Carabiners

Carabiners are metal connectors generally made of aluminium, with a spring-loaded gate that connect your rope to your protection. The term carabiner comes from the German Karabinerhaken. They are also known as karabiners, krabs, biners or snap-links.

Different climbing situations require different types of carabiners, so get informed to make sure you get the right tools for the job. This is a basic guide:

• Belaying and Rappelling: pear-shaped locking HMS carabiners
• Trad-climbing: lightweight wiregate quickdraws
• Sport-climbing: robust quickdraws with good handling
• Racking gear: most types are fine

Big pear-shaped belay biners, or HMS biners, are thicker carabiners with a locking gate and large basket end to take an Italian hitch knot. They are probably the most important part of your safety set-up. We always use HMS biners for belaying, top roping, abseiling and as the central point at belay anchors.

Smaller locking carabiners are used for placements to provide extra safety where you wouldn’t want the gate opening, to help build anchors, or to connect yourself into an anchor.

Locking carabiners have different locking mechanisms, but fall into two main groups:

• manual locking (screwgates)
• auto-locking (twist-lock, tri-lock etc.)

Quickdraws – or draws – mostly use non-locking carabiners. They have straight gates and bent gates or wire gates. The straight gate is generally used on the side where you might clip a bolt. The bent gate or a wire gate is generally used on the side that you clip the rope.

Hooked nose: The most common design, always check that the gate is closed, and the carabiner is hanging correctly.
Keylock or ‘clean nose’: Designed to prevent the carabiner from snagging on bolt hangers, harness loops etc.

Solid gates: Your burly workhorses for regular climbing and sport routes.
Wire gates: Typically lighter and thinner. They reduce whiplash and are less likely to freeze. Ideal for trad, alpine and ice climbing.

Solid, burly sport carabiners can take more punishment, while lighter wiregate carabiners won’t be able to withstand the same amount of abuse.

To get started you just need one big, screwgate biner for your belay device. Over time, you will probably want to build up your climbing rack to include a number of carabiners and quickdraws. How many you need will depend on what climbing you want to do. Most climbing walls require up to ten quickdraws. Ask the staff at your gym.

There are many different shapes of carabiner, but there are three main shapes:
D-shaped, large pear-shaped belay (HMS) biners and oval-shaped biners.
Asymmetric D-shaped biners are mainly used in quickdraws.

Climbing carabiners have to meet rigorous EN standards and are classed as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) against falling. This means they meet minimum strength requirements. They are certified to have a minimum closed gate strength of 20kN. This makes them strong enough to withstand about 2,000 kg or two tons in weight, i.e. enough to hold a white rhino.

Most carabiners are made of aluminium alloy. In theory, metal parts have an unlimited lifespan. However, in practice, material wear can become a factor since bolt hangers or rock are harder than aluminium. Prolonged use where the rope runs may also cause gouging on the inner surface of the carabiner, creating burrs and marks that could in turn damage the sheath of your rope. Larger diameter carabiners usually last longer as they have a larger rope-bearing surface. We recommend that you inspect your carabiners on a regular basis.

For more information about carabiners, draws and slings, see this article.