And that’s particularly important if you’re 200 feet up an ice fall trying to hook a biner into a screwhead with hands that are numb because you’ve been extending them up over your head for an hour. From a practical standpoint the larger the carabiner the easier it is to manipulate. This is especially true now that the market it being flooded with lots of quasi-carabiners designed to hold keys and potted plants instead of falling climbers. Size - Carabiners come in all different sizes. Saving a few dollars with this type of product isn’t such a deal if the biner snaps on you or the gate fails when you need it most. And, although we love a good value, price was the least of our concerns here. We also took perhaps a longer look than we normally do at customer reviews to ensure we weren’t missing anything. With climbing carabiners it’s all about performance. This is not the kind of product where branding is going to carry a lot of weight. Nonetheless a climbing carabiner is a device that could make the difference between life and death and so just to be sure we were on top of things we reached out to others in the climbing community to get their input. Many of us are outdoor types with copious rock and ice climbing experience.
Carabiner Buying Guide & FAQ How We Chose Our Selection Of Carabiners