Why Our Carabiners are the Best in the World
No other manufacturer offers all of these features
Highest Inward Gate/Sleeve Strength, approaching the minor axis strength!
Regular locking carabiners are not very strong against an inward force on the gate; the CE standard is only 1kN. This can be extremely important because under certain conditions a descender or other device, or a bolt hanger or other anchor, can lever against the gate and break the sleeve, causing disastrous results. This can occur under relatively low force or even under body weight (imagine how much leverage a long brake bar rack has if it's in a position to lever the gate open). It is surprising when these accidents occur, but they do happen and it is often the last surprise that the affected party ever has.
This is one of the reasons you must always be aware of how your equipment is positioned. It's also why you should consider using two biners or a captive eye carabiner.
Don't think that steel biners necessarily are better in this regard. Years ago a caver, concerned that his rack could break open a sleeve, switched to steel biners and asked us to test one for him. We looked at the thin, stainless (lower tensile strength than 7075 aluminum) screw sleeve and knew the results would be scary. Indeed, the sleeve broke at under 400 lbs. (1.6kN). The caver had been carrying all that steel around for nothing.
Weak sleeves are a necessary evil of the old conventional rivet and notch carabiner design, because the nose has to be very wide to be strong and therefore the inside of the sleeve has to be big, too, and that means the sleeve wall thickness is thin and weak. The original Keylock design still tended to use a wide frame nose to get the required closed gate strength and so the sleeves were still not very strong. On the carabiners we made for other companies, we were able to make some changes and improve the strength a lot, making them stronger than any similar biners.
For our own Rock Exotica carabiners, we were able to start with a fresh sheet of paper (or rather a fresh 2 Gigs of RAM) uncontaminated by old thinking and cost accountants telling us we had to lower costs. We designed a patent pending imrpovement to the Keylock that is stronger than a conventional Keylock. It allows the frame nose to be more compact, actually fitting entirely inside the gate. Then we make the sleeve (both screw and auto) inside diameter as small as possible which means the sleeve wall is very thick and incredibly strong. The inward sleeve strength approaches the minor axis strength and is actually about 10kN! (We rate it conservatively well under this.)
Locked and Unlocked Indicators
Extra features like machined radii
Built by the company with the most experience in lockers
Angled gate opening - Many of our carabiners have a slightly angled gate opening. This give a larger gate opening and is also more ergonomic because your fingers naturally want to go to the side raqther than straight back.It is natural and subtle; if you don't look at it you'll never notice it, you'll just notice the great feel and that it fits over things other biners in its class don't.
Stronger-Patented Keylock Design
Widest variety of lockers
Best Autolocks
Specialized Models available only from us (captive eye, swivels, etc.)
that is incredibly lightweight, compact and versatile. It is much lighter than its competition because it uses 7075 alloy, the same super-strong aerospace aluminum alloy that we use to make carabiners.
7075 costs much more than the more common 6061 that most rigplates are made of. But this allows us to make it nice and thin and save a lot of weight. Being thin also has the benefit of fitting carabiners and links better with less possibility of binding.
Holes are numbered with laser marking. See the DRAWING link to the left for all the dimensions.
Note: Avoid taking this in your carry-on luggage when flying. Security tends to think it is some sort of brass knuckles super-weapon.
In Use
Here the PentaPlate is shown with several typical aluminum "D" carabiners.
Also shown is our unique Rotator Swivel Shackle. This is a ball bearing swivel with one end that is comprised of a shackle. This can be directly attached for a semi-permanent installation, eliminating the connecting carabiner.
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