Braking carabiner: aluminium alloy or steel?

[Seamus Decker]

At least it was only a Russkie ascender he ran off with, and not your wife/partner! :)

[Caver John]

Maybe a little Off topic but regarding braking biners and stops:

I just ordered one and I'm wondering, can't it become difficult to lift the rope up to put friction on the brake biner if the rope is long? Or is the brake biner not needed when there's that much weight below the descender?

[potholer]

When there's *that* much weight of rope, I'd tend to do any necessary control with a low right hand varying in grip, the way I would have done if I wasn't using a braking crab

[snoboy]

Or is the brake biner not needed when there's that much weight below the descender?

That has been my (undeniably limited) experience - with the notable exception of doing rescue pickoff practice.

[paul]

Or is the brake biner not needed when there's that much weight below the descender?

That has been my (undeniably limited) experience - with the notable exception of doing rescue pickoff practice.

Of course, further down the pitch, there may less friction from the weight of rope below the descender and then a braking carabiner becomes more necessary...

[Jeff Bartlett]

Of course, further down the pitch, there may less friction from the weight of rope below the descender and then a braking carabiner becomes more necessary...

Exactly. This is why you always need to have your braking carabiner ready and available, even if it's not necessary at the top of the pitch... the same reason you don't rig deep drops in a "C" based on the low required friction at the anchor above a deep pitch.

As with ANY descender, rappellers need to both be aware of the change in friction as rope weight decreases and ready to compensate for it with a brake carabiner, additional bar, etc.

[Caver John]

Maybe it's just the supple clean rope I'm using, but so far I'm not crazy about the stop. I love the design and use of it, theres justs not enough friction for me and I'm pretty lightweight. I find using a breaking Biner makes me pull the rope up above the break Biner which is awkward when your used to keeping your breaking hand down by your hip.

I should say I havnt tried it yet on any drops of significant height where more rope weight would weigh in.

[Jeff Bartlett]

Maybe it's just the supple clean rope I'm using, but so far I'm not crazy about the stop. I love the design and use of it, theres justs not enough friction for me and I'm pretty lightweight. I find using a breaking Biner makes me pull the rope up above the break Biner which is awkward when your used to keeping your breaking hand down by your hip.

I should say I havnt tried it yet on any drops of significant height where more rope weight would weigh in.

I'm not crazy about the Stop either, but it's worth noting that this orientation (palm up with rope exiting upward out of the brake carabiner) is perfectly normal; obviously, with a "regular" braking carabiner (as opposed to, say, a Freino or Handy), when your hand is at your hip, it's basically passing inertly through the brake but not applying any friction to it.

If it feels weird, it's because the descender is new to you. This is to be expected any time you try a new descender, actually; I've been forcing myself to use a BMS micro rack for about 4 months in order to develop a properly-informed opinion of the device, and it definitely didn't feel "right" at first.

[Caver John]

^ this is true.

Has anyone ever tried the Raumer Handy braking Biner?
This thing looks interesting, like it would apply more braking than a standard Biner.

[LukeM]

From what I hear it does its job well...almost too well.

[potholer]

I have a Handy somewhere, but rarely use it with my Stop.

If I was doing more on thin rope (9mm or less), I might dig it out, but using it with rope in the 'wedge' end, it does seem to have a tendency to jerkiness, especially if the rope is soft, and personally, unless I was carrying serious extra weight above my regular 65-70kg, a regular steel krab seems to give a rather smoother descent, and adequate friction on >9mm ropes.

[Jeff Bartlett]

Has anyone ever tried the Raumer Handy braking Biner?

I ordered one, and basically can't ever use it because you can barely put 11mm rope in there. In fact, I don't believe I've been on 9mm or 10mm rope with my Simple in quite some time -- except for an unexpected encounter here and there -- so I haven't even been able to try it out.

Of course, with a Simple on 11mm, you don't need any more friction than I get from my Kong steel oval brake carabiner... the allure for me was the compact size and light weight of the Handy. Unfortunately, I may never get to use the darn thing.

edit: Though they are aluminum and would thus wear out quickly, I wonder if a Metolius "full strength" mini-wiregates (http://rockcreek.com/metolius/fs-mini-w ... r/28088.rc), at 25 grams, would be worth checking out. In any event, a low-profile carabiner of this sort would utterly prevent the "bobbin inverted with nose through carabiner" failure mode that I have read of but never witnessed.

[LukeM]

Jeff, funny you should point to that one. That's exactly what I'm using. So far so good, but only time will tell how well it holds up. I think I got it for around $5, so replacing every so often isn't a big deal.

[Jeff Bartlett]

Jeff, funny you should point to that one. That's exactly what I'm using. So far so good, but only time will tell how well it holds up. I think I got it for around $5, so replacing every so often isn't a big deal.

And here I thought I had an original idea. Either way, it's 100g less than a Handy, and 120g less than the big hunk o' steel I'm using. I also think the wiregate would be less likely to pop open than what I use now, although the lack of a keynose is mildly annoying.

I actually have one already -- I have been using it to connect my pack tether to my half round -- so maybe I'll give this a try after I stop forcing myself to use a micro rack against my will.

[LukeM]

Ahh, no love for the micro rack? If I can love a micro rack and then also love a simple, surely you can do the same the other way around.