Do aliens have less expansion range then a ballnut? The range of ballnuts is REALLY small in real world practice.

I'm still a fan of C3's. This is the route that only C3's work through the crux (which is 15ft long, my topo says black aliens and smaller, but I can only get three lobes of the black alien in- and its still crappy, whereas the C3 goes in like butter). http://www.summitpost.org/images/original/404797.JPG http://www.summitpost.org/images/original/383719.jpg For me I'm not running it that far out on 5.12d terrain (and I've taken the fall just fine.). Aliens that aren't defective are just fine (I'm picky on this since I've seen a braze fail and the guy smashed his brains), as are C3's. If a cam fails from anything outside of total cam failure, its most likely operator error and having NOTHING to do with the cam (including when the cams track through soft rock).

The images are of a guy I know doing a pick point on my gear, and two days later came back and got the second ascent of the route.

That's a proud looking line. Congrats.

The small ballnuts have 2:1 expansion range from bottom to top of the paddle. It is true that, when placing them, you feel like there is either one way they'll fit (with ball at bottom of the paddle) or none. But, if the flake they are behind expands a little, I suspect there is a greater chance the ballnut will stay in as opposed to, say, an alien. But this is just hypothesizing.

I agree about C3's; they are just a better mousetrap than other small cams.

Dude, you catch mice with your gear? And I thought it was only for climbing rocks!

A fundamental old-school tenet, now largely abandoned, is that all gear should be multipurpose.

And since even a mouse can break the brazed joint on an Alien if tempted by a sufficient quantity of cheese, well you can see that C3's are really the only alternative.

I find it curious that no one has mentioned Wild Country Zeros in this discussion thread. Has anyone used them it similar situations where Ballnutz, C3s or Aliens are placed? Why or why not? Their flexibility is supposed to be an advantage so as not to rotate out of small cracks. I have no experience with the Zeros.

Thanks

I used Zeros for a long time, starting with the Moritorium and Rostrum in Yosemite to elsewhere. They are just as good as any other piece of gear (ie: among Aliens, Metolius, BD). For me, I just found C3's faster to place (and narrower which in places have a distinct advantages), but Zero's are a decent piece of gear.

Chip, the line is pretty good, but if you are ever out my way, drop me a line if you want to check out this thingie: (best route I've been on yet; and is really not that well known) http://www.summitpost.org/images/original/463325.JPG

I wasn't talking about expansion range. I was talking about outward force on the rock relative to the downward force on the cam. I know a cam typically creates twice the outward force (am I right, RG?) I don't know how much outward force a Ballnut creates relative to the downward, but I suspect that, like a nut, it creates less. This is why they're so finicky to place, and require a good set. There just isn't an efficient transfer of outward force like the rotation around the axle gives you in a cam.



Possible, but I doubt it. Since the failure mechanism of the cam was that it expanded the flake and then just pulled right out, two cams would have put exactly as much force on the flake as one cam, just over a larger area. I don't think that distributing that force over a wider area would have made any difference in this case, as the expando flake was big.

GO

I bought some Zeros and used them for a while. I hated them, and wound up getting rid of them. The trigger action was poor, they were too wide, and the range was too small. This, relative to the Aliens I had on my rack at the time.

GO

By the way, I'm not suggesting that Ballnutz are some kind of be-all-end-all small gear. On this same climb, I tried for several minutes to get a #1 Ballnut to fit in a placement that was exactly the right size for it. I was at a big ledge, and had all the time in the world to fiddle it into exactly the perfect spot. However the rock was too soft, and the piece ripped out every single time I tried to set it. In a placement like that, the only good gear (that I'm aware of) would be a pin.

GO