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can someone please explain to me why clipping a draw to the racking BINER of a cam is a bad thing? i've had people tell me this before (of course i forgot it in the heat of the moment!) but i want to understand the WHY behind it.

When you clip 2 'biners together for lead pro, the odds of them coming unclipped in a fall are kinda high. Just take to biners, clip them together, then spin them around, and watch how easy they are to unclip. It can happen when you clip a hanger and the draw rotates as well, though that is much less likely to happen. "Metal on Metal" is not always bad, like some people seem to think, but biner on biner, for lead pro, is not a good idea.

now THAT makes sense.

Yep. Metal on metal can't be all bad, otherwise I'd have to get rid of all my nuts & hexes (they have metal cables).

yea, what wes said

Listen to Wes, he's smart.

The other reason I once heard (in addition to Wes') is that metal-on-metal can cause metal burrs or scratches on the biner. Then if you later use the burred biner on the rope you can start to cut into the rope. Supposedly, this isn't a problem with quickdraws used on bolt hangers because you are supposed to always use the same biner on the bolt and the other on the rope, so the burred metal-on-metal biner never touches rope.

Of course that logic falls apart for traddies, because most of us also use the same set of draws that we use on bolts to clip directly into the webbing on cams.

Canuck wrote:...

Of course that logic falls apart for traddies, because most of us also use the same set of draws that we use on bolts to clip directly into the webbing on cams.

But traddies dont fall, hence not resulting in burred biners.

Canuck wrote:Of course that logic falls apart for traddies, because most of us also use the same set of draws that we use on bolts to clip directly into the webbing on cams.

I have a totally different set of draws for trad climbing that are of various lengths. Some of these are super short, like half the length of a sport draw. Occassionally I will clip a second biner to a wired nut or stopper to lessen the chance of pulling the piece out from rope drag.

I've never heard of a gear failure clipping biner to biner, but I've never really seen anybody clipping biner to biner. I agree with Wes. J - you should really find a mentor before you get yourself seriously hurt.