Screamers

Do you use screamers on your screws?

Which brand do you prefer? Do you use short screamers? Do you only carry enough for the first coupple screws, or what?

I'm thinking about finally getting a few, but I don't really know anything about the various choices. I simply assume Yates is a good bet. Can anyone with some experience steer me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Yes Yates are great screamers. I carry two of them for when/if I have crappy screw placements.
If you like to climb thin sketchy and crap ice than screamers are a good idea. On solid ice I find that screamers are not nessary, if the screw has been placed well than the ice is plenty strong for just a quick draw. If you would like screamers for peace of mined then go for it.

Yates. I generally try to save them for "crappy" screws. Although I read somewhere that some use them on every screw.

From the thread Scott linked to above:

RGold quoting Jim Titt:

"From Jim Titt:

"With screamers there are three camps amongst the manufacturers. There are those who promote them as the answer to everything and make claims which even the most deluded find a bit dubious. Then there are those who hum and haw around the benefits with plenty of "cans" and "mays" (the Petzl website is a masterpiece for this). Then there are the ones who never got them to work, got pissed off with the whole business and don´t make them, who are incidentally in the majority.

From my chats with the technicians in industry the most positive thing you will hear is "they might help" which is not exactly a positive endorsement. Some, who have spent a long time trying different sewing patterns and cold days on the test rigs are less charitable.

Since there is no UIAA/CE test for these things all we can fall back on is our intuition, a bit of private testing, some back of the envelope calculations, information leakage from the industry and the Italian testing which was about as complete and credible as we can hope for at this stage. From all these the manufacturers claims don´t come out well and some braver souls such as myself would be prepared to brand them as hype or worse to sell an effectively worthless product.

Since the issue has been open for many years and no manufacturer has ever published any verified test results from an independent test laboratory to clearly establish where the undeniable benefits of screamers stop and the undeniable negative aspects start, then I feel the public can say or do what they think and so they should.

Time perhaps for one of the manufacturers to step up to the plate?"

Huh. A lot of different opinions in that thread.

Seems like no one actually knows if screamers are a good decision for general use, and I'm certainly not smart enough to understand the studies everyone references.

Jim Titt calls screamers basically useless in page 6 (?) of that thread. Doesn't seem like anyone else had much else to add in opposition.

A moderate fall can generate a big load, so I put the biggest Screamer on each screw. Small Screamers don't have much capacity to absorb impact. If I have a REALLY solid placement, I don't need a Screamer, but how often does that happen? Yeah, eight or ten weigh a lot, but my forearms have more endurance when I think I have back-ups. A stubby or tied-off screw should be clipped with a Scream-Aid, which begins to rip at a lower impact force; use two in series for more capacity.

I have witnessed drop tests using Screamers and not using them. The generated impact forces were vastly different. I don't remember the numbers, but I went out and bought the biggest Screamers immediately.

Some limited testing from BD:

blackdiamondequipment.com/e…

personally I use them. I have fallen on one and I don't know if it saved my life or anything but it definitely didn't hurt anything.

I use them until I run out of them (I carry 2-6) and then switch to draws. They do the most good with the least amount of rope out.

Best bet is to just place good pro and don't fall...