help identify carabiner age and safe to use as bail biner?

hello!  my gym had an event where they sold items left in lost in found after a certain time.  I got a chalk bag and it came with this Black Diamond carabiner.  Wanted to find out the age of this item, and would you use it as bail biner (or any other safety purpose I guess)? side date is etched with 1286A so it's from the 286th day of 2021 or 2011 or 2001, right? (side note, that's a really dumb way to put the date on something, just put 2 digits for year and 2 digits for month...c'mon BD!). Also has CE 0333 and it appears it was not in the big 2016 recall. At the longest, it's about 4 inches long. the gate moves smoothly and I don't have any concerns about the closing spring mechanism.  If it is from 2011, would it still be appropriate to use as a bail biner or other safety purpose (though it's non-locking)? If it's from 2001, would it not be appropriate to use at all anymore, except for a shoe or chalk bag clip?

What is your take on it? Go or no-go, as a bail biner?

Looks like the biners on some quick draws I bought in 2011ish certainly not 2021, but can't speak to 2001. 

Metals metal though, if it doesn't have any super aggressive wear marks, or obvious bends or deformations then I don't see why it would be unsafe to use?

Unless there's obvious damage, biners don't "go bad." No one is going to be able to tell you from a date stamp or a picture on the internet if it's safe to bail from. At some point you're going to have to make your own personal risk assessments in climbing. 

My trango pyramid, Gri Gri and several Petzyl attaché from the 1990s still work great.  Also I occasionally use an old chinard reverse screw gate from the 70s.  Just cause it’s old(er) doesn’t mean it’s unsafe!  If you don’t want it, happily pay shipping and put that biner to use.   

thanks all!  For some reason I had in my head there's a 10 year limit to retire climbing items.  Quick google search says that's mostly soft items like slings/webbing.

Cherokee Nuneswrote:

What is your take on it? Go or no-go, as a bail biner?

I was going to the direction of designating it as a bail biner but the 10 year limit made me doubt this decision. mechanism looked good and scratches are minimal.

Yeah that thing is perfect as a bail biner or regular biner.

In fact, I would be stoked to see that left as a bail biner compared to the manky quicklinks I've seen. 

Ideally, you should have a back up prusik regardless of what carabiner you're using -- you don't want to only rely on one bolt:

Vee Dowrote:

thanks all!  For some reason I had in my head there's a 10 year limit to retire climbing items.  Quick google search says that's mostly soft items like slings/webbing.

What do you think could happen to an aluminum biner just due to age?

Toss the biner on your water bottle, pack, shoes, etc. That is is what I do with biners I find. Then you have ready supply. As for that one, I have used far worse biners for bailing. 

I believe it was Craig Luebben who went around collecting 'biners from the base of climbs which either been dropped or somehow forgotten.

Being that he was a gear editor for either Climbing or Rock and Ice, he had access to testing equipment, anyway, I believe everything passed.

Also, if you don't trust it, don't use it.

John Gwrote:

Really, you should have a back up prusik regardless of what carabiner you're using -- you don't want to only rely on one bolt:

Meh. I often trust my life to one bolt the whole way up a sport route or bolted trad in JTree. Inspect and go. If we’re talking bailing off something in the Superstitions, or some obscure route in the Valley, I might agree. Trade routes with good bolts? You’ll be fine. 

I was going to the direction of designating it as a bail biner but the 10 year limit made me doubt this decision. mechanism looked good and scratches are minimal.

A good ask, it seems, given what you thought was a rule of thumb.

In general, I encourage climbers of all experience levels to think through their choices, evaluate their gear, etc. fully, as if you are the last climber on earth, before just asking others. The main reason for this is eventually you will be in situations where you must rely on your own judgement 100% as a matter of survival. In fact you will be in such situations nearly all the time - situations where you can't just ask someone for the answer.

So, formulate your questions, answer them to the best of your ability, THEN ask for a sanity check. This will help you build your evaluation and decision making skills and as importantly, it will help you build your self-confidence in making those decisions.

I would never use a "mystery biner" as a bail biner. I also never bail off only one. Two biners, at least one not mysterious  

LL2wrote:

I would never use a "mystery biner" as a bail biner. I also never bail off only one. Two biners, at least one not mysterious  

Do you never trust or bail off one bolt and hanger either?   What is you reasoning for not trusting a single biner?  In theory I get the redundancy thing but you are still bailing off a single hanger.

Kevin: It occurred to me that my answer wasn't very complete. No, I don't. I never trust only one piece or bolt. So what I mean is, even if a sport route, I'll leave a biner on my highest bolt and a biner on the one below to bail, unless I am very close to the ground and convinced that failure of one bolt/biner will be relatively inconsequential. At the end of the day, I don't really own any mystery biners anyhow. And I don't bail very often  

I’d need to actually hold it, but from the photos, that’d go straight on my rack. 

Do you know how much maximum force a rappel generates?

This never trust just one bolt stuff is complete nonsense. 

If you climb sport routes at all you routinely do just that. You often do it multiple times leading one pitch. By that I mean a bolt failure of the second, third or even forth bolt could cause you to deck. Lead falls are way harder on bolts than lowering. 

If the bolts are sketchy on a a climb, that climb might best be avoided alltogether.

 Brand name Biners that look good are fine to bail from.