I don't know jack about Pitons

Jim Titt wrote: The piton will ring as you beat it in but that the maximum holding power is when the pitch stops rising is a bit of a myth, we could get nearly double the holding power by changing to a sledge hammer and just hammering until nothing moved any more. The pitch of the ringing has more to do with the type and material of the piton and the lightness of the hammer than any intrinsic holding power, with a 14lb sledge pitons don´t "ring" any more but for sure they go further in and are stronger. The real problems start once you move away from chrome-moly pegs and granite and into the fairly common soft pegs and limestone which is often the combination in Europe. With the much lighter hammer or an ice tool hammer compared with a wall hammer and there really isn´t any answer other than to beat the shit out of it if you are expecting the piton to function as either protection or as a belay. Ease of removal is not going to be a consideration, either deliberate or accidental. A hard steel piton in an ideal mechanical placement like a horizontal needs little hammering to be bomber, a soft-steel blade driven upwards under a roof wants to be hammer-welded in place to be of any real use!

They work better in soft rock and irregular cracks unless you are prepared to destroy the placement.

Jim Titt wrote:They work better in soft rock and irregular cracks unless you are prepared to destroy the placement.

A bit hard to describe but if you think of an irregular crack and beat a hard peg in the irregular bits keep disentigrating and the piton is loose again so you go to a bigger one and so on until you´ve hopefully changed the rock to suit the piton (or you didn´t notice the rock breaking and the pin is just waiting to drop out). With a soft piton it just bends around the obstruction and goes on in. Which is `better´ is debatable I guess since the flexibility of soft steel pitons means they are usually nearly impossible to remove but hard ones are often annoying to place.
If you look at CAMP (who are probably the biggest manufaturer of piton) they list hardened chrome moly for use in granite and soft steel for limestone and this is generally the rule especially for blade and lost arrow type pitons.

Michael,

It sounds to me like you are planning to use pins like I do, for mixed ice and rock alpine climbs. There are quite a few winter routes I do where the pins work where other pro won't, both for mountaineering routes as well as some ice crag routes. Either cracks are too icy for cams, or more so they are too small. So I mostly carry thin pins, but a couple of small angles are great to have, with their 3 point contact to the rock they are the most bomber of placements. #1,2 +3 BD angles, any bigger-too heavy.
Knife Blades,Bugaboos, rurps and peckers are great for thin cracks. A small pecker feels more solid in a vertical crack than a KB of the same size, but KB and bugaboo are great for horizontals.
It can be hard to get a good KB placement because they are thin, especially the short ones- takes practice
The Bugaboos are thicker versions of KB, sometimes place easier and bend less.
Lost arrows are even thicker and too heavy for alpine, but can be nice to have a couple of small stubby ones.
You are pretty desperate if you are using RURP's, but they are lightweight.
Also the BD Specter is great for frozen sod/dirt and dead trees.- saved me on a few otherwise huge run-outs.
Thats gear I am placing on lead and removing, but some can be good for rap anchors too, pins and nuts being better to leave than cams.
I carry a set of old nuts in the event I have to leave them on raps, having ice tools can be great for pounding in nuts.

It's been a long time, but I do miss the sound of a 'ping, and a 'bong bong' as the pitch changes with the tightness of the piton going into the rock. It was music to my ears 40 some years ago. The sounds of history...

Woodchuck ATC wrote:It's been a long time, but I do miss the sound of a 'ping, and a 'bong bong' as the pitch changes with the tightness of the piton going into the rock. It was music to my ears 40 some years ago. The sounds of history...

geoff georges wrote:Michael, It sounds to me like you are planning to use pins like I do, for mixed ice and rock alpine climbs. There are quite a few winter routes I do where the pins work where other pro won't, both for mountaineering routes as well as some ice crag routes. Either cracks are too icy for cams, or more so they are too small. So I mostly carry thin pins, but a couple of small angles are great to have, with their 3 point contact to the rock they are the most bomber of placements. #1,2 +3 BD angles, any bigger-too heavy. Knife Blades,Bugaboos, rurps and peckers are great for thin cracks. A small pecker feels more solid in a vertical crack than a KB of the same size, but KB and bugaboo are great for horizontals. It can be hard to get a good KB placement because they are thin, especially the short ones- takes practice The Bugaboos are thicker versions of KB, sometimes place easier and bend less. Lost arrows are even thicker and too heavy for alpine, but can be nice to have a couple of small stubby ones. You are pretty desperate if you are using RURP's, but they are lightweight. Also the BD Specter is great for frozen sod/dirt and dead trees.- saved me on a few otherwise huge run-outs. Thats gear I am placing on lead and removing, but some can be good for rap anchors too, pins and nuts being better to leave than cams. I carry a set of old nuts in the event I have to leave them on raps, having ice tools can be great for pounding in nuts.

added note:

The #3 pecker is too heavy too. But the #1 and #2 can be good. If you want to avoid too much iron I would just carry : #2, #3, #4 KB, #1, #2 Lost arrow, #1, #2 angles.

Also: I only have BD ice tools, so I don't know others except Petzl Nomics are great and you can get micro hammers for them.
My new Fusions with the built in hammer really suck for hammering.
On my old fusions I added the micro hammer, works ok, but you feel pretty spastic hammering with the crazy handle.
The carbon fiber Cobra with added hammer are my favorites for all around alpine and big mountain.