for quite a long time, i was stuck to the common continental-european belief that hexes are obsolete as we now have cams. for some reason i do not know, i decided to buy a set of these (i already had the number 7, but rarely used it) last year. since then, they have become - apart from wires - my most-used piece of gear. in fact they have almost entirely replaced my cams on limestone climbs, as there are always bomber placements for hexes, whereas cams often seem to be much less than perfect. though i really like them, they only get a 4 from me. that has two reasons: 1. the anodizing is ugly. 2. they should make two bigger sizes. there are so much routes in the alps, where a # 11 rockcentric could separate you from nirvana in case of a fall. sure you can use bd's or camp's # 11. but these pieces are much lighter and above all much more stable due to their curve design. maybe one should tell wc.

it's all in the curve! straight-sided hexes often give only funky placements with very little metal to rock contact, but these hexes behave much more like nuts, and it much easier to get solid placements. the dyneema sling can make them a little harder to place than wired hexes, but the floppiness is much better after the placement is made, less likelihood of getting wiggled out from rope drag, and that is much more important to me than ease of overhead placements. these are a critical part of my rack, i never climb without them

The shape of the Rockcentrics is primo, the best of any hex-shaped chock. But the floppy webbing makes these fiddly to place at times, especially when a wired hex (or one strung with stiffer cord) would allow a quick overhead placement. I've been testing one Rockcentric for a while now, but this past week I got sick of messing with it. I'm going back to my BD Wired Hexcentric for that size.

Personally my favorite peice of protection. Easy to place in both vertical and horizontal cracks. Very very flexible on the dyneema in corner roof cracks that aren't that deep. They won't torque and or walk out like a more rigid u frame cam or even a flexible cam would with some rope bounce on it. If you have a shallow crack these are the nicest things I think you could place. In soo many ways better than using cams.

pure and simple, easy to use