Camp Photon Wire Gates, anyone have any experience with them?

I did a search, found some info on the photon draws, but not much on the photon wiregate biners other than a few short comments.

Can anyone make any comments on them?

I played with a Photon bent and straight wires, gate action seemed a little weak, has this been a problem for anyone?

Also, doesn anyone know the rope bearing radius on these?

Love em. Super light and super easy to clip. Nice action on the gates. I like the size of the biner because it's a full size biner that is nice to hold yet still super light.

I've got my Photon Wires paired with Photon straight gate biners on draws but I haven't noticed anything bad about the gate action like you mentioned.

I have them and like them, got em while they were on sale a few months back. Would buy again.

I like them. Just make sure they are not the ones that were recalled about a year (?) ago:

camp-usa.com/product-highli…

had one that i returned because the gate stuck in the open position. Even so, I just replaced it with another and plan to buy several more to change out the biners on my cams this spring. They are the bees knees. super light and full sized. I like them much better than the Neutrinos, only wish they came in colors.

have a dozen Photon qd's, 10 of then have bent-wire rope ends and they are awesome. highly recommend them.

harpo-the-climber wrote:I did a search, found some info on the photon draws, but not much on the photon wiregate biners other than a few short comments. Can anyone make any comments on them? I played with a Photon bent and straight wires, gate action seemed a little weak, has this been a problem for anyone? Also, doesn anyone know the rope bearing radius on these?

They are fairly nice biners - light, strong, and priced fair. Gate action is inconsistent - some are stiffer, some weaker. This is due to the low level QC that CAMP has on their products.

IMHO, give your money to a company that turns out consistent high quality products and doesn't have everything made in China. Quality control on CAMP biners is disappointing to say the least.

DMM makes fantastic biners, although more expensive.
The Wild Country Nitro (full size) and Astro (smaller) are very comparable to the Photon - but built with more thought behind the design and higher quality standards.

I have seen WC Nitros on sale for ~$5/biner in quickdraw packs many times.

They are great! Its as though they have their own little gravitational field. Essentially making the rope feel like it gets sucked into the carabiner.

I support "The gate is too damn soft party!"
I recently bought 5 double length draws with Photon biners. I was psyched on the lightness for alpine climbing but then an interesting thing happened while climbing in Red Rocks.
While on lead, another party was throwing their rope to rappel from the belay station above. Their rope tagged one of my placed pieces(with photon draw) and knocked out my lead rope out of the carabiner and clipped their rope. I know- what are the chances???

You can pick up the wiregate photon draws at moosejaw right now for ~12.xx/draw if you buy at least 3 b/c of the sale and coupon going on (buy more than one sale item, use code "jackson" for more savings - details on their front page too).

moosejaw.com/moosejaw/shop/…

Biners themselves sold out a few days ago.

Matt, do you remember how much te Photon wires were going for when they were available?

harpo-the-climber wrote:Matt, do you remember how much te Photon wires were going for when they were available?

They were on sale for $7.16.

Killis Howard wrote:Yeah, the Nitros are the shit. Funny, I checked out the Photons recently, and did notice there's a lot of spread on how stiff the clip is from one biner to the next. Still like superflies the best, but if you get em on sale, might not be a bad way to go.

If you look at a large batch of the Photons, and pay close attention to where they drilled the 2 holes in the body of the biners for the wiregate, you will see that there is no consistency. Some are [anywhere between] 0.01 - 2mm to the left/right/up/wherever they felt like drilling the hole on the next biner.
This is what makes some stiff, some weak, some get stiff if retracted past half way, etc...

Also, where they put the 90 degree bends in the bottom of the wiregates, some are greater than 90*, some are less than 90*, some are just perfect.

I sold my photon wires b/c of lack of confidence in the gate action - way too soft feeling and one might stick open (clean/new and used maybe twice). These were post-recall 'biners also.

Just got a hold of the newest version - gate action is just like a normal wire gate now - no issues. Be sure to check out a fresh one if you didn't like how they felt in the past.

They are sweet use them on my quickdraws ans cams

For light weight, I prefer the mammut moses. They are expensive, but the gate action is consistent and they are lighter than the photons. I have been using the moses wire gates on my alpine draws for about a year now, and I have nothing bad to say about them. Shaved about a pound off of my rack when I switched neutrinos out for the moses wire gates.

I really like them. I have bought a couple of the colored 8 packs for racking up my Metolius cams this season. I like the fact that they are light, only 29g and full size.

The down side is I have not found where to buy the colored ones seperate so I have some extra colored ones that don't have any cams to go on. I will probably pair them up with my moses biners and use them on some light weight draws.

No problems with gates on mine.

I personally love them. I came across the x8 color coded racking set for pretty cheap. Right now half of my double rack has these and the other half are color coded neutrinos. Someone on Backcountry stated that they feel 'too light and weak' which is the exact reason why I love them. Well, they are light, but the other reason why they feel light is because they are so big for their weight. They rack really well also because the spine is so damn skinny. Two can sit next to each other in the space of one neutrino–This is great for any one that prefers to rack on their harness, or anyone trying to save space in general. I'm not a gram counter but when I pick up 2 C4's–one with a neutrino and one with a photon I'm amazed at how much a 6-7 gram difference is. If I'm going up a hard single pitch I will always rack the gear with photons on them first. The other reason why is I love how large and in charge these are. Clipping action feels great and easier to clip than a neutrino. The biggest downside as another suggested with the color coded racking photons is they are only sold in sets. Regardless I'm still very pleased that Camp listened and offered these in colors.

I know it's been a while since this thread was originally started. It seems like you should only be getting the newer stiff version but I disappointingly ended up with an older one with a very light gate recently. That being said I do have 6 straight/6 bent gate photons coming directly from Camp. I'm going to be using them with my dyneema shoulder length slings as trad draws. I've been switching out my biners from my sport draws (spirits) in the past and recently took a look at the weight of an individual Spirit–49 grams! So replacing them with photons will save me close to 11.5 ounces off of my rack! Ok maybe I am becoming a gram counter…

My take is to get these, the price is right and they are worth it. All other really light wire gates are too small, too fancy (notch less), and too expensive. A lot of people will tell you 'well _______ biner is lighter' without realizing that the shrink button was pushed. These are full sized! I realized recently Camp is the unsung hero in my pile of climbing gear– they just make straight forward, effective, gear that has great value.

REI has Photon quickdraws on sale for $12 a pop. Tack on the "20% off one item" for a little extra savings...

rei.com/product/847041/camp…

Backcountry has the photon rack pack for $38; and the photon biner for $6.32.... A steal!

I second the X8 pack being awesome now the black alien and the Black Master Cam on my rack are ready for some fumble free sending... I picked them up with a 20% off coupon from Backcountry... I wanted to get DMM specter 2 color packs but decided the extra scrilla and lack of black and orange...two of my favorite respective sizes was the incentive to get the camp biners. the gate issues are over and each biner give a crisp clip

Same here ! The X8 pack matches my full set of Mastercams, but for my other cams (a set of Wild Co. Helium and a couple of DMM 4CU) I use The DMM Phantom Rack Pack, which has the same "brit" colors