Golden Spiral Cams.

Anyone heard of these or had any experience with them?

usrockgear.net/

They say they are made in the USA. If it didn't say that, I would have been certain they were a foreign based company, due to the numerous English gramatical errors on their site. I wonder if these guys are non-native Engrish speakers or if they just slept through school.

The web site doesn't have much information on quality control practices, which would be my number one question when dealing with a new climbing equipment company. Looks like they individually pull test the cams, which is good, but more info would be good.

They need a technical writer. They need certifications for both product and process. They came up with a rather conventional design and it's unclear what the Golden Spiral Cams have to offer that is not available in other units. Maybe, if one looks at cams that are specifically for soft sandstone, then these GS Cams offer some sizes that are not available in Metolius's Fat Cams.

I've no idea how the "center compression spring" would improve operation, and I'm not sure I buy the "constant spiral angle is better" argument. The GS Cams look a little heavy, but in the end judging them from the specs only may lead one to ignore their qualities.

They don't need a technical writer, they need a translator. I'm guessing that these cams are from Korea since the address is Garden Grove, basically Korea in LA. That doesn't mean that they are bad cams. Need to try them for that.

The cams look like Alien knock-offs, complete with trigger sleeves! Can't tell if they ha e an internal spring or not.

I like that the pics on the site are of people sport climbing! I hope someone comes across this post that has used them.

brenta wrote:I'm not sure I buy the "constant spiral angle is better" argument.

Which is funny because the only cams on the market that lack a constant cam angle are (and don't quote me on this) some of the bigger tri-cams.

Brian Scoggins wrote: Which is funny because the only cams on the market that lack a constant cam angle are (and don't quote me on this) some of the bigger tri-cams.

Mal will correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that the Max Cams rely on variable angle in the inner lobes to achieve the 2:1 expansion range.

Then there are the Totem Cams, but they are not on the market yet.

Something tells me I would probably cry if i had to run it out on one of those cams, danger will robinson!

They don't have a very good range on the cams, the GSC #6(1.25") has: 26.3mm/38.1mm
While a Camelot .75 has: 23.9-41.2 mm

That and it seems the site should be on Engrish.com
"Cams should be store dry"

I wonder if BD cares that they have an old Chouinard harness in several pictures.

"Warranty for one yea from purchase date" Phew, good to know that their warranty is for one yea.

Josh Brown wrote:Something tells me I would probably cry if i had to run it out on one of those cams, danger will robinson!

No worries - if you were sport climbing like the pictures on their website, you'd just clip the next bolt. And they have a one yea warranty.

Ha ha ha! Climbers from Garden Grove??? Serious? After living there for a short time I wouldn't trust anything coming out of that city...specially climbing equipment. Perhaps "golden spiral" refers to the gleam of your shinny new rack reflecting in the sun as you plummet after one of their cams fail?

tooTALLtim wrote:Phew, good to know that their warranty is for one yea.

Hell yea!

John T. Martinez wrote:Anyone heard of these or had any experience with them?

I made an offer over on gunks.com to throw one on the pull tester if someone cared to donate one for destruction, and depending how the ebay auction goes there may be one coming my way next week. If it happens, I'll post up a link for the destruction video and pics of the disassembly.

-a.

I hav fur rack of this cams. Me rike these arot.

Hey all,

I actually got my hands on a sample of a Purple one and proceeded to pull it to failure. It was rated to 10kN and failed at 11.78kN, so well above its rating. The fit and finish was pretty nice and it had a pretty good action on the trigger. I put a full writeup over on rockclimbing.com (it was too long to try and redo the links and image tags for posting here) if you're interested. rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo…

Oh, and chatting with Stephane at the Nuts Museum it turns out the guy behind Golden Spiral worked with (for?) Chouinard for 17 years and was responsible for the development of the Camalot (among other things).

-a.