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gogo
Apr 22, 2004, 2:49 AM
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Got a question for y'all... my girlfriend recently gave me some draws to add to my rack as a gift, and they are wiregate's on both carabiners. Now, all the draws I have are only wiregate on the biner than I clip the rope into, the others are all regular carabiners. My question is- Is it fine to clip wiregates into anchors, or do I need to go buy some regular gate biners and remake these new draws? Thanks, Mike
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bonads
Apr 22, 2004, 2:52 AM
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I have wire 'biners on both ends of my draws, they work for me. I've heard that they're actually stronger than the solid gates because the solid gates are made of aluminum, and when stressed they'll crack. But the wire gates are made of steel and will bend under pressure.
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itakealot
Apr 22, 2004, 3:36 AM
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The main advantage of wires is that they do not flick open when jerked. As a test, whack the back of the biner on your palm and a wire gate won't open. Now do the same with a regular biner and you will see the gate open. Allegedly, when the gate opens, the rope can slip out.
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andypro
Apr 22, 2004, 3:58 AM
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In reply to: The main advantage of wires is that they do not flick open when jerked. As a test, whack the back of the biner on your palm and a wire gate won't open. Now do the same with a regular biner and you will see the gate open. Allegedly, when the gate opens, the rope can slip out. Uhm..no. When the gate flips open, it has nothing to do wiht the rope slipping out. It's about the open gate strength of the biner. If the gate comes open...it's not closed...the biner is usually 1/3 or so the closed gate strength. That's the advantage with wiregates when your dealing with gate flutter. If your regular biners flap open enough that your rope could slip out..good god :shock: Get new biners. As for having wires on both ends...it's fine. Anyone who says it ins't they're talking out of thier ass. solid gates blow (as far as I'm concerned anymore, anyways. I wont buy anyhitng but a wiregate if I can avoid it. Except for my Petzl Owals)
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jimdavis
Apr 22, 2004, 4:45 AM
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I've heard of the wires getting stuck on the hanger more often than with a straight gate, but i think it's more of an issue when you don't clip right. As for gate flutter, because it's on the hanger end and so close to the rock, there really isn't that high of a chance of you getting an open gate due to whiplash. It won't travel far enough to get that much energy. I use both wires and normal gates on the bolt end, I really don't think it's that big of a deal. Wiregates rule, use em for all you can.
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itakealot
Apr 22, 2004, 5:02 AM
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In reply to: Uhm..no. When the gate flips open, it has nothing to do wiht the rope slipping out. It's about the open gate strength of the biner. If the gate comes open...it's not closed...the biner is usually 1/3 or so the closed gate strength. That's the advantage with wiregates when your dealing with gate flutter. If your regular biners flap open enough that your rope could slip out..good god :shock: Get new biners. Uh no, do you work for Petzl, the Nike of climbing? Any regular biner off the shelf will flap. When the first wiregates came out, a marketing ploy by the manufacturers was that a wire gate was not going to flutter and thus, there was no chance of the rope coming out of the biner, so I think that was what allegedly meant in my post. Who know, you might be a gear professor, so I bow down to your wisdom.
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survivalexpert
Apr 22, 2004, 5:11 AM
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Ehhh, the fluttering ideology with it decreasing the major axis strength makes more sense to me. I think that the rope coming out in such a tiny spanse of time is less likely right?
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anykineclimb
Apr 22, 2004, 7:28 AM
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In reply to: In reply to: Uhm..no. When the gate flips open, it has nothing to do wiht the rope slipping out. It's about the open gate strength of the biner. If the gate comes open...it's not closed...the biner is usually 1/3 or so the closed gate strength. That's the advantage with wiregates when your dealing with gate flutter. If your regular biners flap open enough that your rope could slip out..good god :shock: Get new biners. Uh no, do you work for Petzl, the Nike of climbing? Any regular biner off the shelf will flap. When the first wiregates came out, a marketing ploy by the manufacturers was that a wire gate was not going to flutter and thus, there was no chance of the rope coming out of the biner, so I think that was what allegedly meant in my post. Who know, you might be a gear professor, so I bow down to your wisdom. Hmm, didn't know Petzl ran sweat shops filled with 7 year olds sewing harness and working the forges... The thought of a rope coming out of a biner due to gate slap is ridiculous. andypro is right; its got to do with closed vs open gate strength.
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overlord
Apr 22, 2004, 8:19 AM
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i ahve wiregates on both ends and dont have any problems.
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saagax
Apr 22, 2004, 2:35 PM
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I only hage wire gate binners in my draws, thet are lighter, don´t open so easily when they get hit, a bunch of my friends use either bar and siregate or only bar gates, and I see no difference.
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keinangst
Apr 22, 2004, 3:25 PM
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Unless you've got loads and loads of wiregates, why not just use solid gates on the gear/bolt end and save all the wires for the rope end? If I understand correctly, gate flutter is not nearly as big a concern on the gear end of the draw.
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petergram
Apr 22, 2004, 3:45 PM
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Wiregate or standard gate biners - it doesn't matter which you use. Any full strength biner is going to work, so it is just a matter of preference. Wiregates certainly don't have a strength issue. I have seen a hotwire tested to failure through cross-loading, and the gate was not the limiting strength factor.
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gogo
Apr 22, 2004, 4:04 PM
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Thanks for all the info. Really helps.
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fredrogers
Apr 22, 2004, 4:08 PM
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For myself, I find wiregates are easier to open/use while wearing gloves. So, if you're doing any alpine or ice climbing I prefer to have all biners be wiregate on my rack.
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lambchop
Apr 30, 2004, 1:29 PM
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Does anyone perhaps know how wire-gate and standard-gate biners compare on open gate strength? Or is it an impossible comparison to generalise on?
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tgreene
Apr 30, 2004, 1:40 PM
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All of the major brand name biners are going to be roughly the same. I have a wide array of biners (both STD and Wire gate), and I find that the strongest of them all seems to actually be my Std Gate Omegalite-4.0's. The worst of them all a my BD's, in both STD or Wire configurations. Basically, anything that is rated 22kn or greater on the Major axis is fine, and most seem to have a rating of 24kn. The graetest variances come into play for the Minor axis and Open gate ratings. Then come the weight issues... If you go fast and light, you'll generally drop a point or 2 on the KN rating, but they are still very much within the safe zone, or they wouldn't be marketing them.
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pieter
Apr 30, 2004, 1:54 PM
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In reply to: Does anyone perhaps know how wire-gate and standard-gate biners compare on open gate strength? Or is it an impossible comparison to generalise on? How could the type of gate make a difference when the gate is open? :?
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lambchop
May 3, 2004, 9:36 AM
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In reply to: How could the type of gate make a difference when the gate is open? :? Good point :D Make that closed gate rather...
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nagatana
May 3, 2004, 9:44 AM
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In reply to: Uh no, do you work for Petzl, the Nike of climbing? Any regular biner off the shelf will flap. When the first wiregates came out, a marketing ploy by the manufacturers was that a wire gate was not going to flutter... And Petzl offers so many wiregates for this matter....
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ambler
May 3, 2004, 6:32 PM
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In reply to: Allegedly, when the gate opens, the rope can slip out. It ain't "allegedly," it's for real.
In reply to: Uhm..no. When the gate flips open, it has nothing to do wiht the rope slipping out. It's about the open gate strength of the biner. If the gate comes open...it's not closed...the biner is usually 1/3 or so the closed gate strength. That's the advantage with wiregates when your dealing with gate flutter. If your regular biners flap open enough that your rope could slip out..good god :shock: Get new biners. That's silly. It can and does happen with top-quality biners. For two reasons (gate mass and the shape of the spring force/gate opening function), this is more likely to happen with solid gates than with wire gates.
In reply to: Ehhh, the fluttering ideology with it decreasing the major axis strength makes more sense to me. I think that the rope coming out in such a tiny spanse of time is less likely right? Not so unlikely that it hasn't happened, many times, on real climbs.
In reply to: The thought of a rope coming out of a biner due to gate slap is ridiculous. andypro is right; its got to do with closed vs open gate strength. What on earth makes you guys so sure that it's "ridiculous"? Take a hard look at this: http://www.rockclimbing.com/...n=Show&PhotoID=24372
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mr8615
May 3, 2004, 6:52 PM
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Ok, that picture is obviously result of crossloading the biner and has nothing to do with gate flutter. I'm not saying it couldn't happen but do a little looking around and have some common sense. If the rope is pulling down on the biner when the gate flutters (the pull of the rope causes the gate flutter) how could the rope 'bounce' out of the biner at the instant the gate opens? Gate flutter is a matter of biner strength (open vs. closed) and not a matter of the rope coming out of the biner. This has been discussed before, but I guess some people have really good imaginations.
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ambler
May 3, 2004, 7:21 PM
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In reply to: Ok, that picture is obviously result of crossloading the biner and has nothing to do with gate flutter. False. Crossloading can certainly break a carabiner, but this particular carabiner did not break. Instead, the gate ended up outside of the body of the carabiner with no damage to the nose or the pin because the gate fluttered open, the fall impact stretched the gate-open carabiner, then the gate sprang back and escaped the body (try this, you'll be surprised how far a gate-open carabiner can stretch even under body weight, much less a 3-meter fall). With the gate now outside the body the rope flipped out on the rebound. I mailed that biner back to the manufacturer, and their rep phoned me rather defensively a few weeks later. He explained that this is easy to do with fairly small forces on just about any carabiner.
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mr8615
May 3, 2004, 7:33 PM
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Wow :shock: thanks for the correction! I'm gonna have to explore this under safe conditions and see what happens.
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cracklover
May 6, 2004, 4:28 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: The main advantage of wires is that they do not flick open when jerked. As a test, whack the back of the biner on your palm and a wire gate won't open. Now do the same with a regular biner and you will see the gate open. Allegedly, when the gate opens, the rope can slip out. Uhm..no. When the gate flips open, it has nothing to do wiht the rope slipping out. It's about the open gate strength of the biner. If the gate comes open...it's not closed...the biner is usually 1/3 or so the closed gate strength. That's the advantage with wiregates when your dealing with gate flutter. If your regular biners flap open enough that your rope could slip out..good god :shock: Get new biners. As for having wires on both ends...it's fine. Anyone who says it ins't they're talking out of thier ass. solid gates blow (as far as I'm concerned anymore, anyways. I wont buy anyhitng but a wiregate if I can avoid it. Except for my Petzl Owals) Point is, when the gate is open, the biner will stretch under load. Whether it stretches to complete failure or the rope pops out in the Ambler scenario is simply two means to the same end: rope is not connected to protection. Only a locked biner on the rope end will guarantee (in as much as it's possible to guarantee anything) the gate won't open, but a wiregate will certainly reduce the chances significantly. To the OP - two issues with having wiregates on both ends - folks have already mentioned the chances of the wire getting hung up on the hanger. This is real, but perhaps not frequent enough to be a deciding point for most people. But the other issue I have is that it makes it harder to tell which side is the hanger end and which is the rope end. And I don't want the hanger end biner, with all the nicks it gets from being weighted against sharp hangers, to wind up on the rope end. My rope sheath doesn't need that kind of abuse, so I have solid gates on the hanger end of my draws. GO
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aikibujin
May 6, 2004, 5:20 PM
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In reply to: But the other issue I have is that it makes it harder to tell which side is the hanger end and which is the rope end. And I don't want the hanger end biner, with all the nicks it gets from being weighted against sharp hangers, to wind up on the rope end. My rope sheath doesn't need that kind of abuse, so I have solid gates on the hanger end of my draws. First of all, let me state that I'm a fairly new climber, have only been climbing on TR, haven't done any sport and haven't used quickdraws much. I was reading this thread with great interest since I have been looking to getting some quickdraws myself. When I read about the issue of not being able to tell which biner is the rope end and with biner is the hanger end, I can think of a fairly easy solution. If you rack your quickdraws so that you always clip the hanger end biners to your gear loop, then it's fairly simple to figure out which biner to clip into the hanger, because that's the one you uncip from the gear loop. And then when you clean the quickdraws off bolts, just unclip the biner from the hanger and clip the same biner onto your gear loop. It's a fairly natural process. Again, I have no experience using quickdraws, I'm here to learn. Did my theoretical solution make sense, or am I missing something?
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