Mammut rope shelf life

I have two 11mm Mammut ropes that my dad had stored in his closet. They've never been used, and stored in a dry place indoors. However, they are between 25 and 30 years old. I don't have a whole lot of experience with outdoor climbing and wanted some opinions on whether the ropes are safe to use, and what they would be safe to use for: top roping or lead climbing or any other uses.

5 years is fine. 10 years is pushing it. At 15 years they're for making swings for the kids, and at 20 years I wouldn't do anything with them but make a rope rug.

Toss 'em.

Jon H wrote:5 years is fine. 10 years is pushing it. At 15 years they're for making swings for the kids, and at 20 years I wouldn't do anything with them but make a rope rug. Toss 'em.

http://www.igreenspot.com/earth-friendly-sofa-for-nature-lovers-by-hearth/

JUSTROPES.com will give you 3 bucks a rope and 10 dollars for shipping.

Maybe mammut will hook you up? It never hurts to call the manufacturer and express to them how stoked you are to use their product and the situtation you're in. They'll definitely know best.

I think Mammut ropes are the best and have used them for years, but 25 is just to old.
Make some rugs

I'm not the biggest advocate of changing out slings on my draws, cams or throwing away ropes after 5 years BUT...I'd probably be highly reluctant to climb on ropes that old. "Maybe" a top rope.

Just out of curiosity, what do the ropes look and feel like? I don't think I've ever seen a climbing rope anywhere near that old, especially one that has not had any wear and tear. Would be interesting to see what level the degradation of the nylon has reached without any external factors. Post pics!

sanz wrote:Just out of curiosity, what do the ropes look and feel like? I don't think I've ever seen a climbing rope anywhere near that old, especially one that has not had any wear and tear. Would be interesting to see what level the degradation of the nylon has reached without any external factors. Post pics!

Actually that's a good idea. Donate them to someone to do pull tests on them to find out the breaking point. Like sanz said that would be a good chance to test the degradation. Not alot of opportunities to test such old ropes.

Scott McMahon wrote:Donate them to someone to do pull tests on them to find out the breaking point.

+1 for testing them!

Think UIAA would do their drop test with them?

I have ropes that age and they don't show any external signs of degradation. I retired them long ago, but it's not like they are falling apart or they snap if you pull hard.

brenta wrote:I have ropes that age and they don't show any external signs of degradation. I've long retired them, but it's not like they are falling apart or they snap if you pull hard.

Cool. I guess that crispy feeling old nylon gets is from UV. I would love to see how much weaker the stuff actually is.

There is some discussion of the effects of UV on climbing ropes in this article

It's in Italian. The table on page 7, however, is reasonably easy to interpret.

Table 1 - Effect of sunlight on dynamic characteristics of ropes. Tests performed at Rifugio Carestiato (1834 m) and Rifugio Kostner (2550 m). [They let five rope samples out in the sunlight for one summer at each place.]

• corda => rope
• dati dichiarati produttore => data provided by manufacturer
• Dodero is the name of the equipment they use to test ropes
• corda nuova (riferimento) => new rope (reference)
• dopo X gg => after X days
• Forza d'arresto => Impact force
• N cadute => number of falls
• Variaz. nr. cadute % => Percentage of the number of falls of the new rope

There's a UIAA study floating around from about 10 yrs ago or more that essentially concluded that aside from use-wear or chemical and UV exposure, nylon doesn't really lose strength or degrade. They were testing something like 20yr old and 30yr old unused ropes and breaking strengths were close to new cord strength.

They've also tested ropes after TRing and rapping on them, and found dynamic resistance down to 50% after rapping 5000m with a fig 8, and down 30% with an additional 6000m.

Both of these are worth reading (I couldn't locate the original study on the old ropes):

theuiaa.org/upload_area/fil…

theuiaa.org/upload_area/fil…

Scott McMahon wrote: "Maybe" a top rope.

I'd TR the shit out of them. Since when is 11mm of nylon properly stored not good for that?In the end, I suppose the BEST suggestion that will satisfy everyone is to have 1 tested and save the other one to climb on after the tests all prove that they are better off than 90% of the "in-service" (used) sub-10mm ropes that everyone else is climbing on.

Another article in Italian titled "Ropes in The Drawer." The important data are in the table on page 2, showing no degradation after 15 years. There's also a short discussion at the end of the article about a rope used for 7 years and then stored for 14 years having more or less the same performance one would expect to have measured immediately after its retirement.

I TR on ropes >20 years old without a shred of worry. Lead on them, no thanks. But TR, sure. Let me know if you have no use for those Mammuts, maybe I can help you out. One limitation - they aren't 60m long.