'biners and crossloading core shots

[korup]

Very interesting thread from Aussie-land regarding rope failure(s) from cross-loaded 'biners...

 

http://www.chockstone.org/Forum/Forum.as...mp;MsgPagePos=0

[Alpine_Tom]

That's pretty alarming. But looking at the diagrams, it's hard to envision getting a biner cross-loaded that way, unless the belayer is completely out to lunch.

[Geek_the_Greek]

Bah - those problems exist with most non-keylock biners and are nothing new. Put aside your panicking, and just try to avoid cross-loading the belay biner.

[korup]

What about top-roping situations? Clearly, any belayer with two brain cells to rub together would see a problem. What if the situation is out of sight?

[catbirdseat]

I have found that any carabiner with this nice, round shape will tend to rotate unless it is kept under tension. The round shape is what makes this 'biner so good for rappelling and for the Munter Hitch, but it also weakens it and makes it less stable. If you turn the 'biner so that the rope is passing over the small end, you will find it has much less tendency to rotate into a cross loaded orientation.

[Thinker]

It's not that uncommon for a big pear-shaped biner to get into this postion (or more likely rotated 180 degrees from what's shown in the photo) when belaying off a belay loop. All that up and down motion allows the biner to rotate, and I found that the knurled locking barrel often 'caught' on the belay loop, thus putting it in a postion to be crossloaded.

 

That's one reason I switched to using a small locker when I finally bought a harness with a belay loop.