Nut Racking Strategy Question to Prevent Accidental Unclipping while Maintaining Easy Single-Handed Racking/Removal

mountainhick wrote: Ditto:

-rack gate in (I don't think this is crucial, just what I initially learned and it's served me well. I have partners who rack gate out and also never drop nuts)
-use notched not keylock
-take off entire biner to place the nut that fits. Trying to get the right nut off while still clipped to harness and not able to stabilize all the rest would definitely increase likelihood of others being pulled off and dropped
-be cognizant of wires getting caught in nose when rotating the biner and the wires around the biner
-get the wires behind the opened gate opposite of the basket and essentially trapped behind the gate when placing/removing the chosen one. I use my whole hand over the bunch as well.

-I've dropped a nut from my rack maybe 5 times in 40 years

I do all of these things, and I recently dropped several nuts on the same route at different points. I think based on your body shape, racking position, climbing type, etc that it is possible for the nut to become pinched against the rock, and based on how you move your hips, you can force the top of the nut up and lever it out of the biner, completely accidentally. I think racking gate in, in this situation, is the only real solution. I suppose you could also move your nuts around on your harness, but I don' t think you would recognize the situation until it was too late and you were dropping nuts on your belayer.

F Loyd wrote: A small, or maybe adjustable pouch might work best. You could get some sort of stretchy material that has the ability to stretch but still be able to retract. You could partition them with some small on one side and large on the other (left side preferably). To protect it from damage maybe hang them off the belay loop, as opposed to the gear loops. I guess the material may sag more as it ages so make sure you get a few of them so your not stepping on your steppers.

What?

rgold wrote:

I carry ~15 nuts on every climb, and often place at least a third of them.  I'd sooner get rid of some cams.

It is a very rare occurrence for me to have nuts fall off the rack.  When it happens, it is almost always because of user error on my part, i.e. I somehow let a nut trap the gate open when clipping them back to the rack.  I think this accident is more likely if the nut biners are clipped to harness loops gate-out, because if you don't hold all the nuts down when unclipping and/or reclipping their biner, one or more will slide over the gate since the carabiner has to be inverted.  Once I changed over to gate-in, it almost never happens.

So do I, Rich. But I also don't drop them. The OP was looking for alternatives to the traditional way of doing it. 

Ditch the wire gates, a twisting action on a nut is usually enough to pop open the gate, and nuts will fall off. 

frank minunni wrote:

What?

Description of a nutsack. He needs to get a hold if his nuts. 

F Loyd wrote:

Description of a nutsack. He needs to get a hold if his nuts. 

Duh...lol

Just echoing what has already been said.

Rack on giant oval notch-less biner, gate in.  When placing: select nut, sink it, slight tug, remove from racking biner and extend with QD or AD.

Very hard to drop a large carabiner full of wires IMO.

Virtually every manufacturer makes a notch-less oval carabiner, find one you like. The BD oval wire-gates are not any good for this.

If on a longer climb, I may bring two sets of nuts, some standard and some offset.

George Perkins wrote: Use a D-shaped, solid straight-gate, non key-lock, biner for racking nuts.  

I used to have this nut dropping (or at least close call) issue once a season or so. The problem was invariably that a wire loop had snagged on the notch of the nose. For that reason I switched to racking my nuts on two or three keylock biners. The issue has not come up once in the 5+ years since I switched to keylocks. Take home here (between George's recommendation and mine) is experiment a bit and see what works for you! 

Kevin MP wrote:

I'm not really sure how you are taking a single nut off your harness with one hand, actually.  

Similar way as you do an ice screw:

Slide the wire of the nut that you want up the gate of the 'biner to just beyond the top of the gate. Torque the wire such that the outside strand rotates down and back into the gate while the inside strand pulls up into the carabiner as you pull out in a smooth motion. The gate opens and the nut pops right out (other nuts stay in place hanging low in the 'biner or held in place above with another finger). To set the nut back, just press the wire loop sideways into the gate while pulling up towards the tooth of the carabiner (perhaps holding some nuts in place above the gate with another finger), and the nut opens the gate and clips nicely back onto the 'biner. Final finishing moves to make sure it is clipped in is then the same as when blindly clipping anything to your harness.

This motion is so easy once you get used to it that you don't even have to think about it and can even do it wearing gloves. I've preferred taking one nut off at a time if I'm fairly certain of the size as I don't want to risk dropping the whole set as I am placing them.

I know I'm not dropping them when doing this as they have disappeared after a pitch where I didn't place any. Still an infrequent occurrence as I maybe lose 1 nut a year. I do a lot of climbing in OWs, chimneys and squeezes, usually trailing the rack or racking to one side when appropriate, but a decent amount of awkwardness inevitably occurs.

Bro, You started this thread over one nut a year?

You know, nuts are the one and only thing I like with gates outward, but with the pivot pin of the gate on the bottom.

Nuts don't get dropped that way when I'm taking the biner off harness to place. This is the same biner orientation as if you racked things gate in and then rotating the closed biner around the loop. I'm an uncoordinated person in general and found this lets me avoid dropping nuts.

Alex Fletcher wrote: Bro, You started this thread over one nut a year?

Yeah, while also saying it wasn't a big problem, but curious if a lazy method could make it even smaller. I like to optimize my setups over time. Esp. since other people tend to have the same occasional problem. A recent conversation with a partner prompted me to start this thread just to see...

Guys, WHEN YOU UNCLIP THE BINER YOU USE YOUR OTHER FINGERS TO HOLD YOUR NUTS!

That's it, it's worked since nuts were invented. Practice it on the ground.

Tradiban wrote: Guys, WHEN YOU UNCLIP THE BINER YOU USE YOUR OTHER FINGERS TO HOLD YOUR NUTS!

That's it, it's worked since nuts were invented. Practice it on the ground.

You act surprised that there are a lot of dudes with nut control issues.

George Perkins wrote: Use a D-shaped, solid straight-gate, non key-lock, biner for racking nuts.  (I wonder if BD sells the sets of them with a wire-gate oval... so they can sell you more stoppers when you drop them?)

This won't change how anybody racks,  but I offer it as an example of if it can go wrong, it will go wrong sometime. BITD before keylock carabiners were made, I had my stoppers on an oval notched carabiner. I was climbing a route near my limit. Up a dihedral corner on the L and then onto the face on the R. Just before making the move to the face, I placed a stopper in a crack in the corner reaching as far as I could. Problem then was I couldn't free the carabiner from the inserted stopper because it hooked on the notch. Since my stance was tenuous all I could do is put a draw on the inserted stopper and leave all the remaining nuts on the notched carabiner there and move on. Fortunately, I didn't fall and finished the climb without further problems.. It was some years before keylock carabiners came on the market. I've used them ever since. At first, I did drop a couple of nuts using them. But that stopped after a little practice. 

Pull out. Best way to control your nut. Not a doctor. But I will always take a look