Vintage carabiners

Allen Sandersonwrote:

The Salewa Royal Robbins might be a hollow core biner those are a bit unique. As they broke.

Love mine. (Chouinard) Still in use as (backup) aid biners, their original design intent. Not for bolts or lead falls. The shape reduces the sudden settling that can happen with D’S and they are non bulky and light.

Allen Sandersonwrote:

The Salewa Royal Robbins might be a hollow core biner those are a bit unique. As they broke.

I sold my two Royal Robbins ovals a few years ago. Those were made with solid stock, not hollow. I still have a dozen of the hollow Chouinard ovals, which I still use for aiding and which weigh about the same as modern BD ovals that have wire gates. I’m not worried about those breaking, although I do look for barely visible cracks that originate from the gate pins and would occasionally weaken Chouinard carabiners — because, during manufacture, overly thick gate pins were forced into smaller holes. (BD might have continued this practice.) The main problem with hollow carabiners is the potential for rope wear. So we were told to avoid using those for belaying, lowering, and rappelling. 

George Bracksieckwrote:

I sold my two Royal Robbins ovals a few years ago. Those were made with solid stock, not hollow. I still have a dozen of the hollow Chouinard ovals, which I still use for aiding and which weigh about the same as modern BD ovals that have wire gates. I’m not worried about those breaking, although I do look for barely visible cracks that originate from the gate pins and would occasionally weaken Chouinard carabiners — because, during manufacture, overly thick gate pins were forced into smaller holes. (BD might have continued this practice.) The main problem with hollow carabiners is the potential for rope wear. So we were told to avoid using those for belaying, lowering, and rappelling. 

Are you sure? I had two, one broke, and I remember it was hollow. 

WF WF51wrote:

Are you sure? I had two, one broke, and I remember it was hollow. 

Did it break when you fell on it? If so did it still hold or was it a thorough break?

WF WF51wrote:

Are you sure? I had two, one broke, and I remember it was hollow. 

There appear to have been two Robbins/Salewa ovals - the hollow one shown 2nd down in Eric's photos, and the solid model to which George refers. In fact 'Fritz' mentions both models more than once in this Supertopo thread: http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1022257&tn=0&mr=0

The top biner of Eric's four is interesting; stamped 'Simond Chamonix'. Simond apparently owned a patent on hollow biners which they made a point of mentioning in adverts at the time, but I didn't realise that they had actually produced a model themselves. No idea, either, whether they would have done the manufacturing; as pointed out upthread Contat Frères in the Arve valley made biners for several French brands - possibly for Simond as well. I wonder, too, whether this could be the same design/model as the Laprade biner to which 'Biner' referred; seems possible.

The fourth of Eric's biners, the Chouinard hollow oval, is stamped 'USA'; no mention of Salewa [or Germany] - unlike his solid offset 'D' above it. Does this suggest that at some point Chouinard made hollow biners - or outsourced their manufacture - within the United States? If 'USA' was simply part of the logo - ie 'Chouinard USA' - rather than the country of manufacture, one would expect it to immediately follow the name instead of being stamped on the other side of the gate.

WF WF51wrote:

Are you sure? I had two, one broke, and I remember it was hollow. 

100% sure!