Slung vs Wired HEXs

Ive been trad climbing for a bit now and I started racking my partners old slung cow bells. After placeing them a few time I fell in love with them, and since Im poor and a dirtbag the idea of getting some hex's rather then more cams seems to fit my budget better.

My question to you guys is, I have never placed a wired hex and I have heard that they tend to be harder to place and sometimes walk a little due to the wire(?? just something I have heard). What is your opinion of wired hex's? And can you convert wired ones to slung by choping the wires(just curious)??

Can't say about wired hexes as mine are so old that they are slung with perlon! Can you says hexes bought in 1974!! Yeah baby. And they are heavy enough for use as a portable weapon!! I love them still.

I have wired hexes from BD, I love my cowbells. Some places they are great some place not so great. I have never had one walk out though.

I get a lot of teasing for carrying hexes, I try to slink around carefully so they do not clank together too loudly and announce my presence.... Oh the shame........

lol No way rock those cow bells with pride! Some of us dont have the cash for a double set of our C4's!

But since you have those wired BD's do you think its possible if for some reason someone wanted to to clip those wires and sling them with some 6mm or something?

The holes are pretty a pretty decent size, 6mm looks doable. I would want to get a round file for the holes though because any burrs in the metal would probably not be good.

When you get right down to it, who is more likely to surprise a bear or or mountain lion and get attacked? not a person with hexes on their rack that's for sure.

I carry the old-school ~7-9 BD hexes in the alpine, and definitely prefer the slung over the wired. However, re-stringing them with the 5.5mm spectra/titan is a genuine pain.... a dreaded task.

Maybe consider checking out the Wild Country ROCKCENTRICs that are pre-slung with spectra? FWIW -- my observation: a few folks use the largest ones (BD 10-11), I don't know of any who uses the smallest (BD 1-4), and the medium sizes (BD 6-9) seem to be most often liked/carried by climbers.

Edit to add: The hexes that were made to be slung were chamfered on the top side. I doubt BD would recommend slinging the wired ones.

If you really want slung BD's, just look for some used ones, or put up a WTB -- lots of climbers would probably be willing to part with their old hexes.

Edit to add2: look at this thread for Used BD hexes made for cord.

Avery Nelson wrote: The hexes that were made to be slung were chamfered on the top side. I doubt BD would recommend slinging the wired ones.

You can very easily chamfer the holes buy hand, using a drill bit that is larger then the hole. Just set in on top of the hole and turn it by hand (no drill) applying a little pressure and then finish with some fine sand paper. you can do the same to the inside by cutting off a drill bit.

Robert 560 wrote: You can very easily chamfer the holes buy hand, using a drill bit that is larger then the hole. Just set in on top of the hole and turn it by hand (no drill) applying a little pressure and then finish with some fine sand paper. you can do the same to the inside by cutting off a drill bit.

Of course, it's possible. However, that's not how they're engineered. Likely no big deal, but only BD could say for sure.

Insides of old BDs were not chamfered.

johnL wrote:First off, jesus titty fucking christ Avery, you're talking about removing less metal than would get removed in a fall. Maybe climbing isn't for you. To the OP, I hate hexes. I climbed with them on some rather hard routes for many years, I find them slow to place, cumbersome, loud, and not that bomber. Now a horde of people will chime in with some story about a hex placement that was so good that it left one million potential babies in their pants. So what, there's bomber nuts, cams, bolts, ice screws, slung chickenheads, and ball-nuts. Hexes don't have exclusive rights to bomber. A wired hex as one piece (or ideally, 2 pieces) of a permanent gear anchor is awesome because 1) You get to hit a hex with a hammer and 2) You get to leave a hex (or ideally 2). For the question, cord is nicer but either work. Stick with the 3 largest sizes and they'll actually get used.

Sounds like you had a rough night, John.

All the old time climbers I personally know (with 30+ years experience etc.) gave up on hexes a long time ago. A couple in wide hands size can be useful, but in all honesty cams and stoppers work better in most cases and are way way easier to place and clean. If you're gonna use em, the slung ones seem to be better in my experience, and just buy some new ones, drilling and filling on climbing gear isn't always the best idea.

Mike, you know the old addage, 'if you die we split your gear'. Well since we both know how Yoda feels about hexes, if you manage to outlive me, they'll be all yours one day. Hopefully you wont have to wait that long to find a set though since i'm going to live to about 160 or so. ;)

I took them up and placed several when i took Neil up Ewphoria last week. They were great back when we were dirtbagging at turkey rock; when we were too poor to afford those schnazzy cams... I'm always amazed when i run into folks that have trad climbed for years and never placed a single hex.

More bell!!!!

Thanks for all the input guys. I know a lot of people find hexs outdated and I hear you but Im just super poor and I actually get a lot of comfort off a hex, I dont find them hard to place and dont mind carrying them.

I have been looking at the WC Rockcentrics and the only thing I am curious is how big do they go compared to the BD ones? These are most likely the set I am going to go with because they are slung and I just have experience with slung so Ill prolly stick with it.

Thanks again for all the input guys! If anyone has some experiences they would like to share about the WC's I would love to hear it! More Cow Bells for the poor!

johnL wrote:Maybe a little abrupt for the proj but if you can imagine how scraping a tiny bit of metal off your hex will kill you, you have too vivid of an imagination to be climbing trad.

Oh, sorry it took me so long to respond, I was, ya know, out climbing...

I have never understood the "hard to place" argument. I usually have an easy time placing them, especially the "tube chock" position. To me they place similar to an offset nut and feel incredibly bomber. I usually find a placement that will handle a multi-directional pull as well. There are some climbs sometimes, for whatever reason, where they don't work well. But...... I don't climb very hard so....

I have a the WC Rockcentrics 5-9 and love them. They get used to double my camalots when I want to save weight. I like that the colors/sizes match up well with the camalots in sizes 5-8 i.e. a 0.75 camalot is about the same size as a #5 WC rockcentric and are both green. I use the #9 to double my #4 C4 and it works great at half the weight.

As far as comparison to BD, I've only placed the BD hexes on the ground but didn't like them as well. I felt like the curved sides on the Rockcentrics locked in better than the straight sided BDs. The only advantage is that the #11 BD is slightly larger than the #9 WC.

Evan Simons wrote:All the old time climbers I personally know (with 30+ years experience etc.)

Been climbing 32 years and I like to drag a few medium and large cowbells along. If the crack is pretty parallel, I don't seem to find placements as easily as Rick, and cams are great to plug and go.

But not infrequently, I encounter tapered slots, funnel pockets, or funky convergences of edges and corners, where hexes are quick and OH SO bomber, and cams don't work at all. That's when I'm satisfied with myself for being old.

tytonic wrote:As far as comparison to BD, I've only placed the BD hexes on the ground but didn't like them as well. I felt like the curved sides on the Rockcentrics locked in better than the straight sided BDs.

And second that. My bigger hexes are BD, but I have a few old Clog Wales hexes that curve even deeper than WC, and those things are special!

johnL wrote:This thread makes me want to climb 5.9.

funny, and obnoxiously insightful. 5.11 and up probably presents fewer of the irregularities that favor hexes over cams.

Oh, to Mike's original question, slung is way better.

Yeah I think Ill stick with the slung!

And fuck 5.9 im ready to push some 5.11 and haul the cow bells all the way. So bomber!

Langston: I think you missed the essence of the post, which was that telling folks (especially relatively new climbers) to modify their gear isn't a particularly great idea.

johnL wrote:Maybe a little abrupt for the proj but if you can imagine how scraping a tiny bit of metal off your hex will kill you, you have too vivid of an imagination to be climbing trad.

As to that, yeah -- if you can keep comments like that to RC.com, that would be awesome. There are reasons, I'm not over there -- I'd rather spend time making friends than blasting people. That being said, if you want to debate this or anything else more -- let's do that over a couple pints of beer, and I'll even buy. Afterwards, if you still want to tell me that I'm not worthy of being a climber, you'll have your opportunity in person.

johnL wrote:Maybe I'm just mechanically inclined.

Or you're just being an ass for no apparent reason...

I've had a half dozen large (>#4) wired BD hexes on my rack for years. I don't place them that often on lead, as they often take some time and jiggering to get a solid placement, but I've found them very useful for anchors. A good hex placement not only makes a solid anchor point, it also frees up a medium-to-large cam for use on lead on the next pitch.

I've used both slung and wired hexes and found little difference. If a hex is placed properly in a hex-appropriate location, it won't walk, regardless of whether it's slung or wired. If the placement is marginal enough that a hex might shift or walk, you're probably better off using a cam or some other type of pro.

And yeah, hexes make great 'mountain music' both on the rock and on the descent!