Journal

Thursday, February 11, 2010

QC Lab: Gear from Ukraine

I received an email a while ago from a gentleman who had some old gear laying around. He said it was from Ukraine, most with no manufacturers markings, ratings, etc—it had been sitting around for quite a while and he was never about to use it so asked if I would be interested in breaking it—just to see how strong it was. I thought, why not?

The Gear

There were some cams from the Ukraine, unknown cams, a handful of stoppers and a few carabiners.

Tests

We tested the gear in the tensile testing machine using the same fixtures we would when testing comparable BD gear. Cams were tested at 50% retracted; biners were tested in Closed Gate; Stoppers were tested in standard wedge jig. We also compared the results to similar size of BD product for relative comparative purposes.

Results

escription

Rating
(kg or kN)

Tested
Strength
(kN)

Failure Mode

BD Compare
Rating
(kN)

Cam—Large Ukraine

1800 kg

17.65

15.72

Cable Midspan
#1 Camalot
14

Cam—Small Ukraine
1800 kg
17.65
13.70
Axle Shear
#.5 Camalot
12

Cam—Titan
15 kN
15
11.07
Runner
#.75 Camalot
14
15.81

Runner
17.84

Ball Swage Failure

Cam – Small Unknown

NA

13.59
Axle Bend / Cam Shear
.4 Camalot
10

Biner – D

2200 kg
21.57
28.76
Nose Hook Failure
Light D
24

Biner – D

2200 kg
21.57
28.76
Nose Hook Failure
Light D
24
Chock—Silver Taper
NA
11.02
Swage Pullout
#9 Stopper
10
Chock—Pink Taper
NA
7.40
Swage Pullout
#9 Stopper
10
Chock—Large Curved
NA
8.76
Cable at Nut
#11 Stopper
10
Chock—Medium Curved
NA
9.61
Cable at Nut
#10 Stopper
10

Chock—Small Yellow
NA

3.79

Cable at Nut
#5 Stopper
6

Chock—Small Purple
NA

4.32

Cable at Nut
#4 Stopper
6

 

ukraineObservations & Comments

Cams

  • None of the cams met their rating. In two of the three cases, the failure mode was peculiar and undesirable (e.g., cable failure midspan, and axle shear).
  • The Titan cam runner broke below rating. We tested with another piece of tied cord, it broke there again. Then we tested without any webbing in the system and got the ball swage to fail at above the product rating.

These undesirable failure modes could be a result of age of the product, material selection, previous abuse, or a combination of all three.

Biners

The biners were burly strong—stronger than their rating, and exhibited typical failure modes for these types of biners.

Nuts

  • Nuts usually fail “Cable at Nut”. Two of the six failed by the cable pulling out of the swage—though one above a comparable sized BD Stopper’s rating and one significantly lower. This failure mode is probably the result of poor swaging. The medium and larger size nuts were slightly weaker than a comparable size BD Stopper.
  • The smaller nuts were significantly weaker that a comparable size BD stopper.

Bottom Line

Climbing is a serious game—buy your equipment from reputable manufacturers. Be careful of knock-offs and small-time garage-shop gear. I’m not saying that there can’t be good small-shop gear out there—but in most cases these companies don’t go through the certification processes and have the quality systems in place in order to ensure repeatable manufacturing processes and that the gear they are producing consistently meets its intended ratings. Thanks to Jim Thompson for sacrificing his old, unknown, questionable gear so we could maybe all learn something.

Be safe in the hills—KP

 

 

Photos

Recent Talk (1)

  • Tsvetik
    31 Jul 2012, 6:36AM

    The red biner is named "Ieremel" after the summit in Urals mountains.
    The other biner is named "Irbis" and is made from titan.

    These biners were very popular in ex-USSR, but are no more manufactured.

Talk!

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