BD X4, ongoing real-world review (will update over time)

I still think they're a little less able to fully engage due to the fact that when you pull hard on the trigger, the cords go to parallel, making it so that nothing is forcing the head to swivel all the way to parallel, it just keeps trying to pull downward. But I don't think there's a practical difference

After getting over the novelty of the x4 I always reach for either a c4 or an alien over the floppy hard to clean x4. Agree the .4 is bad, Ironically find that size of c4 is stellar.

Biggest reason I think it's worth it to me to keep is that I trad climb almost exclusively in the Gunks where horizontal placements are very common. Better to have a bendy cam there.

The X4's can retract all the way, even with funky glue in place, but you will need to pull on the trigger really hard. As in using-two-hands hard.

I got some new X4's recently and I took them to the Gunks this weekend. (I had climbed with them previously in New Hampshire for a few days, but they were part of someone else's rack.) On the second day, my partner mentioned to me that she found them more difficult to clean than my other cams. One of the employees at Rock and Snow had pointed out to me how the C4 cams had better full retraction, especially, the #0.4, but I went with the X4's anyways because head width. However, I definitely had some reservations about the trigger action.

Back at my house today, I came across this thread, and I starting trying to mess with the glue, but I didn't go to far for fear of damaging the kevlar trigger. Playing around with the units, I found that I could get full retraction on my #0.4, #0.5, and #0.75 by really cranking on the trigger, beast-mode style. This is encouraging in that I'm no longer worried about losing these pieces on a route due to overcamming, but discouraging in that a overcammed X4 at a route's crux is probably not going to be removed (or repositioned, if you botch it) until the second can hang on the rope and use two hands to extract it.

This issue/solution seems to be most applicable to the #0.4 and least applicable to the #0.5. I would be curious to know if other users have had the same experience.

I do feel that Aliens are more flexible, in that the cam head maintains its orientation more consistently than the X4 or Master Cam does. I'm curious to see how well the trigger cables will hold up over time.

I have been a diehard Alien user for a decade but I purchased the X4's as I grow soft in my old age when I lost bunch of my old cams at Acadia. (I left them sitting on the ground at the crag, d'oh!) I just wasn't sure about the QC on the Aliens these days, and I thought I would use the X4's for a season or two and put them through the ringer. My initial impressions lead me to conclude the the Aliens have slightly better camming performance. I cannot yet comment about durability; time will tell. I'm happy to keep using the X4's for now because they're still a perfectly decent camming device--they're certainly not holding me back on anything right now.

How is everyone else doing with cam extraction? Are these bad boys getting stuck all the time, or does it get better with time and technique? Inquiring minds want to know.

Dirk wrote: How is everyone else doing with cam extraction? Are these bad boys getting stuck all the time, or does it get better with time and technique? Inquiring minds want to know.

I am having issues with cleaning and not being able to retract the lobes fully.(saw the glue issues earlier in the thread need to inspect for that) Several times now I have had to rappel a pitch to clean the .5 x4. Easy enough to reach in and hook the piece that the wires connect to and fully retract but my followers usually don't know that which seems to lead to them walking it deeper. Other than that no issues with mine.