Improper usage of gear

2020

Why not clip to the cam's sling?

Midwest Will wrote:

I thought this was a good idea until i did it 

You just answered your own question.  

OP, aren’t you the guy that would rated burn his rope than extend the horizontal placement with a sling going over the edge? Go figure...

It is safe as long as dyneema isn’t used.

lol

How does anyone find time to climb or even just live their normal lives with all of this time spent fretting over trying to control every little minute possibility  

I do it occasionally, but generally try not to (there's a nice sling to clip) especially if there's any obstructions the 'biners will go over. You gotta do what you gotta do. That said, people clip quickdraws to quickdraws in a pinch to extend when out of alpine draws.

Yes, if you're sport climbing and know you are doing this, people will remove the middle 'biner to make clipping easier (i.e., maybe there's a good "stance" 1 foot lower). I'm talking about trad climbing, where you may have planned poorly, and know that without extension, bad or dangerous rope drag will ensue. That's when I have, and see others, clip two together, but it's not a planned, ideal scenario, but I do not view it as dangerous either.

I was told many years ago by a very experienced climber never to do this.  "No Metal on metal" he scowled at me at the belay where I had clipped a draw to the biner on my cam.  I've never done it since.  I imagine that because rotation is limited by the shape of the biners, besides unclipping, you could end up with gate on gate forces.  But it sure would be interesting to hear if any of the equipment companies have done any testing on this.  

The norm as stated above is no biner to biner because biners can become unclipped. However there are exceptions - two locking biners. Or yer our of draws and all you have is a couple biners. It is also done whilst aid climbing. 

For OP as was said in the second post, clip the draw to the cam. And remove the biner for later use when you run out of draws.

phylp wrote:

I was told many years ago by a very experienced climber never to do this.  "No Metal on metal" he scowled at me at the belay where I had clipped a draw to the biner on my cam.  I've never done it since.  I imagine that because rotation is limited by the shape of the biners, besides unclipping, you could end up with gate on gate forces.  But it sure would be interesting to hear if any of the equipment companies have done any testing on this.  

Your experienced climbed has severely over-generalized the concern. If we "never" clipped metal on metal, sport climbing and ice climbing as we know it would not exist. Nor would the pioneering aid climbs that use(d) pitons.  As for equipment companies testing this? The standard protocol is to pull test biners using - get ready - METAL pins at each end.

"how easy it is for them to unclip with a simple twist"

I am having trouble picturing this.   Are you sure they could unclip each other?

Gunkiemike wrote:

Your experienced climbed has severely over-generalized the concern. If we "never" clipped metal on metal, sport climbing and ice climbing as we know it would not exist. Nor would the pioneering aid climbs that use(d) pitons.  As for equipment companies testing this? The standard protocol is to pull test biners using - get ready - METAL pins at each end.

While I disagree with the never "metal on metal" scowl, I think this mentor was referring to avoiding 'biner on 'biner with a easy to remember mantra... not that metal touching metal will instantly fail. A learning trad climbing is not going to have metal pull-test pins to worry about; only carabiners. 

Midwest Will wrote:

...nor did i imply that putting the biner on the edge was a better option. 

Actually, you did:

ebmudder wrote:

I believe the primary use for the extendable sling is to allow the carabiner to be extended over an edge instead of lying against it and running the risk of unclipping. Without an extendable sling you would have to loop or girth hitch a second sling through the carabiner's sling.

Midwest Will wrote:

Are you out of your mind ? you are going to put a piece of dyneema over an edge and possibly fall on it ?? WTF  please stay in the gym. 

If for whatever reason the carabineers are twisting against each other, they can deform by twisting about the spine of the carabineer.  This can open the gate.  There are number of accidents where a rigid piece such as a figure of eight belay device has caused the spine to deform by twisting, opening the gate and causing catastrophic failure.  By using sling on metal on sling, you prevent this.  

I think as long as you are directly controlling the direction of the load, carabineers on each other is fine.

 "I think this mentor was referring to avoiding 'biner on 'biner with a easy to remember mantra"

Yes, that was the message.  As an aside - this question put a smile on my face, as I haven't thought of the person who said it for a long time.  Dave Altman was/is a good guy, very interesting climber and mathematician, renowned for his strength, who pioneered some early Valley testpieces like Red Zinger.  Dave scowling would not have bothered me, whenever I saw him at the old City Rock gym in Berkeley, it would always make me smile.

Midwest Will wrote:

What do you all think of clipping 2 biners together. e.x. place a cam that has biner on it .. it's a little too deep so you extend by clipping a quick draw to it.. biner to biner. 

It was standard practice before quickdraws were invented, doesn´t worry me in the least doing it.

Midwest Will wrote:

go climbing .. no one forced you to post 

Why would one think that a person asking about the applicability of useless outlier conjecture is doing so because they believe that they were forced to post? What a weird way of seeing the world. 

Ancent wrote:

While I disagree with the never "metal on metal" scowl, I think this mentor was referring to avoiding 'biner on 'biner with a easy to remember mantra... not that metal touching metal will instantly fail.  

So "no metal on metal" is easy to remember, but misleading AF, while "no biner on biner" is too complex to retain? Pfft.

Any would-be mentor who seeks to instill absolutes in a new climber should not be instructing IMO. Virtually everything we do in this sport requires situational awareness, judgement, and an appreciation that there are alternatives to whatever you did last time.  The experience that a climber needs to evaluate a range of options necessarily takes time to develop, but there is no excuse pretending that it's not absolutely critical, even on Day One.

/rant

Wouldn't the point of not loading metal on metal (carabiners) be to limit the number of potential points of failure? Also, what if as you're climbing, one of the two carabiners rotates so that it's cross-loaded onto the other carabiner at the gate, and then you fall onto that? It seems that since the overall surface area making contact is going to be lower than, let's say a carabiner cross-loading the protection's webbing (which still sucks), it's going to impart more static force onto a smaller amount of surface, increasing the chance that the carabiner may break and that protection blows.

I'm not an engineer though, so please correct me if I'm wrong

"So "no metal on metal" is easy to remember, but misleading AF, while "no biner on biner" is too complex to retain? Pfft.

Any would-be mentor who seeks to instill absolutes in a new climber should not be instructing IMO"

Wow, lot's of ranting for a simple comment.  Maybe he actually said "no biner on biner" and I remembered it wrong? Entirely possible. It was about 30 years ago.  And he wasn't a mentor and wasn't trying to instruct me and I certainly wasn't a beginner.  I'd probably already been climbing for more than ten years. We were partners.  He was expressing his opinion.  But it made sense to me.