Does a Mammut Smart Alpine belay device go well with a Black Diamond Gridlock carabiner? Any other recommendations?
Has anybody ever tried to use a cross-load protecting Black Diamond Gridlock carabiner with a Smart Alpine belay device?
I do think the Smart Alpine does not go very well with the CRAG Smart HMS carabiner from Mammut. The Smart Alpine belay device sometimes gets caught in a corner since it is pretty broad and rather chunky. In a hectic situation this may cause danger to the climber.
I never had this issue with a regular Smart or Smart 2.0 device, so this question specifically for the Smart Alpine variants.
Maybe someone has a perfect (cross load protecting) carbine match for the Smart Alpine suggestion?
Thank you very much in advance.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/22546. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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I have used the Mammut Smart Alpine with many biners, including the GridLock. My impression is that, while the Smart does have the tendency to get caught and stuck when the rope runs over the lock when using a common biner, it still gets caught with a cross-load protecting one (although it is less common). In my experience, what really helps avoiding the Smart getting stuck is to use the [cross-load protecting] biner with the lock oriented in the direction of the hand you're belaying with: That is, if I'm right handed and belaying with my right hand, I turn the lock to the right. Some orthodox climbers might say this increases the chance of the biner getting accidentally unlocked by the belaying hand, but I think this is generally a very unlikely situation.
With the biner facing the belaying hand, the little impulses that naturally happen while paying out rope cause the break to hit a section of the biner that has nothing where it could get stuck. This has been working for me.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/22556. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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