BD 0.2 X4 broke on fall

A climber next to me took a lead fall on Barber Wall (Cathedral Ledge, NH) last weekend and shattered his yellow BD 0.2 X4. The cam stopped his fall for a fraction of a second and then gave out and he fell to his next piece. He was okay and kept climbing, but it was a little scary seeing the piece afterwards. Three of the wires completely gone. Two lobes totally loose, wobbling around and the other two lobes completely stuck.

The initial fall was no more than 5-6 feet and the X4 was in new condition.

Broken BD 0.2 X4

Hum, hard to say anything about this except that he was lucky his next piece held and wasn't too far.
The 0.2 is a small cam, pretty hard to ensure that it is properly seated with all cams in their best camming range, especially in irregular cracks and then Iit can rotate or walk a bit to make things worse. I always carry C3s which come in handy to double up the pro or may end up fitting better than the X4.
I don't think we can say it's the cams fault since we don't know where and how it was placed.

Oh, and I have fallen on a 0.2 for about the same distance in a horizontal crack without issues. Also had a cam pull while building an anchor cause the trigger got squeezed on the lip of the crack. Nothing is perfect in rock climbing, just need to mitigate the risks.

Looks like a pretty classic umbrella to me. IIRC, the smallest 3 X4s are just a normal single axle without stops, and thus will umbrella in a too-large placement. Incidentally, umbrella-ing would explain the broken wires and broken wires would explain the floppy lobes.

Speaking of cables, remember that the cables are just there to retract the lobes. They are not part of the protection mechanics of a cam. Broken cables could be a defect or (more likely) user error, but they have nothing to say about the safety (or lack thereof) of the cam.

Would be nice to get more pics of the cam to see where the scratches/gouges are.
pretty new cam indeed. Most likely a placement issue from what I can tell.

wfscot wrote:Looks like a pretty classic umbrella to me. IIRC, the smallest 3 X4s are just a normal single axle without stops, and thus will umbrella in a too-large placement. Incidentally, umbrella-ing would explain the broken wires and broken wires would explain the floppy lobes.

And maybe a set of replacement trigger wires will put it back in service.

Maybe.

Replacing the wires will not help as the internal springs are broken. Two lobes dangle freely (back/forth) and two are completely locked. Here is another view:

Another view of BD 0.2 X4.

Ron Birk wrote:Replacing the wires will not help as the internal springs are broken. Two lobes dangle freely (back/forth) and two are completely locked. Here is another view:

Broken? Or just floppy because the lobes are no longer rotated enough to wind up the coils of the springs?

Just FYI, here's a quote from the cam's owner from the other X4 thread:

"I think it's easy to blame the gear for these types of things but I will be first to admit that I am not great at placing small cams. Instead of walking away from this thinking X4's are terrible, I am gonna go practice placing small gear because the error is my own (OK maybe X4's could be a bit more durable...) "

I've broken the .1 and .2 X4s while taking on them in a perfect placement and while falling on them in a perfectly acceptable placement. They're faulty for sure!

new cam obvious umbrella failure...shattering a cam is when you bend the axle or break the solder at the termination. This unit was placed WRONG. i don't know why so many new trad climbers buy small cams when you can chug up 5 easy with anything. as to X4's being faulty, what a load of shit. they are ultra light and there for have had concessions made for the weight that effect durability. if you want durabilty buy aliens if you trust them or C4's

BLACK GARBAGE THE NEW BREED OF FAILIEN !

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

The thing I'm learning here is that X4s work fine except in New England.

User error. That should buff out fine and be perfect real soon. Oh, on an unrelated note: I will have a rack of X4 offsets for sale soon.

.2 and lower are borderline for taking a fall they are borderline aid gear aka not 100% chance it is going to hold a fall.

Always double up on small gear when you detect a hard sequence ahead, C3s fit in the same sizes and have built in lobe stops.

I would much prefer sticking a C4 .3 before a crux than an X4, just out of the double axle/range confidence.

Send it back to Black Diamond, they'll fix or replace it.

ViperScale wrote:.2 and lower are borderline for taking a fall they are borderline aid gear aka not 100% chance it is going to hold a fall.

+1

ViperScale wrote:.2 and lower are borderline for taking a fall they are borderline aid gear aka not 100% chance it is going to hold a fall.

Ok, nothing is 100%, I look at placements and say to myself "That's a 99% placement", or "that's a 10^-6 (one in a million failure) placement", etc. Or once in a while, "that's a 90% placement"; and if it actually holds and shortens the fall, bonus awarded! I;m not climbing above a 90% placement unless the placement below it is better and I'm okay with the fall. I've only had my top piece fail once: a C3 that had only two lobes engaged. But my bomber piece was only a few feet below.

That said, small X4s can be very good pieces. I don't think I'd ever call an 0.1 better than 99%, but damn: if it's well-set, and not moving between when you set it and when you fall on it, a well-set 0.1 is a good piece.

Depending on the fall, hard falls right off the belay are hard, hard enough to bust a small cam. But higher up, your maximum force is determined by your rope, and most falls do not push your gear in raw kilonewtons, they push it in how well it engages the rock.

Wonder why there are so many issues with placing the X4s "properly."