Black Diamond Carabiner Recall

Damn dude ---- Peace out to whoever had that job

trentbrown wrote: … The rest is pretty straightforward. The first digit is the last digit of the year, i.e. 2014 = 4. The next three digits are the Julian date, or the day of the year numbered from 1-365. January 1st is 001, February 1st is 032, December 31st is 365 or 366 if a leap year.

You friggin’ rock! Thanks for that concise explanation :). Nice to satisfy that curiosity.

benkraft wrote: Some of BD's manufacturing numbers repeat every 10 years (first digit in the code is the last number of the year, etc)...

Thanks for the reply. Given the info from trentbrown, that makes perfect sense.

Just out of curiosity [again], do either of you two (or anyone) know if this is standardized to any extent or is it company-specific? For example, now that I know that, if I looked at a Metolius ‘biner/cam/trinket with would I know in what year it was likely made?

[edit] And, yeah. Now that you mention it, I am worried about parts we can't inspect. I was fine 10 min ago and now I'm breathing into a paper bag! Thanks a lot!
Seriously though, not too many un-inspectable innards in cams or sewn slings. I guess it raises concern, but the parts you truly can't inspect seem to narrow things down mainly to defects in materials. So, I have 2 thoughts: 1=a materials defect might/should affect enough of a batch to show up in the periodic testing (a comforting likely fallacy); 2="screw it. I have too many other things to worry about." (default to #2 if #1 is too much of a logical failure to allay concerns).[/edit]

Gavin W wrote:Do your biners have an "A" ahead of the number? All of mine do, so that's a different manufacturing batch.

Not sure if that was in reply to my post, but to answer your question, no “A” on my ‘biners (an aside: I do have some cams with an A in the number). I’ve heard/read from a few places that the “A” indicates manufacture in China (though I haven’t verified from a ‘reliable source’ that seems to be consensus among many climbers).

Generally speaking: no. Manufacturing codes are not standardized, although many follow similar structures because those structures make sense and are easy to understand.