Budweiser

I don't think the weight of the climber or down force on the tool has anything to do with it. All mine broke while levering up one the tool to clean it. You could tell by looking at the break that it cracked at the bottom first and continued to the top. And all mine broke at the same spot as well, behind the 3rd or 4th tooth.

I went 5 seasons with the original picks on my Vipers, then towards the end of last season I broke 1 pick just starting out on WI4 lead so I just down climbed back to the belay. Since the picks were that old I didn't think anything of it and replaced both picks. 2 weeks later will in the middle of a WI4 lead on Polar Circus I break one of the new picks. I finished the lead but had to swing like hell to get good sticks, and my spare pick was 2 pitches below where we dropped our packs, so had to climb 2 more pitches with a broken pick. That was the last climb I did that season. Then the first day out this season at Bow falls I broke both picks in ONE pitch. For those of you keeping count thats 4 picks in 4 climbs, as I got 1 day in in between the first and second picks breaking. I am starting to think that this could get expensive, so I emailed BD and told them the story and to see if anything has been changed with the picks. They reply with a bunch of BS about functionality vs durability and that nothing has changed in the design or metal composition. I wonder if this has anything to do with some of their gear now being manufactured in china(not sure if their picks are or not). All these picks except for the first one were bought at the end of last season, I replaced the ones that broke this season with new ones bought this season and have climbed all year on them with no problems yet, which leads me to believe they had a bad batch of them out last year.

I have this same problem, doing laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming all seem to aggravate old climbing injuries.