PSA: Correct Gridlock Orientation

Espresso Note

Read Time - 2 minutes

April 2020

Captured HMS carabiners are pretty popular these days. They’re great for dedicated sport and trad climbing use. They’re less ideal for adventurous climbing or climbing in alpine terrain, where ideally you want as much versatility as possible in your gear. But, gear companies never intended them to be used in this terrain.

The most common model is the BD Gridlock, but DMM, CAMP, and Edelrid also make similar carabiners. If you’re belaying on a standard tube style belay device, then they’re pretty intuitive, you belay through the ‘big end’ of the major axis.

However, when using assisted-braking devices such as a Petzl GriGri, counter-intuitively, best practice is to belay through the ‘small end’ of the carabiner, like shown.

Why? Well these bulky devices can travel around the major axis and work their way down the spine of the carabiner with the action of belaying. And, the capture feature across the carabiner can act to hold the device here on the minor axis; creating the exact problem it was designed to solve. Cross loading significantly weakens your biner and should be avoided at all costs.

So, when belaying with an assisted-braking device, clip the device through the small end of the major axis to prevent this travel. 

Due to its design, this isn’t possible on Edelrid’s iteration of the captured HMS, the Edelrid Strike FG. As such, the Edelrid Strike FG cannot be recommended for use with an assisted-braking device.

The exception to this rule is the DMM Ceros, arguably the best designed dedicated belay crab on the market. It integrates the ‘horn’ feature on the spine, borrowed from the DMM Rhino, with the addition of a capture bar. The ‘horn’ prevents travel down the spine, and so assisted-braking devices can be safely used on the ‘big-end’ of the major axis.

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