Eh? The Black Diamond autolocking carabiners I use on my climbing rigs are
rated at 25 KN (Kilonewtons) breaking strength. The ratings are stamped on
the caribiner, so it's easy to check. One KN = 224.8 pounds. Let's see,
that's a breaking strength of about 5,620 lb., which is 620 lb more than the
rating on the strap attached to my previously used gorilla hooks.
Theoretically, the gorilla hook strap would fail before the carabiner. Once
I realized that, I quit using the huge and heavy steel gorilla hooks, and
went exclusively to the large size high-tech aluminum autolocking
carabiners, which are easy to use, pretty much foolproof, and weigh an ounce
or two each, as opposed to about 2 pounds for the gorilla hooks. Check them
out for yourself, at any rock climbing or mountain climbing outfitter shop.
In addition, many older gorilla hooks have no protection against
accidentally coming open, because their spring gate is not automatically
locked on release, as is required by OSHA for newer models. I'm not a
professional tower climber either, but I certainly do highly value my
wrinkley old cheeks when I'm up there. One advantage the gorilla hooks do
have because of their larger size is they can clip on to a much larger
support, but that is a non-issue on the type of towers I climb.
73, Jerry W5KP
> In addition, most
> caribiners should not be used to clip yourself into a steel tower member
> and they have very limited weight ratings. I only use caribiners for
> attaching things like work buckets and ropes, etc. to the tower.
>
> Of course I"m certainly not a professional tower climber, so maybe some
> that are will have other ideas.
>
> 73, Ty K3MM
>
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