It was a hard short fall in a strange placement. I don't see it as a manufacturing issue but maybe a design issue. I am sure they are aware of it if they see it as a flaw in the design. Would it be worth the effort to send it back?

No, but it is a design issue. The smaller C4s (0.5/0.75 and smaller) all have this weakness. Both of my 0.5s have slightly bent lobes/axles.

I think it's a placement issue, design issue, and manufacturing issue:

1. Awesome placement - sounds like you found a solid placement where few options existed, especially while low on gear

2. Great Design - Didn't need a "Gunks Tie-Off." (Maybe it's time to upgrade from my trusty Forged Friends)

3. Great Manufacturing - from the pictures, it looks like it held a tremendous amount of force

Nobody died. 5 Stars for everyone!

On a loosely related note, I wonder how a tricam would have worked in that placement? IIRC he said it was in a horizontal and it looks like it was levered out in the fall, which makes me think a tricam placed with the sling on top may have handled the forces better.

I fell on a brand new 0.5 C4 and had very similar results when they first came out. The fall was a swinging one, about 5'. Nothing serious, but the irregularites in the crack and the rotation of the cam's head caused an axle to bend and one (maybe two? It was years ago) of the lobes was locked in the closed position. It held my fall, and I finished the route by running it out over the same piece. What I learned wasn't that BD had a design flaw. I learned that to stay safe it is absolutely critical that you inspect gear you fell on before heading back up, and that even well designed gear can unfortunately be damaged in real world applications.

Josh

How is it a design issue!!!? People seem to be suggesting there are issues with the design yet they don't say what!?

Hey I fell on a new 0.4 C4 the other day it held but bent the axle and lobe....

It's a design issue in the sense the smaller cams cannot take the torquing force when placed in such way the cam is not free to rotate into the direction of the fall.

You can say it's not designed to handle such situation or what not, but these placements do come up now and then and some cams deal with it much better than others.

The issues I see:

1) head width: aliens have narrower head, and thus the axle does not take as much torquing force as an equivalent sized C4. Wider head also exacerbates the problem when placed in a shallow crack as it requires more depth to rotate/orient.

2) single vs dual axle, the latter has thinner axles, does not have the cam lobes completely wrapped around the axle, and is possibly more susceptible to axle bending/lobe warping

3) stem flexibility: stems on WC Zeros are flexible all the way to the axle (unique to all single stem cams in the smaller sizes), therefore having a much shorter lever to generate torquing force, the C4s, on the other hand, from size 1 (red) down, has stem that's rigid about 1 inch from the axle.

So call it design issue or weakness, fact is, there are other types of cams that could've handle the fall in the same placement better (at least in the sense of not rendering the cam inoperable).

Torquing forces along what axis? This cam was placed in a horizontal as I understand it. There is very little if any torque transfered to the head in horizontals.

Lets not compare C4 to FailCams.

A C4 0.4 is only rated for 10kN. Sure using a cam rated for 14kN might have meant no damaged cam but it is hardly a desing flaw.

What kind of noob falls on a .4 camalot? I don't think your a noob

Tweaked gear from user error/bad placement =/= design flaw.