Trango BallNutz

[catbirdseat]

I have the Black and Blue Aliens as well as a Camalot 0.2 and I want to add some BallNutz to round out my rack from thin cracks. Which sizes make the most sense for free climbing? Any advice on when and when not to use BallNutz vs. small cams or wired stoppers? Tricks on placing and removing, etc?

 

Ball Nutz Specs

[bigwalling]

1,2,3 will cover the thin stuff. 4 and 5 are big but still usefull. I think on the last climb me and a buddy did we placed every size. Or maybe not I can't remember. They are kinda weird to remove. I bet they fix easy. But just yank up on them and then pull the trigger. At least that worked for the ones that were kinda stuck for me.

[schnitzem]

took a good whipper because of a ball nut .....well probably because I suck at aiding....

 

They are kind-of-hard to look at when placing them high in questionable rock, but when you find a home for them they make you feel warm and fuzzy.

[tomtom]

Ballnutz 1 and 2 are only rated to 4.5 kN, so I don't know how far you would want to fall on them.

 

My trick to get them out is to tap on the base, not the ball, with the nut tool and hammer. Therefore I don't shove them all the way in placements. I've only aided on them, not fallen on them, though.

[willstrickland]

Ask Matt Anderson, he's a big fan of using 'em freeclimbing. I only own #1,2 and use them primarily for aid. They're bomber in hard rock, but more unpredictable in sandstone (never tried 'em in basalt).They can be hard to clean if you aid on them, and I think the larger sizes are in the same range as the WC zero cams and black alien/00 tcu. My biggest use for them is as a substitute for LA sized pins.

[abalch]

according to Trango's own website, only the #1 is rated at 4.5kN; size#2 and up are all 8 kN. If you can get a good placement, still better than a lot of the really small cams out there. (I believe the zeros are only rated about 2 kN.) Make sure you set them like they are a nut, though, so they don't move up and into the crack. Even though they are a hassle to get out when fallen on, I still would rather fall on a slider nut over a similar sized cam any day. Of course, the one time recently I have placed a small cam (00 metolius), and fell on it, it deformed and I took a ground fall as a result, so I don't trust my small cams lately.

[fern]

 

I have a #2 that I have used a few times free-climbing. There are plenty of LA sized scars on the Apron in Squamish, but I never used it anywhere else and now it sits at the bottom of my aid rack bin. I think if you don't already have them that getting some small HB brass offsets (#2-#5) would be a better value for your dollar.

[snoboy]

I love mine when I am playing the Aid game, I have found spots where I couldn't think of anything else that would work as well; a flaring roof crack that was super thin. The flare would have prevented a pin from seating properly, and it was too skinny for my littlest cams.

[Matt_Anderson]

I have the Black and Blue Aliens as well as a Camalot 0.2 and I want to add some BallNutz to round out my rack from thin cracks. Which sizes make the most sense for free climbing?

 

I use the 1, 2, & 3 ball nutz, a double set of aliens from blue on up and BD’s copper steel nuts (or whatever they are calling them these days). With that rack, there aren’t many thin crack crux’s I can’t safely protect. A lot of people are skittish about falling on ball nutz. I’ve done so multiple times, and I have yet to have one rip.

 

The 1, 2 & 3 have twice the expansion range of a comparably sized cam (if a comparably sized cam exists . . . Wild Country smalles tzero is about the size of a number 3 ball nut with 2.5 X less expansion range). I don't own the larger ones, probably just because I'm used to aliens in those sizes and shy from change. Also, I don’t see as much of an expansion advantage.

 

Any advice on when and when not to use BallNutz vs. small cams or wired stoppers?

 

The placement will likely determine which you use. Matter o’ fact, their primary advantage is that their best placements are often in areas of the crack that are unusable for your fingers, other cams or nuts: On thin cracks, your conventional cam and wire placements are generally in the pin scars that you would rather cram your piggies into. The ball nutz fit best in parallel seams smaller than your fingers. It was pretty amazing when I first started using them – there are huge number of thin crack cruxes with @.5 cm parallel crack sections right in the middle of the business that just eat up the ball nuts. I’d never noticed them before b/c none of the cams or wired nuts would fit in them.

 

Tricks on placing and removing, etc?

 

Placing them is pretty simple and intuitive. A bunch of people complain about removing them. I don’t have much trouble. I would echo Tom Tom’s comments: To remove, first try to slide them out using the trigger, if that doesn’t work, tap the metal block with your nut tool (Any thin nut tool is as thin as a ball nut, so I seldom have trouble with placing them to far if the crack is parallel.).