Master Cam 0 - no texture on lobes?

I got a set of mastercams over the holiday weekend on sale. They showed up today from backcountrygear.com and look great, except the #0 has no texture on any of the lobes.

The lobes on the #0 look like a polished version of the top cam in this picture vs the bottom cam which all the other sizes look like and have the notches in the lobes. (picture is not of my cams, just from a google search)

supertopo.com/photos/0/97/1…

Is this normal or should it have some texture like my #4,#3,#2,#1,& #00.

The grooves do not give the cam holding power. Friction does. Deep grooves may help a cam "tune" to the rock, but are in fact not what makes a cam stick. Don't sweat it.

is it me or does it also look like an offset cam? The lobes on the right look smaller than the ones on the left. Could just be me.

Ice4life wrote:is it me or does it also look like an offset cam? The lobes on the right look smaller than the ones on the left. Could just be me.

So no groves on this #0 size is normal for newer ones then?

Here is a picture of the Master Cam I had questions about. The #0 is the 3rd from the left

I just bought a new Master Cam 0 and it has grooves (just a few). My two year old Master Cam 0 has a few grooves too.

I have read that grooves on cam lobes are not needed and are just for marketing.

that's an offset... are the sling and the thumb loop plastic different colors?

It could be an offset, but I just looked at a 00/0 and a 0/1 and they both have a few lobe grooves too.

Tony B wrote:The grooves do not give the cam holding power. Friction does. Deep grooves may help a cam "tune" to the rock, but are in fact not what makes a cam stick. Don't sweat it.

Grey is smaller than purple in the Mastercams though, I think it is odd that the smallest is grooved and the next size larger is not. I wish my rack was here so I could take a look at mine for you.

The link in the OP was to show what I meant, they are not my cams, and yes there was an offset there that had groves. The picture actually posted are my cams which show the lobes of the regular mastercams # 2,1,0,00. I am not debating about the utility of the groves, I just want to know if this one missed a step in production. I was hoping it would be a strait forward answer, but now I am just going to give Met a call this AM and figure it out. Thanks for the help though. I will post the answer when I hear.

DrApnea wrote:The link in the OP was to show what I meant, they are not my cams, and yes there was an offset there that had groves. The picture actually posted are my cams which show the lobes of the regular mastercams # 2,1,0,00. I am not debating about the utility of the groves, I just want to know if this one missed a step in production. I was hoping it would be a strait forward answer, but now I am just going to give Met a call this AM and figure it out. Thanks for the help though. I will post the answer when I hear.

Evan, are you thinking of this thread or another?

The groove in the #0 lined up with the cam-stop resulted in cam-stop failure, which resulted in an inability to place the cams since the springs are held in place by the cam-stops. Glad to see Metolius fixed the problem.

TomCaldwell wrote: For a long time, most cams were groove-less.

I just got off the phone with metolius and it appears the did remove texture grooves from the #0 & 00 cams because of the camstop issue mentioned above. They said warranty on cams is 1yr, however since they know about the issue, if a camstop breaks off, even if it has been over one year, then they would replace the cam as if it were still under warranty with one like my #0. The grooves are just for show, and not necessary. By removing them the camstop was stronger so they did this on the 0 & 00. He said it will not affect cam strength, only the camstop strength in case it gets weighted fully open, and to use the cam as is without worry. Besides these are not full strength camstops to be used as passive gear anyway.