Older hb wales quadcams?

If I could get these for a reasonable price like 30 bucks each or so, are they decent? They are the older style ones that look like metolius cams with a finger loop and nylon sling? I've just never used them and trying to triple up for a big wall rack so I need more cams, but also need to save the moneys. Let me know your experience with them. 🤙

$30 is too much. Maybe $20/ea. They will also almost certainly need to be reslung, so factor that in as well. 

As a cam I would say they're not really worth anything. Cams of that style have disappeared for a couple of reasons. I'd beg and borrow cams before you put money towards them. At least if it was a 3 lobe cam it'd be kinda narrow but a quad cam has no benefit.

The HB Quadcam is a dinosaur and a bit of a failed design. I had a couple along with some Forged Friends. The Quadcam was significantly inferior to the Forged Friend, as the weird trigger design got in the way of some placements, and the springs were too weak to function properly with the hinged triggers. I retained all of my Friends as part of my Creek rack, but I got rid of all of the Quadcams.

I assume that this is what you are talking about: 

Frank Stein wrote:

The HB Quadcam is a dinosaur and a bit of a failed design. I had a couple along with some Forged Friends. The Quadcam was significantly inferior to the Forged Friend, as the weird trigger design got in the way of some placements, and the springs were too weak to function properly with the hinged triggers. I retained all of my Friends as part of my Creek rack, but I got rid of all of the Quadcams.

I assume that this is what you are talking about: 

I think he's referring to the precursor to the DMM 4CU as they said it's similar to metolius.

Specifically it's this cam.

I've used smaller versions of this cam and it was shockingly bomber in some slippery limestone. 

This being said there's much better stuff around for marginally more money, buy once cry once.

I have built my rack with a lot of second hand cams and as new second hand cams. I really would recommend you get some reasonably new cams, even if you are getting them one at a time and it's a franken rack it will be better than a bunch of 35 year old cams.

that guy named seb wrote:

I think he's referring to the precursor to the DMM 4CU as they said it's similar to metolius.

Specifically it's this cam.

I've used smaller versions of this cam and it was shockingly bomber in some slippery limestone. 

This being said there's much better stuff around for marginally more money, buy once cry once.

I forgot about the U-stemmed ones. A couple of the guys I used to climb with had sets. They were nice, but one drawback was that you could not manipulate the lobes independently.  I always considered Metolius TCUs and FCUs superior. In contrast, the rigid ones, as I stated above, were pretty bad.

I would not pay any amount for the rigid model, and would think about it at $20.00 for the U-stems, if in as new condition.

Blade Runner wrote:

If I could get these for a reasonable price like 30 bucks each or so, are they decent? They are the older style ones that look like metolius cams with a finger loop and nylon sling? I've just never used them and trying to triple up for a big wall rack so I need more cams, but also need to save the moneys. Let me know your experience with them. 🤙

These were my main cams for a long time. They are light, they have a long "reach", and I really liked them (still use them for remote new route development).

They had one major drawback that can't make me recommend them - they walk and umbrella easily, and then can be a royal pain to go retrieve. If you're aware of that tendency and place them in spots where that won't happen (and/or use long slings to avoid walking them), they are fine (but don't have as much expansion range as you might be used to with many modern cams).

Personally I'd probably ask for $15 a cam if I were selling mine.

Yeah I was looking at the "U" shaped ones that are the pre-DMM ones. Mostly as a d or 4th set of cams for aiding. If I can talk then down to 10 or 15 each would it be worth it or should I skip it? I have a double BD rack and a metolius rack, they are just cheap and I read they are good for aiding which is what I'm mostly doing at this point.

Their main advantage is the narrower lobe width. For example, purple 0.5 camalot has a lobe width of 1 5/8" whereas the blue quadcam is 1 1/8". 

The "long reach" mentioned by Greg is that the distance from the trigger bar to the lobes is about 1" longer for the blue Quadcam than the purple camalot, so you can place it 1" higher. Still, the distance from the lobes to the highest clip-in point (te thumb loop) is 1/2" less for the Quad compared to the camalot, so you also get a tiny bit better reach for your next placement when aiding.  

My experience is surprisingly opposite of Greg Barnes: I've had no trouble with walking and they are one of the easiest cams to get out if stuck (Metolius being the easiest one).