Black Diamond Cams....meh

Dudemanguybro wrote: Because of the double axle design they are more likely to get hung up on shit while you are climbing.

Don't step on 'em then.

caughtinside wrote:My new chinalot is noticeably different than my older camalots.

how so?

caughtinside wrote:My new chinalot is noticeably different than my older camalots.

As in lighter with a better thumb loop? Yeah I thought so...

Scott McMahon wrote: BD's shipping charges are LAME!! It costs you almost 2x as much to have the trigger repair kit sent to you, than it costs to buy the kit!! WTF?? Drop it in an evelope!!

I assume they meant they'd fix the trigger, in my case. I hope so, I really don't trust the repair job I'd do ;). Yes, that is very lame. I am often impressed by the level of customer service climbing equipment companies offer. Not in the case.

so the first generation of BD C4s was Fabricated and assembled in the United States - The second wave was Fabricated here and assembled in China - Now everything is produced in China from what i have heard.

They still cost the same - but are produced for less cost and more profit.

Customer Service at BD is sometimes an Adventure. I have had excellent experiences, but I have heard bad things about the bibler line, Cam Repair and General warranty issues with their products.

Overall, I love my BD cams, but will eventually replace them with the Dragons (made in Wales)

Dudemanguybro wrote:Because of the double axle design they are more likely to get hung up on shit while you are climbing.

Quit climbing slabs with huge ledges on them and they won't have anything to get hung up on.

I have a set of C4's and C3's from when they were still made in the US, though the 0.5 has been replaced with the made in china version. No complaints yet.

In the #3 and 4 sizes I usually carry Wild Country tech friends instead, since they are lighter. Apparently WC is phasing these out and releasing an upgraded series they will call 'helium friends', with thumbloops and forged cam lobes. Can't wait.

The dragon cams look cool, but it will be a long time before my BD's wear out.

Tits McGee wrote: Customer Service at BD is sometimes an Adventure. I have had excellent experiences, but I have heard bad things about the bibler line, Cam Repair and General warranty issues with their products. Overall, I love my BD cams, but will eventually replace them with the Dragons (made in Wales)

Yeah, I'm not hung up on a particular cam brand, so if this proves too big an "adventure" I'll not throw any more $ their way either.

if you look at camalot prices from the late 80's and early 90's they were around 60 bucks then. considering that was 20 years ago, paying 65 bucks for them now probably isn't a monumental increase in cost.

i think your new vaginalot is pretty similar to your old vaginalot.

bd pole swallower, yeah something like that..... i use their cams quite a bit, also metolius (only up to orange tcu, the bigger ones kind of suck), WC (need a stack of the 1.5's and 2's for the desert as BD totally blows in this area, also #4's as the re-sizing totally fucked everything up on the bigger end), aliens (gasp).

i just think it is pretty silly when people bitch about things going chinese. what do we expect? that everybody is going to make a 100K a year as a janitor, but that we will be able to buy sweet new cars for 10K, and that we will be able to sell our old house for 1M, but buy a bigger better one for a 100K, etc....... just doesn't work that way.

slim wrote:bd pole swallower, yeah something like that..... i use their cams quite a bit, also metolius (only up to orange tcu, the bigger ones kind of suck),

I hear this a lot, but I never hear reasons... care to explain?

slim wrote:i just think it is pretty silly when people bitch about things going chinese. what do we expect? that everybody is going to make a 100K a year as a janitor, but that we will be able to buy sweet new cars for 10K, and that we will be able to sell our old house for 1M, but buy a bigger better one for a 100K, etc....... just doesn't work that way.

Not really sure what your point is here. Seems like if you want to keep people in the USA making their own cams, it's best to support said manufacturers. If you don't care, then don't support them. It's up to every person to decide what to do.

peter, i find the bigger metolius to be really clunky, and i hate the limited range. when i look at, say the light blue metolius hand sized piece, i expect it to fit pretty simlar sized cracks as a #2 camalot. this isn't the case, it's range on the low end sucks. sure, i guess i would get used to it if i were forced too, but, why not just use a camalot instead?

i agree with your point about it being the purchaser's choice. what i think is ridiculous is that people demonize companies for going overseas to reduce costs. at some point, you have to choose if you are going to pay a lot more (so that the janitor can make 100K), or if you want your hard earned dollars to go further. you can't expect to make huge wages AND pay for things ridiculously cheap. it just doesn't work out in the long run. everything will tend towards the middle ground.

i salute metolius for being able to stay local and provide a good product. i really do. but, i also don't hate the BD folks for trying to make a living also. in their case, they felt they needed to move operations to china. sometimes i wonder if this is a cost (to americans) of spreading democracy. we can't expect to encourage capitalism and democracy in developing countries without them realizing that they can do better financially, and how much cake is out there. not condemning, or condoning, just speculating from an analytical viewpoint. like i said, over time things will probably trend towards the middle ground and be more consistent on a worldwide basis.

caughtinside wrote:hah. I see what you did there. I like how we can't discuss BD cams without the BD pole swallowers getting all defensive.

Not sure if this was directed at me, because I work at BD and you think I am a BD pole swallower....I honestly just wanted to know what the difference was, in your opinion.

Bottom line...climb with what you like. None of these companies are gonna go under if you take your business elsewhere.

slim wrote:peter, i find the bigger metolius to be really clunky, and i hate the limited range.

Yeah, it definately is different having 2 cams that cover a certain range than 1... definately takes getting used to. Reminds me of when I had to learn sizing on BDs and thought that they sucked cause I couldn't pick the right size. :D

slim wrote:i salute metolius for being able to stay local and provide a good product. i really do. but, i also don't hate the BD folks for trying to make a living also. in their case, they felt they needed to move operations to china.

I hear you on this. I certainly don't hate BD for outsourcing. But it does make me not want to support them, knowing that they are outsourcing to increase their profit margin while a company like Metolius isn't, and they are doing fine with their profits while continuing to manufacture in the states. If BD wasn't getting a better profit margin, they wouldn't have Outsourced. I guess for me that is the deal breaker, but I realize other people will chose differently; you really need to like the gear you are climbing on to do well and feel confident, and if BD makes you feel more warm and fuzzy, I doubt the issue of where stuff is made is going to trump the confidence. Fortunately for me, Metolius makes me feel confident AND they are made in the states :D

one thing that i have noticed about the C4's in general is that the serration on the cam lobes definitely wears down a LOT quicker than on the older models. i suspect this is due to the milling depth of the serrations being quite a bit less than on the older cams - which is likely a function of the enlarged milling holes, which approach the edge of the cam lobe more aggressively. in other words, to keep enough meat at the contact area on the lobe, due to the larger weight-saving holes, they had to reduce the depth of the 'teeth' on the lobes.

(note when i say milling, it might be water-jetting, can't remember)

there are things i like and dislike about all of the major cams. when the .3 and .4 camalots came out i was like, wtf would i use those for instead of aliens/tcu's? now i have a pile of them and love them for desert cracks and slightly irregular fractures where they seem to sit better than the aliens/tcu's.

still don't think i could ever get used to those bigger metolius though... :)

you should have come up with something better than pole smoker though. maybe like axle smoker, as a bd fan would be smoking 2 at a time, or something along those lines. maybe tell that vaginalot fella to quit lubing his lobes so much.....

caughtinside wrote:hah. I see what you did there. I like how we can't discuss BD cams without the BD pole swallowers getting all defensive.

Word on the street is, Caughtinside is a Fusion man now.

i have a rack of camalot,some friendds forged and technical some tcus some master cams an aliean and some cheapo cams from the ukrane, i love having a bunch of different stuff my rack is not as userfriendly as some but once you figure out the slightly different sizes sometimes realy helps you out. I like the bd cams a lot but some times the frineds look better in a placement or the tcu and the cheapo cams i like the least but having an extra cam preventing 15 or 20 foot run outs is a good thing. Moral of the story cams are good, all cams

Friends, Aliens, Metolious, C4s...they are all the same to me...I always go with the philosophy that if a metolious fits the crack better than the C4, place it and vice versa. It really is all about where you climb and what you climb. My Master Offsets fit very well in many of the crazy weird NC cracks where as my C4s will fit nicely in other places. Here is a question for ya: If you were given new sets of all the companies cams, would or would you not take the free booty and use it? Like someone stated before, I never really found the Flex Cams to my liking but have a friend who loves them to death. It all comes down to two things: experience and places where tricams wont fit hahah. Yeah I love tricams to death. I would say though that the TCU in smaller sizes works wonders over the small C3s any day of the week and have yet to trust a 000 or 00 C3 placement.