Quickdraw Advice

[SeanO]

I'm in the market to buy some quickdraws and I have a few questions.

 

• Do you use quickdraws when sport climbing, or just alpine draws?
  
• What is your favorite quickdraw and why?
  
• What length (or lengths) are good to buy, and how many of each?
  
• 
  

 

Thanks!

Edited March 26, 2012 by whitenoise

[genepires]

standard QD for sport climbing

I like flexible QD with rope end biner capture pieces to keep it oriented right.

But pretty much any commercially available QD is fine. ANd lengths are fine too. I wouldn't get too hung up on weather it is a 4" or 6" QD.

I like to have a couple QD with a locker on the rope end for the first couple bolts or before a runout section. But i am a scardy cat and maybe overly concerned about things like that.

I bring up a couple of the alpine draws for places where there might be rope drag with a normal sized draw.

Probably a bigger concern is what biners you put in draw.

[Coldfinger]

12cm is std. length, personally prefer dyneema in 10mm and 14mm widths, as they are more useful for trad, alpine and ice.

 

DEFINITELY get draws with rubber inserts to hold the biner; BD Dynex dogbones seem the best.

 

Don't feel like you have to buy quickdraw sets, you can mix & match biners

 

Keylock solid gate or snag free wiregate are the way to go. Hands down.

 

Camp Nano 23's are great for trad and alpine.

 

Anything DMM rules.

[RafalA]

First, what's your intended use? Sport, trad, alpine, ice? Do you have large hands that'll make small biners seem even smaller?

 

I have a set of 10 (or is it 12?) cheapo BD draws that I use exclusively for sport climbing. Clipping and falling on bolts is hard on biners, and for sport I don't care about weight. A mix of 12cm and 16cm lengths.

 

Otherwise, I have primarily WC Astro's for trad / alpine / screamer draws to use for trad, alpine and ice.

 

 

[SeanO]

Thanks for the responses everyone. A six pack of the BD Positron QDs are on sale right now at backcountrygear.com. Seems like a good deal... http://www.backcountrygear.com/sale/black-diamond-positron-quickpack-mocha.html

 

Rafal, the application at this point is just sport. I have average sized hands and I'm not that concerned about weight for sport bolt-clipping.

[boadman]

For sport, I'd go with the fatter slings, they're easier to grab when dogging and will last forever. I like the petzl spirits, or the bd live-wires:

 

http://www.backcountrygear.com/climbing/carabiners-quickdraws/quickdraws/black-diamond-livewire-quickdraw.html

 

No hook on the bolt side is super convenient for cleaning over-hanging sport lines, and wire-gates on the rope side is nice for clipping. I also like those two draws because the rope side biner is captured quite tight in the webbing, so it doesn't flop around.