Maybe start by pointing out the gate of the carabiner vs. the spine.

Maybe even more basic, a quick explanation of why carabiners are used in climbing.

For a true beginner faq, it would be good to have a section on how biner strength is rated. Explain what a kilonewton is, and talk about axis, open and crossload ratings.

Could be a good idea, but thats too basic for me.
spine and gate is logical. and everybody should know what a kilonewton is. thats secondary school.
but if you write something it could get added.

my idea was that this is aimed at these people who roughly know what a biner is, and what they need it for (like from gym class, or from boy scout climbing or whatever), but now that they actually plan on buying some they find out that there are many different types and dont know wich one is meant for what.

I understand your intent, although kilnewton wouldn't be secondary school stuff for a lot of Americans. Unfortunately we have a deep distrust of the metric system, and it doesn't help that it has French origins! :)

Huge effort.

The SUB is not the same as the Trango Superfly.

Check your spelling and usage (to vs too and here vs hear)

That's a lot of info to read. Make it searchable and/or hyperlink to the meat.

Huge effort.

The SUB is not the same as the Trango Superfly.

Check your spelling and usage (to vs too and here vs hear)

That's a lot of info to read. Make it searchable and/or hyperlink to the meat.

And fix the formatting; as is, it is very difficult to read. There should be exactly one blank line between paragraphs. After the first sentence within a paragraph, new sentences should not begin on a new line.

Could you please clarify that? i get the part with the varying blank lines, but not the last part.
Do you mean that i should have no line breaks i a paragraph? sounds like it would make reading more difficult.

Could you please clarify that? [I] get the part with the varying blank lines, but not the last part.
Do you mean that i should have no line breaks i a paragraph? [S]ounds like it would make reading more difficult.

Could you please clarify that? [I] get the part with the varying blank lines, but not the last part. Do you mean that i should have no line breaks i a paragraph? [S]ounds like it would make reading more difficult.

That is correct. There should be no line breaks within a paragraph. I can assure you beyond doubt that putting line breaks between sentences makes the paragraph more difficult to read. That is why that is never done in typesetting.

As originally written, the following paragraph is incorrectly formatted:


The following is correct:


New sentences should not be started on new lines, unless the new sentence starts a new paragraph, in which case the paragraphs should be separated by one blank line.

Jay

So any opinion on this part?
I am not too happy about it, since it mostly is opinion, and not directly facts. But i think it is still the only thing one can say when it comes to price levels, since it boils down to "not rated and too cheap-bad; lots of ok mid priced stuff; inovative stuff expensive but very nice in all aspects"

qwert

I am trying to give a short overview about why these prices differ so much, and if (or how) it should affect your buying decisions.

I just checked some big retailers, and you get a lot of carabiners at around 7$, but on the other hand you also can easily find a lot of biners at over 12$. Same (or even more so) with quickdraws. You can get one at 10$, or you can shell out 25$.
The good (and maybe confusing) thing is: They are all fine. They will work as they should, and keep you safe.

Cost of Carabiners

The cost of climbing carabiners usually ranges from $6-$15. While they all have the same basic functionality, there is also significant variation in their specific functions. Similarly, quickdraws may vary from $10-$25, but have different feature sets which may be more desirable.

very enthusiastic review about it, but given the fact that it is a quite expensive and specialized piece of gear, it is not something one must get as a beginner.
Stubai locker: Unusual shape for its age, and a plastic sleve as locking mechanism. Having only a little piece of plastic preventing your locker from opening isnt as confidence inspiring as a big piece of aluminium on conventional lockers.
Salewa ???: big plastic grips that are supposedly making clipping easier. the silver part at the draw side gets levered upwards when weighted, making it impossible for the gate to get opened. Heavy as hell, and way to expensive.

Some of the strange or special biners have their niches, but for a beginner normal biners should do it.

shoo, your article is quite cool, mind if i link to it in the first post?

And the salewa carabiner is not a via ferrata biner, it is indeed meant to be used as a "normal" carabiner. Still a weird thing.

More sub headings are probably a good idea. Could it also work to simply make the key words bold?
qwert

The Gear-Heads biner and quickdraw FAQ

What is this FAQ for?

This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is trying to answer some of the recurring questions about carabiners and quickdraws. Today we climbers are in the lucky situation to be able to choose between various biners. there are dozends of manufacturers out there, each again with a handfull of different biners. Not only do they come in different colors, they also come in various sizes and forms. This FAQ should be a help in finding out which type of biner is used for what purpose, and the what pros and cons of the various biner types are. With this you should be able to find out which biner you should get. I will often make mention of biners by name and by brand, and if i say "the Wild Country Helium is one of the best all purpose biners out there" you can shurely take this as a suggestion, but the goal of this FAQ is not to come to the conclusion "get biner XX by brand YY, because it is the best biner for everything of all time ...", since a lot of this is about personal preference. As mentioned, the goal is to give an overview about what is available, and what does what.

disclaimer

Climbing is dangerous!!
Im trying to give the best advice i can, but i could be wrong. And even if all i tell you is right, you could still die climbing. All this climbing is dangerous stuff that comes with your gear is there for a reason. Take this advices seriously! You should not take this FAQ as your only source. the internet is a great thing, and you can get a lot of valuable information, but it is no replacement for proper training and a good book. If youre new to climbing, take a course first, read on the subject, find someone experienced to go out with and so on. Whatever you are doing, use your brain, be carefull and double check everything thats important.

Im not responsible for your actions. If you fuck it up, youre on your own!!

With that out of the way, here is a list about what im trying to answer in this FAQ:

• What types of biners are there, what are they used for and which ones should i get?

• What types of quickdraws are there, what are they used for and which ones should i get?

• What is the difference between cheap and expensive stuff?

• Can biners still break?

• What types of biners are there, what are they used for and which ones should i get?

There are many different types of biners out there.

First thing to distinguish them is the material they are made of. There is aluminium and steel. Steel is stronger than aluminium, but its way heavier, so it doesnt get used much in climbing. Steel biners are mostly used in rescue work or in industrial purposes (and recently in slacklining). Sometimes it gets used in climbing, for example if one is climbing on very abrasive rock like sandstone, where the rope will take up small particles, abrading the belay biner very fast. In such a situation it also could make sense to use steel biners for your toprope powerpoint. If you decide to get steel biners, get some from respected manufacturers. Dont go to the nearest home depot and get the cheap things they have. these arent ment for climbing use!

Aluminium (or better, the various aluminium alloys) is the standart material used for climbing biners. its light, and albeit weaker than steel still strong enough for biners. When looking at the different aluminium biners, the first thing you will notice is the different colors. if the biner is silver, its the color of the aluminium. if it isnt silver, it is anodized. The anodizing creates a layer that will protect the biner from corrosion, but since aluminium isnt corroding much, it doesnt matter if a biner is anodized or not. it can be usefull if you are using a color coding system on your rack, or to make them easier to spot, but mostly its about being pretty.

The next thing is whether a biner is a locking biner or a non locking biner.

Locking biners have, you might have already guessed it, some kind of locking mechanism, that prevent their gate from opening unintentionally.


From left to right: Oval locker, D-shaped locker, asymetric D-shaped locker and pear shaped locker (Munter hitch locker or HMS locker). Ovals are a old form, and dont get used much anymore, just as D-shaped biners. Some manufacturers still make them, and they do still have their place, but stuff like biner brakes and advanced rigging is beyond this FAQ. If you already have some, you can of course use them (as long as they are still working, and are not too old). they arent unsafe, its just that asymetric D-shaped lockers are better in most situations (and being newer, they are also often lighter than old biners of the same strength). As mentioned, asymetric D-shaped lockers are whats is used for most purposes nowadays. They do come in many different forms, just as their non locking counterparts (look there for further information on the different shapes). Pear shaped lockers are mostly used for belaying and rappeling, either combined with a designated belay/ rappel device (stuff like the ATC, the reverso, and other tubes, or figure eights) or alone with a munter hitch. They are also nice as a big powerpoint locker in which you can clip a lot of other stuff due to its size. The biners pictured are all screw gate lockers. there are various other locking mechanisms, but since i like screw gates best, i dont have any other types. could someone add something on the different mechanisms?

Links:
Article about which lockers to chose, by british alpinist Andy Kirkpatrick. More aimed at experienced and alpine climbers, but nevertheless some good "all purpose" informations.
Another article by the same guy as above, this time about the number of lockers needed. Again, it is a bit to specialized, but does offer some valuable information.

non locking biners: these dont have a locking mechanism. Non locking biners are the bread and butter of any rack. They get used for quickdraws, for racking nuts and cams, and for dozends of other purposes. They are available in many different forms, almost all of them being a variation of the asymetric D-shape. Oval and D-shaped ones do also exist, but the stuff said about them at locker does apply here too. Additionally due to their form Oval non lockers have a very low open gate strength, wich is something that should be avoided (see: can biners still break?) Apart from the obvious things like shape and color, the most differences are in open gate strength, weight and price, as well as size. At the moment ultralight biners seem to be all the rage, and it defintely is a nice thing to have to carry less, but the disadvantages of this are a higher price, and often reduced size and strength. Here is a short overview about some of the biners i have, with weight in gramms, open gate strength and price level.
The petzl spirit is considered somewhat of a benchmark, so it is also pictured with the small biners, to have something to compare them too (apart from the scale).

Bigger biners, from left to right:
Petzl spirit: 9,5kN, 48g, expensive.
Kong ???: 7kN, 49g cheap.
Wild country Helium:10kN, 34g, expensive
Salewa SUB (most likely the same as the Trango superfly): 9kN, 34g, medium


Smaller biners, from left to right:
Petzl spirit, shown again for size.
Kong Helium: 7kN, 36g, medium
Black Diamond Neutrino: 8kN, 34g, medium
Black Diamond Oz: 8kN, 28g, expensive
Camp Nano (old model): 9kN, 28g, expensive

So which biners and how many should i get?

Which ones you should get depends. apart from open gate strength (see can biners still break), its a matter of what suits you best. Some people dont like small biners, some dont like wiregates, some want keylocks and so on. Number wise you wont need many non locking biners, since non locking ones are mostly used in quickdraws. Two or three free ones should do it, to clip some random stuff, or for slings.
Lockers are needed for the belay device and for securing yourself to the belay, so that makes at least two, one of them being a big pear shaped one. Having some spare lockers is always nice, but if you are carrying so many that you are getting weighted down by them, you are doing something wrong.

As on which biners to get my suggestion would be to get a big biner, with keylock, high open gate strength, that is light and has a good price. However such a biner doesnt exist. As you can see in the list, you cant have everything. you can have a big and light and strong biner, but you cant have that for cheap. You can have the lightest biner that there is at the moment, but you cant have that biner being big and strong (with the new camp nano being even smaller). there are also many different big, strong and cheap biners, but they arent light.
You have to ask your self whats the most important for you: are you doing trad or alpine stuff with big racks and long routes? you might want to have a look at the weight and if you can use them with gloves. Are you doing sport climbing with preclipped draws? wheight isnt an issue here, so get strong and easy to clip biners. and so on ...

If you want specific information on a specific biner, you should look into the gear section of this site. There you can find ratings and reviews about specific biners. Also you can search the forums for it. typing "manufaturer name biner name" into the search box, will often turn up with discussions that contain info about that biner. Another possibility would be to click on one of the big ads on this site, by the likes like rei, backcountrygear and whatever. most of these big retailers have also the option that their customers rate and comment the stuff they buy there. And last but not least the manufacturers themself do often some good information about the stuff they sell, including intended use, and at which kind of climbers the respective product is aimed.

Another thing that exists in different variations are the gates and the noses of the biners.


clockwise from the top:
Salewa SUB: strange outward bent wiregate, non hooded nose
Faders ???: bent solid gate
Lucky Metor: another bent solid gate
Kong ???: Bent solid keylock gate
Austrialpin easy magic: mildy bent solid gate, keylock variant
Stubai supreme rope: bent wiregate, hooded nose
Salewa SUB: straight solid gate
Stubai supreme top: straight wiregate, hooded nose
Black diamond Oz: straight wiregate, mildly hooded nose
Petzl Spirit: straight solid gate, keylock
Kong Helium: straight solid gate, keylock


left, from top:
Faders ???: Non keylock
Kong ???: Keylock
Black Diamond Neutrino: Hooded Nose
right, from top:
Austrialpin Easy Spezial: old school claw type nose
Salwa SUB: non hooded nose
Wild country Helium: Wirelock/ wiregate Keylock nose
Black Diamond Oz: Mildly hooded nose

As you can see, there are many variants. Solid gates are the "traditional way" biners are made. A variation of this is the keylock.
Keylock noses have the advantage that they wont get easily caught at stuff (be it bolt hangers or slings), so it makes the carabiners easier to use. The bent gate variation is meant for the rope end of the quickdraw, since it makes clipping a bit easier. As you can see some of the gate have notches or grooves on them. this is meant to make them easier to operate. again it is a matter of personal taste if you need such notches, and if yes, which manufacturer suits you best.

Wiregates are are "new" invention. Its biggest advantages are reduced weight, and added safety against open gate loading (see can biners still break). The disadvantage was that they couldnt be made in a keylock variant, but this has been solved, with biner like the Wild Country Helium or the DMM Shield. Wiregates also Exist in a bent shape, but most manufacturers just use straight gates, since wiregates are mostly easy to clip, thanks to the protruded nose (wich is not found on straight solid gates). Some wiregates have a hooded nose, helping to protect the biner from getting opened by getting rubbed accross the rock.

Here is an article about wiregates by british alpinist Andy Kirkpatrick about wiregates. As you will see from the statements in it, it is a bit older. but that gives an interesting overview about how wiregates at first where only slowly accepted by the climbing community.

And apart from all the above described standard forms of biners there is also a big number of strange, or non standart biners. The most well known one is shurely the wiregate, which was deemed a stupid or at least very strange idea by many, but its advantages helped it to become a accepted type very quickly (see link above). Many others wherent so lucky, so there is a number of discontinued or niche products out there. Maybe some will catch on, but a lot wont.


Heres a small sample, from left to right:
DMM Revolver: Biner with built in pulley. Usefull on meandering pitches to reduce rope drag. But heavy and expensive, and can only be used on the rope side of a draw (not very multi purpose). The british site planetfear.com has a very enthusiastic review about it, but given the fact that it is a quite expensive and specialized piece of gear, it is not something one must get as a beginner.
Stubai locker: Unusual shape for its age, and a plastic sleve as locking mechanism. Having only a little piece of plastic preventing your locker from opening isnt as confidence inspiring as a big piece of aluminium on conventional lockers.
Salewa ???: big plastic grips that are supposedly making clipping easier. the silver part at the draw side gets levered upwards when weighted, making it impossible for the gate to get opened. Heavy as hell, and way to expensive.

Some of the strange or special biners have their niches, but for a beginner normal biners should do it.