sling, largest head width, delicate, not smooth?

In reply to Wayne S:


I was genuinely intruiged rather than anything else, I'm sure you know what you're doing with it. I also have a rather expensive (although placed thrice, so ~£30 a placement) size 6 paperweight, ahem, cam.

In reply to blackreaver:



With one minor correction (in bold) that's pretty much true but is a very bullet-point approach to it. Speak to someone that has used, and preferably fallen, on a selection of them to get a picture more true to real life. I think you'll find that list narrowed to two units at most.

In reply to IainWhitehouse:

I'm guessing one of the cams on your shortlist are the Totem Basics and X4/Zero

In reply to blackreaver:

I have a bit of experience with smaller cams on northumbrian sandstone... all I can say is that sometimes they're fantastic, and sometimes they just straight-up don't work. But, that aside, if you want the best chance of them working, just get whichever ones are bendiest! I climbed with a guy who had aliens/totems/whatever, and they just went any-old-where!

In reply to blackreaver:

It's really not my shortlist. I was trying to be dispassionate and think about what I had been told by people (other than me) who have used more than one of them.

In reply to Madden:
Bendier stems help prevent the cam walk (but extending the placement is even better at preventing this) and will help marginal placements be less marginal (but they will still for the large part be marginal). I think you are over exaggerating how important this is, a narrower head is more important as it allows good placements to be accessed that otherwise can't. Aliens are not cutting edge in this respect any more.

To my mind I'd also prefer the bigger expansion range on the x4 without compromising caming angle and lobe metal hardness like the aliens do, but horses for courses I guess.

In reply to ianstevens:
No worries, 000 C3 has proved usefull on a handfull of occasions, mosy recently fringe benefit at Rivelin. Only any use on grit really, usually in tandem with so so small wires. Not quite a paper weight, but not prime importance either. Wouldnt use it for hanging a coat on limestone! What else would we spend our money on!

In reply to CurlyStevo:

So in reflection, this is pretty much a thumbs up group for X4s. Legal note, other camming devices are available!