The strongest aluminium carabiner - discontinued?

Being a bit of a gear junkie I started looking for the strongest carabiner out there. What I found was this:
treekit.com/rock-pro.html

It's Rock Exotica - Rock Pro, has the breaking strength comparable with the steel ones (43kN), at the same time having half of their weight. The thing is it seems to be discontinued. I found no mention regarding it on Rock Exotica webpage, the only info I found is on their German www (rockexotica.de) the info is from 2014.

Did any of you guys ever used it? Also, does aluminum get weaker with time, I mean I can buy one from 2014, but does it have a life span like ropes and harnesses?
Also, why would they discontinue such a good product?

Hi Mike. A friendly suggestion that you might want to go climb a bit more. Your last three post seem to indicate to me that you are focused on technical and gear minuta that isn't very important in the grand scheme of things. A few days of climbing will clear that right up.

And no...aluminum doesn't age like that...a carabiner from 2014 is just fine. They probably discontinued it because a 43 kN locker is complete overkill for normal climbing applications.

The price too... fuck me

I think, also, that in the majority of applications where you need a 43kN carabiner, durability is more important than weight. Aluminum will dent or deform more easily than steel will, reducing the life of the carabiner. Aluminum also doesn't have a fatigue limit, so lots of lower-stress impacts over a long period of time can damage the carabiner. An aluminum carabiner will also be bulkier than the steel carabiner at the same strength.

For applications like rescue work, rope-access work, or other applications where gear is expected to regularly face high loads, steel offers increased durability in an application where the weight difference between the two doesn't really matter. For climbing, where weight matters, 43kN is overkill. A 43kN aluminum carabiner doesn't really have any application where it will be the best choice.

you could also take two $9-10 normal lockers and double them up for more strength, twice the redundancy, and much greater safety in an application like toproping, where the biner might be dragging back and forth, than the RE monster?

I switched all my biners to those Rock Exoticas. I was breaking way too many shredding so much gnar. But I'm up to eating like 9-10 fish heads a day just for breakfast. Ten Quidado muy Mucho Neck Meat here! I'm one bad Hombre!

ckersch wrote: Aluminum also doesn't have a fatigue limit, so lots of lower-stress impacts over a long period of time can damage the carabiner. .

That's interesting. I always knew that aluminum is less flexible than steel but never thought of this property in terms of durability.
By "lower-stress impacts" do you mean dropping them on the hard surface or rather everyday use? I found some info o wiki that while testing fatigue limit they use 0.4 of the braking strenght of aluminum material so that would suggest the latter.

Also, do you by any chance have a link to any more serious research regarding this? Thanks.

MikeMills wrote: Also, do you by any chance have a link to any more serious research regarding this? Thanks.

There are tons!

asminternational.org/docume…

osti.gov/scitech/servlets/p…

The point is you are not going to get anywhere near those stresses or cycle times in normal climbing use.

Fatigue won't be an issue in climbing since I doubt you are gonna take 10 million whippers. And regarding flexibility of aluminium vs steel, you're gonna have to define what you mean and look into a few more books. Aluminium is actually less rigid than steel.

Also, overkill doesn't mean better. It just means "less efficient". If course, like with everything, it depends on the application but for climbing, you should check your priorities!

MikeMills wrote: That's interesting. I always knew that aluminum is less flexible than steel but never thought of this property in terms of durability. By "lower-stress impacts" do you mean dropping them on the hard surface or rather everyday use? I found some info o wiki that while testing fatigue limit they use 0.4 of the braking strenght of aluminum material so that would suggest the latter. Also, do you by any chance have a link to any more serious research regarding this? Thanks.

I'd recommend reading the wiki page on fatigue limits. It's a pretty good description of what's going on: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatig… Any papers on fatigue limits for things like steel and aluminum are going to be pretty old, since it's a well established material property.

Fatigue limit is an issue if you want to do something like tow trucks with your carabiner a few times per day, every day. You'd probably be better off with a steel carabiner for that kind of application: repeated, significant loads that are well below the stress limit of the device, but still in a similar order of magnitude. Dropping carabiners from low heights and everyday climbing use don't generate the kinds of stresses you'd need to worry about.

Mike, I also spent a lot of time worrying about tech specs on gear when I first started out - but the above commenters are correct when they say you really don't need this ultra-specialized gear. You aren't adding any safety by using it, because you will never approach the breaking strength of commercially available carabiners unless something has gone very wrong.

On my rack, I use CAMP Nano 22 Carabiners for racking gear and the gear end of alpine draws. For locking carabiners, I use Metolius Bravo lockers. These carabiners are extremely light and I really appreciate having this super light gear - and I'm never worried about breaking it.

ckersch wrote:Aluminum also doesn't have a fatigue limit, so lots of lower-stress impacts over a long period of time can damage the carabiner.

I think you meant to say that steel does not fatigue.

EJD wrote: I think you meant to say that steel does not fatigue.

Steel does fatigue, but it has a fatigue limit (aka endurance limit); a stress level below which it will never incur any fatigue damage. It will never fail at that load, regardless of # of cycles (infinite fatigue life).

Aluminum does not have a fatigue limit (that we know of). Even very small cyclic load will eventually cause it to fail eventually (though if it's low enough, that # could be in the billions or trillions, or more).

Xam wrote:Hi Mike. A friendly suggestion that you might want to go climb a bit more. Your last three post seem to indicate to me that you are focused on technical and gear minuta that isn't very important in the grand scheme of things. .

It's off topic, but I'd still like to make a quick answer to your friendly suggestion. This is a discussion forum i.e. forum to discuss things. I guess if the question is not really dumb it should not matter who asks it. If I have tons of climbing experience or none should not matter if I'm not the person who answers the questions but only matters matters if I'm the one answering it. I can't stress enough how much knowledge I gained because of this forum and people who answered my presumably funny/petty/irrelevant/paranoid/whatever other adjective you want to put here questions. When I registered with this forum I was never expecting that. Thank you guys for sharing that knowledge.
As far as concentrating on "gear minutia" goes I will claim that being focused on technical and gear issues (even to the point of detailed scientific knowledge) and limitations is very important, because it's the gear and the knowledge that will keep you safe at the end of the day.

MikeMills wrote: As far as concentrating on "gear minutia" goes I will claim that being focused on technical and gear issues (even to the point of detailed scientific knowledge) and limitations is very important, because it's the gear and the knowledge that will keep you safe at the end of the day.

Technical knowledge does increase safety. However, using 43kN carabiners does not.

MikeMills wrote: It's off topic, but I'd still like to make a quick answer to your friendly suggestion. This is a discussion forum i.e. forum to discuss things. I guess if the question is not really dumb it should not matter who asks it. If I have tons of climbing experience or none should not matter if I'm not the person who answers the questions but only matters matters if I'm the one answering it. I can't stress enough how much knowledge I gained because of this forum and people who answered my presumably funny/petty/irrelevant/paranoid/whatever other adjective you want to put here questions. When I registered with this forum I was never expecting that. Thank you guys for sharing that knowledge. As far as concentrating on "gear minutia" goes I will claim that being focused on technical and gear issues (even to the point of detailed scientific knowledge) and limitations is very important, because it's the gear and the knowledge that will keep you safe at the end of the day.

Right-o Mike! My point is that a few more day out climbing and you should get a good feel for the kind of forces involved (note: body weight is a passable rough order of magnitude estimation for a 1 kN load) and the common gear choices in climbing will make much more sense. We all go through it when we start out.

MikeMillis wrote:As far as concentrating on "gear minutia" goes I will claim that being focused on technical and gear issues (even to the point of detailed scientific knowledge) and limitations is very important, because it's the gear and the knowledge that will keep you safe at the end of the day.

I see where you're coming from and I agree that technical knowledge of the gear can help enhance safety. However, it's only part of the picture. Your ability to not fall in inappropriate situations (5.7 trad with ledge potential, for example) is probably more important. Being able to competently and safely clean sport routes using both all of the major useful techniques and knowing which is appropriate is also probably more important. The last line of defense between any climber and injury or death is their ability to move safely on the rock in a variety of situations - not memorize the breaking strength of every piece of gear on their rack.

Modern gear is incredibly strong and safe relative to the forces involved, with the exception of some edge cases that shouldn't really concern a beginning climber. For example, the difference in breaking strength between small steel nuts (BD 3, 4) and similarly sized HB Offsets or BD micro stoppers is important if climbing routes where small nut placements are vital gear. It's not so important if you stay on well protected 5.8 trade routes.
Looking at the technical and design work that is behind the gear we use is definitely interesting, but I still agree with the other posters when they say you are focusing on the wrong thing. Finding the strongest aluminum carabiner out there just isn't important.

If strength is your thing, check out the CAMP Atlas Lock. Aluminum locker at 40kn.

camp-usa.com/products/carab…

Also available in 2 and 3 stage.

Woah you're right. I've had that backwards for years!

Don't worry about it Mike. I thought you had a valid climbing related question, but next time, don't post your query in the "total douchbag" thread.

That Camp is a good looking biner, much lighter than the Rock Exotica too. For me, I like steel for toproping and alum for when I have to carry it. I don't believe I've heard of a locker ever failing by being weak. To those who tout light, the Grivel lockers are in the 30 gram range. Real nice locker too. Whoh!!!!

Kind of small.