Loosen your locker?

I know a climber who instructs others to tighten their belay locker, then "back it off" a tiny bit so its not tightly locked. I haven't heard his explanation for this, seems dangerous. Anyone do this and why?

This goes back to when lockers would bind if you tightened them down all the way, weighted them, and then tightened them a little more. Modern lockers all have stops so that they will not bind to the locking collar when it is screwed down. If you have an old style locker you can see the difference.

But this "instructor" should have qualified that demonstration, unless he himself doesn't understand it and just repeats what someone else showed him. If you have a modern locker you DO NOT back it off once it is locked down. That makes no sense whatsoever and just starts unlocking it.

Sounds like an old gear advice.

Old lockers sleeves used to bind/touch the nose of the carabiner, so if you slightly loaded the biner and tightened it you wouldn't be able to loosen it without loading it again.

Now most lockers shouldn't have this problem anymore but I still wouldn't overly tighten them nonetheless.

Yea, a lot of old lockers would get stuck really easily. This still happens to new ones when gumbies crank 'em down.

When i was working in Thailand I would explain to people that they should turn it back a quarter turn because some of our biners were the old style, and other new ones still had the tendency to get stuck because of the humid weather and gumby over-tightening.

I was told to do this when starting out because when you rap or lower, the biner heats up and expands, making it impossible to undo if it's tightly screwed down. I always just spin it until it stops, though, and have never had any issues unscrewing lockers.

+1 to the above. Old advice, no longer relevant.

I actually had a 2009 Omega Pacific D-Locker do that to me.
it was locked (normally "cranked") and was being used as a belay 'biner. The leader, I, fell and it locked up so tight we actually had to weight it again to unscrew it.
..So I think it really depends on the brand/type of carabiner. I wouldn't disregard the advice just yet.

Climb on!
-Mac

"If the answer was 13 RURP's and a Bat Hook what was the question?"

How old is "old?" Lockers made just 15 years ago would seize up.

I spent at least an hour trying to loosen a seized up locker after hauling with it on the Nose. Totally sucked. Many of those are still in play (especially on my rack, cuz I'm an old scrooge), so it seems the advice isn't totally outdated.

With recent lockers, when the sleeve is spun all the way to the end, the gate still has a little play. With old-style lockers, once the screwgate is tightened, the gate cannot move at all. The latter are much more likely to seize than the former, though even brand-new, modern lockers occasionally get stuck.

Learned this one the hard way in the early 90s. Clipped into an achor atop a sport route with a locker, screwed it down, weighted it and when I tried to unscrew the gate later...DOH! Could not budge it after 5 minutes of trying. Finally got a leatherman sent up from the ground and unscrewed it.

I've got a bunch of older (20 yrs?) SMC lockers that are pretty bad in this respect. If you tighten them when weighted, they are impossible to unscrew when unweighted. Fortunately, all that if generally required is to put them under load again - messing around with pliers will work, but scars up the knurled sleeve and is unnecessary.

swm
(Yes, I do climb with a lot of 20+ year old gear...)