My wife can whip slack out like a cowgirl doing rope tricks and has never given me a bad belay.

There is no question, though, that grigris have greater braking power than ATCs. ATCs allow rope to slip when the force exceeds approximately 500 lbf. That is a design feature to limit the impact force on anchors. In contrast, the grigri is designed not to allow rope to slip through, though it will, slightly, at a sufficiently high force. The numbers I've seen quoted vary from 900 to 1400 lbf, probably depending on the specifics of the experiment, such as the rope that was used.

I don't know where any tests have been done, but I have seen specific numbers quoted in papers and books for the braking forces of ATCs and Grigris. I doubt that those numbers were just made up.

There is no question, though, that grigris have greater braking power than ATCs. ATCs allow rope to slip when the force exceeds approximately 500 lbf. That is a design feature to limit the impact force on anchors. In contrast, the grigri is designed not to allow rope to slip through, though it will, slightly, at a sufficiently high force. The numbers I've seen quoted vary from 900 to 1400 lbf, probably depending on the specifics of the experiment, such as the rope that was used.

-Jay

Suppose you are using a gri-gri to belay a trad leader. And suppose that for whatever reason the top piece fails in a fall and you have an epic. Let's even say that its not the gri-gri's fault. How are you going to explain that using a piece of equipment against the manufacturer's express recommendations didn't cause the accident?

Now I have nothing against the gri-gri. I use them regularly for top roping. But to be stuck in a bad situation where you did something unorthodox? Nah.

Suppose you are using a gri-gri to belay a trad leader. And suppose that for whatever reason the top piece fails in a fall and you have an epic. Let's even say that its not the gri-gri's fault. How are you going to explain that using a piece of equipment against the manufacturer's express recommendations didn't cause the accident? Now I have nothing against the gri-gri. I use them regularly for top roping. But to be stuck in a bad situation where you did something unorthodox? Nah.

i feel comfortable (and i guess my friends do) with me belaying with an atc... but im not really comfortable with them belaying unless its a grigri...

I looked down to see my belayer, a PhD consultant, taking her brake hand off the rope to haul in some extra slack.

I have ever personally witnessed happened with an ATC. An experienced climber (and a very strong fire fighter) was belaying a 200+ pound beefcake when he popped suddenly and unexpectedly while she was feeding slack for a clip. Her brake hand was very near the ATC and given the surprise etc., by the time she got her hand clamped, the rope whipped through, burning her hand almost to the bone.

The MH is one of the most static belays available. This can be very
dangerous when you must rely on the dynamic belay. In trad and ice
climbing the MH can be very dangerous because it will increase the loads
felt by the top anchor.

Different post
(snip)
Here is another example of some "uncontrolled" testing I have been
involved with.

Last winter Craig Luebben and I conducted some drop tests on ice. Craig published an article in Climbing Mag on some of these results and results of his static tests. I have also written an article on static tests I have conducted in the lab (email me if anyone wants a copy). Anyway, we set up our tests under the bridge in Ouray. This was in pretty bad ice actually and for the most part the gear did not hold. Our setup was with a static belay, a new 10.5 mm BD rope, fall factors in the 1.5 to 1.8 range, and 185 pounds of steel. With this setup the only thing that actually held was a 10 cm screw. Everything else ripped out OR carabiners broke! I attribute this to the bad ice and that the 10 cm screw that held was probably in the only good ice we found.

We decided to conduct a series of tests where we used the same section of rope over again. The first three tests the gear ripped out. On the fourth drop we about keeled over in disbelief. We had a Snarg as the test piece connected to the rope with a draw with BD QS2 biners. A few feet below this was two equalized screws (BD and a Grivel). They were equalized with a single 24" sling and a locked Big Easy was connected to the rope. The biner on the snarg broke, the hanger on the Grivel screw sheared along its long bend, then the big easy locked biner broke! This is three pieces of hardware that broke on one fall. Now, I am assuming that these were not defective products (a solid assumption based on my knowledge of all the gear and the systems to produce it, and a review of the fracture surfaces of the parts we actually recovered). This means that the forces generated were well in excess of 5000 pounds (multiple times!). Now the tricky part. Conducting a static test on a new rope with the same diameter with the same type of knots caused the rope to break in the 3500 pound
range. I don't know why the gear broke and why the rope did not. There was about one hour between drops so the rope had some reasonable time to recover.

Now the good news. When we placed an ATC in the system (i.e. some dynamic aspects) every test we conducted held except for a couple of tests with Spectres.

What does this mean? Dynamic belays are your friend! Climbers have known this for about a century now. Many climbers today do not understand this very well. This is why I am relating these types of info to this news group. I am purposely trying to get this group to discuss this stuff in detail and learn something from it.
(snip)

The main reason not to use a gri gri for multi pitch trad is that it is way too heavy and bulky. The static factor is real to, and the evidence is good enough for me. (I will find some later)

As far as purposely letting the rope slip through an atc type device, I have never met anyone that actually tried to do this.

I have seen people do this with a gri gri by holding the cam open.

It is easy to recover with a gri gri, it is not that easy with an atc type device.

There is something about the very concept of a “dynamic” belay (or the active attempt to give one) that makes me more than a little squeamish.

First, the jumping thing. Do you REALLY mean for people to leave their feet and possibly lose control of their own safety (and thus, yours)?

I can see this in sport areas with nice, level ground below the climbs, but in a place where the belay stance consists of a 1 foot square ledge, boulder, etc, I’d like my belayer to stay upright and conscious.

I have used a method where I drop my hips as soon as my partner pops and then allow his/her weight to raise me back up, but I never leave my feet.

Now, active belays at the belay device: Shudder! Like what happened to the belayer in my previous post, I worry that if you let the rope slip through the device a “little” you are increasing the possibility of losing control of the rope all together. Once the rope slips in a high energy situation, it MUST be harder to stop than if you concentrated on not letting it slip in the first place. This would be especially true given the forces created by high fall factors.

OK, call me paranoid, but all I want my belayer and belay device to do is stop my a$$ from hitting the ground. All the rest is gravy. I’ll manage the gear placements and make sure, to the best of my ability, that they won’t blow (screamers, extensions, doubling up, GOOD PLACEMENTS). I’ll take responsibility for my flight plan, also. The last thing I want is my belayer trying, from the ground, to estimate if I’m going to hit a ledge or something and then slipping the rope to try to prevent it. Part of my job as leader is to know what is under me when I fall.

As for what anyone did when climbing with Gumbies before Gri Gris; that’s a moot point. Gri Gris are here.

Not true. You've met me. Though the master of this technique is Tom Lindner.

As I recall you were not using an atc when we were sport climbing.
Are you saying that you advocate that technique as a replacement for jumping? If I had known you did not like to jump I probably wouldn't let you belay me on a route I could fall on. I certainly wouldn't think you would try to use that technique in combination with jumping.
It is true that I have never known anyone that I have climbed with in many years that advocated that practice.(slipping an atc) Is Tom using that technique since he blew his hip out? If I want to give a dynamic catch I use a gri gri or atc and jump, and so does everyone else I know.


That's a really bad idea. It would be almost impossible to control the amount of friction using the handle in the event of a fall.

Some of the best climbers I know do that all the time doing hero jumps off the anchors with forty plus foot falls. They do not use the handle, they just depress the cam and it provides the softest catch possible with the least amount of swing. You would have to be able to jump twenty plus feet to match what they were doing. Something that is not usually practical

It's very easy to stop the rope with an ATC. You simply move your hand into the full braking position. Keep in mind that you have control at all times. You don't let the rope run at full speed. The device is always providing some friction; you decide how much by the angle between the two strands of rope. If you start with the two strands about 60 degrees apart and smoothly bring your hand down to your hip, you will let a couple of feet of rope through the device, gradually stopping the fall.

-Jay

Bottom line: A gri-gri is only 176 grams heavier than an ATC.