Are Petzl Ange biners durable?

I've been using mammut wall/moses biners for my rack for a year of near daily use, and while I really like them, they don't really seem to hold up(rope grooves, get bang up easily etc) I realize that UL gear inherently isn't durable, but I notice petzl claims the ange is more durable due to the gate design and a wider rope bearing surface... true or just marketing BS? Or any suggestions for a good wiregate with a high durability to weight ratio?

I have a bunch of ange biners and all their gates are working great. They are in various states of distress and use, some new, some pretty banged up. As far as I can tell they'll get burred and rope grooved before the gates go bad.

Any biner with an I-beam frame on the rope bearing surfaces is going to be less durable. I doubt you'll find a wiregate with a round stock cross-surface even on the rope bearing surfaces, but the closer you can get to it and the more material concentrated on the rope bearing surfaces, the more durable it will be. I think the BD hotwire may fit the bill, so I'd look into that.

That being said, I have two ange biners, one small and one large. I like the large one, but I wish the small one was lighter. If only they could make a keylock biner that weighed as much as the nanos

The BD OZ is a hoodwire style now. It clears dirt easily so the gate can still close. I switched most of my alpine and rack biners to OZ and hoodwire because I felt it is the best between weight, option, price, and durability. Nanos have a hook nose that catches on my gear sling.

My Ange biners started showing rope grooves pretty quickly. I tested them years ago when I got them with some sport climbing, then promptly went back to my old BD round stock biners for sport. The Ange biners are still on my alpine rack.

As to small Ange vs OZ, I think the OZ has a bigger gate span. This is just going by feeling of clipping.

True!

Faulted Geologist wrote:The BD OZ is a hoodwire style now. It clears dirt easily so the gate can still close. I switched most of my alpine and rack biners to OZ and hoodwire because I felt it is the best between weight, option, price, and durability. Nanos have a hook nose that catches on my gear sling. My Ange biners started showing rope grooves pretty quickly. I tested them years ago when I got them with some sport climbing, then promptly went back to my old BD round stock biners for sport. The Ange biners are still on my alpine rack. As to small Ange vs OZ, I think the OZ has a bigger gate span. This is just going by feeling of clipping.

The rope bearing surface on the OZ is pretty narrow (hoodwire is wider), if you are actually falling with much frequency on them I doubt you'd see any longer life than the Ange (I do own both). I had the OZ for my alpine draws, then one bent after whopping 10-15 foot fall. That pissed me off, it wasn't stuck in the crack or loaded in any strange way. I started buying wild country astro biners for my lighter alpine draws after, the rope catch notches make it more likely to load the spine properly.

Nick Drake wrote: The rope bearing surface on the OZ is pretty narrow (hoodwire is wider), if you are actually falling with much frequency on them I doubt you'd see any longer life than the Ange (I do own both). I had the OZ for my alpine draws, then one bent after whopping 10-15 foot fall. That pissed me off, it wasn't stuck in the crack or loaded in any strange way. I started buying wild country astro biners for my lighter alpine draws after, the rope catch notches make it more likely to load the spine properly.

GeeznutZ! Bent from a small whipper is def alarming. Ange and OZ are similar in rope bearing width. My old BD draws are bigger and more round, this great for single putch. I run two harness/draw/rig. One for single craggimg, one for multi and beyond. No swapping gear, just grab the correct bag/pack and go. Nice biners and draws are too expensive to use for cragging.

All of my alpine draws use an Ange S on the gear end and L on the rope end. Some of them are approaching 3 years old. They operate as new, there's no serious rope wear, and I've generally never had an issue. I don't routinely whip on my gear (and when I do, it's often on a racking 'biner and not an alpine draw) but they do see a lot of use and I don't baby them at all.

I just realized I've never even inspected the gate action on them, nor lubricated them. They've never given me reason to want to check.

But I don't use my gear daily. 3-4 trips a year and weekends.

Faulted Geologist wrote: GeeznutZ! Bent from a small whipper is def alarming. Ange and OZ are similar in rope bearing width. My old BD draws are bigger and more round, this great for single putch. I run two harness/draw/rig. One for single craggimg, one for multi and beyond. No swapping gear, just grab the correct bag/pack and go. Nice biners and draws are too expensive to use for cragging.

Yeah it was really odd, from where I stopped it didn't look like it could have snagged on the crack. My guess was that the biner must not have been quite straight and started to take the fall cross loaded, who knows though. Either way it did NOT come anywhere close to failing, it just wasn't usable afterward.

Nick Drake wrote: I had the OZ for my alpine draws, then one bent after whopping 10-15 foot fall.

As someone who uses the Oz on all my trad gear and alpine draws, I am extremely interested in seeing a photo of this if you have one.

Todd Anderson wrote: As someone who uses the Oz on all my trad gear and alpine draws, I am extremely interested in seeing a photo of this if you have one.

It wouldn't show well in a photo, it's just enough of a bend that the gate snags on the nose now. You can push the gate closed though.
I can't be certain that the gate didn't just get pushed open in the crack when I fell.