I already have a set of BD's with some doubles and some metolius in the smaller sizes with a couple WC zeros, but I was thinking about adding to my rack and the forged friends are cheap and durable, does anybody use them for aid? How is the head width compared to C4's? ...

rarely do cams allocated to "aid gear" remain in the "aid gear" bag when it comes time to visit places like Indian Creek, where 6-10 pieces of the same size is not unusual for a single 90' route. And if you climb long enough, you WILL visit the Creek.


Personally, I would recommend you purchase only gear that you would be willing to use, and feel comfortable using, while free-climbing. If Forged Friends fit that bill, then go ahead, but why spend more money on cams you will "only use" when aid climbing?

Too often, people think they're going to be happy to save a few $$ in the short run, only to be less satisfied in retrospect because they settled for something which doesn't really bring themselves pleasure. The joy you get from saving a few bucks rapidly diminishes, whereas the joy you get from placing a good piece can be felt every placement! ;)

^ This ^, of course does not apply to specialized "Aid-Only" pieces such as hooks, heads and whatnot... but then, cams don't really fit within this caveat.

Some other things to think about when purchasing gear for aid climbing:

do not forget to take into account the weights of your proposed acquisition when compared to the range of placements you will be covering.

which is to say, if you acquire 4 lbs of gear that will cover .5-4", this would be better than 6 lbs of gear to cover that same range.

YMMV

Bigger forged friends are fine, but I can't stand them below a 2.5

Didn't they stop producing Forged Friends last year?

I have one larger one. The smaller sizes are no good.

If you're really just looking for less expensive cams for aid: eBay.

Which is why I found them for $20, I figure I can't go to wrong with buying a couple of the larger ones, if I don't like placing them I will just hang them on my wall. and yeah I know about buying gear because it was cheap and then hateing it, thanks for reminding me though.

I have four full sets. I love them.

Froged Friends were my first set of cams over 25 years ago (I don't think I am getting older until I make statements like that). I still climb on them and have bought more, newer versions, just for Indian Creek. I have many other sets of cams as well but find it hard to beat the durability of forged friends.

What Andrew G. Said.

I go with 3, 3.5, 4 Forged Friends both free and aid to complement my Camalots. When Camalots first came out, the Wild Country Friends were actually lighter weight and stronger, but since then, there have been a lot of improvements to Camalots, single stem, lighter cams, etc., so I don't know if the weight/strength advantage is still valid.

WIld Country would say they have the optimum cam angle, since they researched and patented it.

My experience is Camalots are easiest to place and have a wider range.

But, on very rare occasions I have encountered bottoming cracks where (for example) a 3.5 Camalot would not fit, but a 4.0 Friend or comparable Metolius Power Cam would fit perfectly. Sometimes the shallow headwidth of Metolius cams will fit where a Camalot won't.

I probably wouldn't buy 1.0, 1.5 forged Friends, given the alternatives on the market, but 2.5 and up should be sweet.

Hopefully, they still offer replacement trigger bars for the forged friends, I have a couple that need it.

You can and I suspect always be able to buy the trigger kits. You get two triggers for twenty bucks.

I still have forged Friends on my current aid rack that date back to the early 80's. They are cheap and are fine in about the #2 to #3 1/2 sizes. Any bigger or smaller I would use cams with flexible stems. Don't forget to tie your little spectra cord through the hole in the stem for horizontal placements, in order to avoid a Friender Bender.