Petzl ball lock, I hate them.

Cerealkiller

Treehouser
Joined
Nov 15, 2020
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Ohio
Hello all, this is my first thread started here but I recognize a lot of ya'll from treebuzz and some of ya from YouTube...

Recently in the other forum we're, as we do, discussing gear and I noticed a good number of people saying they preferred the petzl ball locks on their positioning lanyards so having never tried one I asked about it and eventually a member there PM'd me that he was gonna send me a few of them to try.
I received them last week, put them on my lanyard and I hate them, still haven't gotten used to the action, can't find the ball without looking, ect. In warm weather I climb bare hand, it was still warm last week and I thought I might of been starting to get it but the cold showed up yesterday and now after just day 2 of gloves I want to toss them down the sewer grate as we speed away from the jobsite!

Are these things really so special I should keep at it till the muscle memory comes? If I paid retail for them I would of already said F it but since they were given to me I feel like I should try a little longer. Will they eventually click for me? I feel now that unlike other carabiners they have an upside down (ball facing you vs ball facing away) and therefore there's a right and a wrong way to clip in. For being advertised as providing visual confirmation of locking it seems like a pretty big design oversight that the lock indicator / mechanism can be on the down side totally invisible to the user just because you clipped it from the left instead of from the right.

Anyway rant over. So whats the general consensus here? Stick with them or change back to what I know works?
 
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I like em ok, and don't find them too different from other double lock carabiners in real world use. Iirc they orient correctly if lanyard adjuster is on your right hip. It's been a while since I've used one for climbing.

Personally wouldn't buy them over a dmm or CT biner, except maybe to mix things up and keep me on my toes.
 
Hate them. Also had one fail to lock when pitchy. Own a few non ball lock petzl biners which are fine but prefer dmm or RE.
 
I started with them so I guess I have the muscle memory. Gloves or not, as soon as I reach them I know I will have to press. I like the Rock Exotica Pirate auto locking carabiners too. My climbing life got all messed up (for the better in retrospect) when I started using the lates Monkey Beaver speed line kit that has another type than the two I mentioned before.
 
Not familiar, but I just looked it up, and I don't think I'd like them. They look fiddly if wearing gloves, and I could totally see them getting stuck like Sven said. IMO, the specific biner doesn't matter as long as it's acceptable, and you like the way it works. I started with RE, and that's all I buy for lockers. They work well, and they work the same way. I don't have to think about what needs to happen when I grab it.

My new harness has a steel locker to attach the shoulder straps to the belt, and it works like "typical" biners where you push up to unlock. Backward from RE, and it causes me very minor issues. Not a big deal, but why hassle with any deal? I won't change it, but I'd prefer it used a RE biner. Find a good one(whatever one) and stick with it imo.
 
Never had the pleasure of playing with the ball locks since I heard so many negative things about them.
Rock Exotica Pirate and Pirate Orcas are tits. So are snaps like August put on his speedline kit.
I use the Eldelrid Triton Steel clips for my positioning lanyard. Basically a 11.7mm flip line. I like the steel better than the aluminum clips for that application. Easier to sling around larger stems due to weight.
Edelrid Triton.gif
 
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  • #8
All the rest of my biners are DMM PerfectO's and different CT's, all lift->twist->open, that's what's engrained on me so that's why I'm having the problems. Think I'll stick with it the rest of the week, I like the idea of having a different style of biner for my lanyard so why not see if I can get used to these.

I used snaps all my life but now that I can splice and like to play around with different rope and use a longer lanyard that sometimes doubles as a short climb system I switched to biners. Used to love my edelred DSG4000 on a lanyard, had enough weight it made throwing a breeze.
 
I like them for things I don't have to open often. Friction hitch end of a lanyard for example. But other than that I don't care for the small locking feature.
 
I got a couple years back...tried them...still don't like them. I relegated one to a throw ball (croquet wooden ball) I use in the tree. The other one is somewhere but I ain't trying hard to find it.
 
They are terrible IMO and experience.

Very fiddly and difficult to orientate them when your in a critical position. A lot safer options are available out there.

I have one connected to the chainsaw end of the lanyard. Only because it is bigger and easier to clip to the carry tool.

Also one of the main reasons for my dislike is we used them at college. Back in the days of Prussic loops. A kid on another course was climbing and suddenly hitting the floor from height and seriously injuring himself.

Health and Safety Executive (UK version of OSHA) got involved. The results of the investigation found the prussic loop if not captured at one end of the bina, can easily depress the green ball, get lodged in the thumb print indentation and then roll the gate open.
 
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They are terrible IMO and experience.

Very fiddly and difficult to orientate them when your in a critical position. A lot safer options are available out there.

I have one connected to the chainsaw end of the lanyard. Only because it is bigger and easier to clip to the carry tool.

Also one of the main reasons for my dislike is we used them at college. Back in the days of Prussia loops. A kid on another course was climbing and suddenly hitting the floor from height and seriously injuring himself.

Health and Safety Executive (UK version of OSHA) got involved. The results of the investigation found the prussic loop if not captured at one end of the bina, can easily depress the green ball, get lodged in the thumb print indentation and then roll the gate open.


Wow!
 
Sounds unbelievable Mick, but I have seen it happen. Thankfully I didn't see the kid fall but a demonstration afterwards.

My lecturer was the expert witness in the case and all climbing was stopped for 5 weeks whilst I was at college while the investigation was ongoing.

The thing is, the student had his NPTC's the following week and had ask asked a technical assistant for some extra tuition on a Saturday morning. He was one of the technical instructors. He was climbing with him and looked and checked the changeover to make sure it was safe. As the kid unclipped his first line, after having weighted the changeover line. The prussic slipped and did what I described in my last post.

Simon, the technical assistant said one minute the student was next to him in the tree, next he was falling and hit the deck.

It was also on one of the episode of 999 (IIRC) Remember the tv show in the UK? I think that was its name. The kid was rushed via air ambulance to one of the hospitals on the show.
 
When I was at merrist wood college a student (residential) went out climbing Saturday evening, on speed was the rumour, and took a tumble (1995) badly hurt.

Mind you in those days it was screw gate Karabiners.
 
I applied to Merrist Wood. There was something like a 1 year wait to get on the courses.

So I ended up at Capel Manor, Enfield and did the study in Upminster. It was a lot easier to get from Greenwich to Upminster than Enfield.
 
I grew up with removing pines and eucs.
my thought was and is:
the ball lock biners always seemed silly to me. -a little plastic ball toys r us type of biner is gonna be a true tool, Really? Not.
 
Another Merrist Wood alumni here...when I was first there in '87 an arb student fell when he flipped a sling over a rigging line and tried to slide down...burnt through the sling, broke his back. Then when I was back there in '05...just after I finished my Arb course a kid on the next course was climbing next to another, pulled on his ropejack for shits and giggles and the other kid went express elevator to the ground. Original kid got the boot from the course.
Prussics were the order of the day with the odd split tail available if you asked nicely...all triple lock biners, no balls.
 
I grew up with removing pines and eucs.
my thought was and is:
the ball lock biners always seemed silly to me. -a little plastic ball toys r us type of biner is gonna be a true tool, Really? Not.

I saw someone else with one last year and the gate was all metal. I got one on a lanyard adjuster that seldom comes off, it’s plastic shroud on the lock gate, around 20 years old, but yea at some point they changed them to aluminum or alloy.
 
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  • #24
Surprise update- on a whim last week before I posted this thread I was placing an order for some other stuff so I tossed one in my cart. I was given a William and a AM'd so I picked up another AM'd to have a matched pair. I've now received the brand new latest generation AM'd to evaluate and I gotta say it's much better. The pair I have are all metal, so apparently not the oldest ones but you can tell the new one is much more refined, thankfully it appears a thought was given to keep grime out of the ball (something overlooked on the old one, when the gates open the innards are wide open to fill with shit). I've got the brand new one on the working end of my lanyard and the older one on the adjuster end, gonna give this a fair shot before I delegate them to lenders or just straight give them to the guys.

Btw the William is way to large to use one handed so it's my new saw leash biner. Gate opens so wide it clips right over the rear handle on even my biggest saws.
 
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