Snagless biners for racking/alpine draws

I'm an average gunks noob mostly extending pieces and occasionally clipping a piton or bolt. Currently racking on nanos and have photon/photon draws, but I'm wondering if it's worth "upgrading" to some snagless/hooded biners (ange, dyon, oz, etc) to reduce the chance of nosehooking, crossloading, or the gate levering open rubbing against rock. However, I'm not really sure how prevalent these issues are on alpines or when clipping the racking biner directly. I personally haven't had an issue yet, but it does seem fairly common to have a smoother notched biner on either end of the draw. At the least it seems wise to keep a few smooth biners for the occasional piton clip. Any thoughts appreciated!

Ange carabiners clip old pins pretty well. the old bd hood wires were terrible for this because of the bulky nose. my favorite light weight snag free carabiners now are the edelrid missions. Slightly heavier than the nanos but feel great in the hand and a super low profile nose. 

I got mad enough at my snaggy-nose carabiners getting caught while I'm racking gear, cleaning off my bag, and getting stuck everywhere when I'm not even climbing.let alone actually getting stuck on slings and pitons and such while climbing. You could probably sell the nose ones off and find a deal on no snag for $50 and never think about those issue for the rest of your life.

Jake woo wrote:

I got mad enough at my snaggy-nose carabiners getting caught while I'm racking gear, cleaning off my bag, and getting stuck everywhere when I'm not even climbing.let alone actually getting stuck on slings and pitons and such while climbing. You could probably sell the nose ones off and find a deal on no snag for $50 and never think about those issue for the rest of your life.

Yeah but nanos...what did you end up going with? Curious about the oz and dyon. I like camp biners quite a bit but in general try to avoid made in china stuff (whole other can of worms). DMM stuff is sweet but pretty chunky and I like thin gear on my rack.

Coming from a place of privilege because I snagged a bunch of Dyons on here for ~$4 a piece and they’re otherwise quite expensive, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Huge baskets AND I would swear that they’re even smoother than most solid-gate carabiners. I wouldn’t consider going back.

I bought a set of Dyons for qds for ice because my blue ice harness has cord for gear loops. They are great for ice but would be not great for hard to clip fixed pins. They are wide/thick at the load bearing corners

John B wrote:

Yeah but nanos...what did you end up going with? Curious about the oz and dyon. I like camp biners quite a bit but in general try to avoid made in china stuff (whole other can of worms). DMM stuff is sweet but pretty chunky and I like thin gear on my rack.

I have dyons on almost everything. I also have a bunch of WC Helium's. I like the dyons for the thin nose and I can fit more of them into small holes. The Heliums are just a wider nose but just as good in other regards. I like the full size biners so when I have gloves on I'm not fiddling with the tiny form factor. 

I had a moment where I bought and regularly used a bunch of these to figure out which one I liked the most. The Petzl Ange S is pretty nice and low profile, clips small holes nicely which is great for pins. The Ange L is a bit easier to handle, as long as you are cool with the size. Clipping the Ange is alright, the single wire is less finicky than it sounds, my 120cm slings all have Ange Ls. My draws and cams are all DMM Chimeras, which are really easy to handle and have a lot of color options.

You mentioned the Oz. I have had issues clipping pins with those. 

I have climbed with CAMP dyons, DMM alpha trad, WC Helium, Petzl ange L and S, BD hoodwire, and I have played with Edelrid Mission. 

Skip BD, all the others are good, pros and cons to each. A lot of people like/mentioned the dyons for good reasons, the narrow nose is nice, large basket, good gate opening. The mission 2 is something between a full and a mini carabiner. If clipping old pins is a concern I would not get anything with a wire shrowd as it makes the noise quite large. 

update: dyon'd out of my mind, ty all

Elijah Benson wrote:

Coming from a place of privilege because I snagged a bunch of Dyons on here for ~$4 a piece and they’re otherwise quite expensive, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Huge baskets AND I would swear that they’re even smoother than most solid-gate carabiners. I wouldn’t consider going back.

Where are they on sale ?

Have to keep your eyes out. I regularly snag them brand new for $9ish, and have found lightly used from several sellers here for $7ish/ea. Unfortunately I have about 60 brand new in a box, which the wifey doesn’t necessarily approve of…

back to the OP’s questions, between all posters on this thread, it’s basically been answered. 

Personally, I run Dyons on the bolt end, and Trad Alpha on the rope end (they’re slightly nicer than heliums). The Ange will indeed get through pitons just a bit better than Dyons (the apex of the basket/spine is a little thick on the Dyon, but still makes it through most any piton).

Dyon is the nicest racking biner, b/c they take up the least space of any biner, so your gear loop feels a tad less crowded.

For aid climbing, the dyon is very nice to slip into a sling that has already been loaded. For ex., there’s a double length on a piton, with two knots in it. You reach high and clip your ladders to the bottom of the sling, and start to climb a few rungs… now you can clip higher on the sling (remember there’s two knots on this sling to facilitate this), but the sling is bearing your weight, making it a royal pain in the ass to clip your next ladder or draw to it. If you’re using Dyons, it’s pretty easy to use that small round nose to pry the legs of the sling apart and slip the biner through. Obviously can be done with other biners via a little finesse, but it’s a small luxury for things like this.

Christian Hesch wrote:

Have to keep your eyes out. I regularly snag them brand new for $9ish, and have found lightly used from several sellers here for $7ish/ea. Unfortunately I have about 60 brand new in a box, which the wifey doesn’t necessarily approve of…

back to the OP’s questions, between all posters on this thread, it’s basically been answered. 

Personally, I run Dyons on the bolt end, and Trad Alpha on the rope end (they’re slightly nicer than heliums). The Ange will indeed get through pitons just a bit better than Dyons (the apex of the basket/spine is a little thick on the Dyon, but still makes it through most any piton).

Dyon is the nicest racking biner, b/c they take up the least space of any biner, so your gear loop feels a tad less crowded.

For aid climbing, the dyon is very nice to slip into a sling that has already been loaded. For ex., there’s a double length on a piton, with two knots in it. You reach high and clip your ladders to the bottom of the sling, and start to climb a few rungs… now you can clip higher on the sling (remember there’s two knots on this sling to facilitate this), but the sling is bearing your weight, making it a royal pain in the ass to clip your next ladder or draw to it. If you’re using Dyons, it’s pretty easy to use that small round nose to pry the legs of the sling apart and slip the biner through. Obviously can be done with other biners via a little finesse, but it’s a small luxury for things like this.

If you sell some dyons from your box to make wife happy Dm me

Do it!  Snagging sucks, you'll never look back.  Dyons on my cams and Ainge's all over the place.  Just upgraded my rocky talkie on the ski pack with an Ainge - now I can clip in anywhere and unclip with ease.

any thoughts on the alpha trad vs the dyon?

petzl logic wrote:

any thoughts on the alpha trad vs the dyon?

I've only handled the alpha trad lights and I do really like them, but I prefer a thinner profile for racking. I'm thinking about using them on my alpine draws but the regular alpha trads are heavy and pretty expensive. Shame DMM stopped making the alpha trad light, but mtntools still seems to have them. https://www.mtntools.com/cat/rclimb/biners/dmm_alpha_light_carabiner.htm

shoot, and thanks. i meant alpha wire and misfired. i was just thinking about some new stables alpines and they look nice, relatively light, affordable. 

DMM appears to have replaced the Alpha Trad Light and the Chimera (both really fine notchless biners that are the bulk of my rack) with the Aether, which is even lighter and not as uncomfortably small as the Ange S. I have a few Dyons, but feel the likelihood of the gate opening from being scraped against the rock is much greater than the hooded biners. 

petzl logic wrote:

any thoughts on the alpha trad vs the dyon?

In your hand, clipping *into* something, they’re more or less equally comfortable and smooth (obvious caveat about pitons, as discussed above).

Clipping a rope *to* one of these biners, the Trad Alpha is significantly easier. TA has a bend to the spine, which (for my hands) makes it much easier to hold the biner with your 4 fingers and snap the rope through with the thumb. The Dyon‘s straight spine makes it more difficult to “lock in” the biner in your hand while clipping. Hence why I go dyon on the gear side and TA on the rope side.

What about the new petzl spirit racking biners?

RWPT wrote:

What about the new petzl spirit racking biners?

Pretty heavy 37g, not that much more than the dyon at 33. Honestly pretty compelling. The dyon has a larger gate opening and is a bit thinner though.