Fusion Climbing Gear

Fusion Climbing Gear

About 3 months ago, a rep from Fusion posted on the general message board that they had some new products coming out. A few people scolded them for spamming, and a few more people critiqued their grammar. I decided ‘why not try getting some gear on the cheap?’ and offered to try out some of their products and let people know what I thought.

Fusion gear

Two months later I’ve got a few nice lockers, nylon runners, draws, and a figure 8. So here’s what I thought:

Techno HMS locker:

Techno Locker

As a belay carabiner it worked great. There is a wide gate opening and the locking action is smooth. It weights 2.5 Oz and at $13 on their website, it’s not a bad deal for a nice, big, locker.

Essence Screw Gate:

essence screw gate

A really nice rigging carabiner. There isn’t anything too fancy about this carabiner, but it has a nice shape for rigging anchors, a good-sized gate opening and smooth action. Weight: 2.4 oz Price: $13

Tazo Auto Lock- Steel

Steel Auto Locker

I’ve never used these big steel auto-locking carabiners. This one is nice, but the auto lock tends to snag while opening and closing. It’s rated at 35kn so I guess it would be useful if I were planning on hanging my jeep from a cliff…

Techno Wave Quickdraw

techno wave draw

I was really happy when I took these out to use them. With the exception of a few new BD hotwires, my draws are a mismatch of everything. Having a new set of six was pretty nice. They have the thicker nylon dog bones, a techno wire gate on one end, and a techno strait gate on the other. Personally I like the nylon dog bone; some times it gives me that extra inch to hit a bolt from a better stance. The techno carabiners felt great in my hand, had smooth gate action, and weren’t too bulky. The wire gates clipped super easy, and the rope ran through them perfectly.

clipping

climbing

The big deal with these draws is the price. If you wanted to have a full set of these, split them with some one, or just tons of inexpensive wire gates, at set of 24 is only $180 shipped. That’s $7.50 per draw!
Quickdraws

Nylon Runners

runners

I also received a few nylon runners. They are similar in size to the thicker mammut runners but have a stiffer feel, maybe because they are still on the newer side. These are great for slinging trees for anchors, but not the best for trad draws.

The people I dealt with at Fusion were very helpful, and seemed excited to be getting into the climbing gear market. Aside from the weird names of their products and their mediocre website, I think they are doing a great job. Their gear is solid and with a little bit of time, they could be providing competitively priced gear to the rock climbing community.

If you want some free gear too they are holding a Photo Contest. Top prize is $800 worth of gear more info here:
Fusion Photo Contest

The figure 8 did perform well. I had never used one before this, so I can't really compare it to anything. They are a little nicer to rap with than an ATC, but they don't serve much else of a purpose and aren't worth their weight. They are fun though, and smooth for rappelling.

After using this gear I wouldn't call it the highest end stuff, but I would call it safe, functional, and durable (it seems durable but time will tell).

After seeing personally what BD goes through with their testing, QA and certification, I hesitate to purchase gear from a company that stamps "UIAA Zoom" on one carabiner of the quickdraw.

The extra $2 per biner that you spend on certified UIAA and CE gear is worth it.

That being said, when fusion biners are certified, assuming the design is good. I'll try them out.

I have carabiners and gear from
BD
Metolius
Trango
Cypher
mammut
omega pacific
SMC
petzl
DMM
Madrock
and stubai

All these companies are UIAA and CE. Don't trust your life to saving a buck.

Also, I am pretty sure that most any employee at any of these companies can spell the word " rappel "

Price wrote:After seeing personally what BD goes through with their testing, QA and certification, I hesitate to purchase gear from a company that stamps "UIAA Zoom" on one carabiner of the quickdraw. The extra $2 per biner that you spend on certified UIAA and CE gear is worth it. That being said, when fusion biners are certified, assuming the design is good. I'll try them out.

If you search for the Fusion brand on the UIAA certified equipment site ( theuiaa.org/certified_equip…), you'll see that the Essence, Techno, and Zoom biners are all UIAA certified. That's still a far cry from having all of their products certified, but it certainly progress in the right direction. It seems like it's a company trying to get their feet off the ground, but I'd imagine things like UIAA certification doesn't come cheap.

Once those biners and slings in the quickdraws are certified though, it is hard to beat $7.50 taxes and shipping in for a draw...

UIAA and oh so nice.

rei.com/product/798963

Price wrote:UIAA and oh so nice. rei.com/product/798963

I never said that BD draws aren't nice or that they can't be found cheap on sale, I only said that $7.50 for a UIAA certified draw will be a great deal. More competition is always a good thing, and it seems like they're going in the right direction.

I'm with you until they are in fact certified though...maybe I'd use one to hang my water bottle on my pack, but not to catch my big ass in a whipper.

Ian Stewart wrote: If you search for the Fusion brand on the UIAA certified equipment site ( theuiaa.org/certified_equip…), you'll see that the Essence, Techno, and Zoom biners are all UIAA certified. That's still a far cry from having all of their products certified, but it certainly progress in the right direction. It seems like it's a company trying to get their feet off the ground, but I'd imagine things like UIAA certification doesn't come cheap. Once those biners and slings in the quickdraws are certified though, it is hard to beat $7.50 taxes and shipping in for a draw...

They may be now, but when the sales rep posted up about their new gear line months ago they weren't UIAA certified, even though they claimed to be. While the sales rep was cordial, he knew absolutely nothing about climbing gear, nor did it seem the people who wrote the language for the website. While that doesn't necessarily have any correlation to the quality of the gear, I personally prefer to buy my climbing gear from climbing companies.

The prices at the time were around, and in many cases well above that of equivalent namebrand gear. I also recall the specs being marginal compared to the latest offerings from major biner manufacturers. I'm all for an open market and allowance for the entrance of new companies, but I'm far more cautious when it comes to climbing gear. Regardless, I'm not going to buy generic gear with inferior specs when I could go to BD or Wildcountry for the same price.

So while the OP of this thread may say there was nothing more than flaming and grammar correction on the original thread, there were legitimate issues raised. I don't know about the thread on MP.com, but the one on RC.com is worth reading if you're considering buying their gear.

the old UIAA cert -2008

To Ryan Kelly,

thank you for the feedback that you posted earlier.

Just to clear the confusion, we got all our cert since 2008, this is one of them. more cert will be available upon request.

The UIAA website had a glitch back then when people tried to search for our cert, but they corrected after we reported the problem to UIAA.

Please feel free to contact us directly if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Cindy T.

here is my direct email address: cindyt@fusionclimb.com

As in the link posted above, this Fusion gear doesn't really look less expensive than brand name stuff. Also, it looks big and heavy... like 2001 technology! if the cost came down a lot, like to 2/3 of BD prices, I might consider it. Otherwise, why get lower quality gear for damn near the same price?

I looked into Fusion's certifications, their Techno biners were certified until 31 Dec 2011, but apparently they let the cert. lapse.

safety.theuiaa.org/front/pr…

I bought 5 straight-gate, 5 bent-gate Technos off the Clymb, but will now be using them primarily as keychains and bottleopeners as I don't want to buy gear from a company too dumb to get its gear properly certified even if their equipment *might* meet the standards they claim. Who knows what else they can't get right?

I have held their large delta swivel in my hand and compared it to a petzl swivel L. The Fusion swivel had tons of play (lets say .030") in the bearing joint compared to a petzl swivel which has none. The quality of their hardware compared to the major companies is noticeable.

The fusion swivel is half the price of the petzl one. Quality versus cost.

what the fuck is that?

Their website says it is used for a paragliding application.

Locker wrote:Oh yeah! I'm for sure gonna be needing one of these...

Naw, those are for corner placements, where you have to move left or right around a sharp corner. Otherwise why would they be square?(rectangular, that is),, I'm gonna get me a rack full of them!

Locker wrote:"what the fuck is that?" I bought a bunch and use them for my DRAWS.

I'm going to put them on my rack of link cams for sure!

Ray Pinpillage wrote:Their website says it is used for a paragliding application.

Yup, those carabiners, or the shape at least, is used in paragliding because it a)keeps the lines laid out evenly and b) prevents the lines from moving around and cross loading the carabiner.

mmmm, link cams

Mitch you the same guy who thought gear 4 rocks stuff was good?

Same as someone else said. Old tech for new prices. F that.

And don't forget, bd hard goods are made right here in the great U-S OF EH!

Hello,
Thanks to one of our customers that reached out to us, we were informed of a blog with false comments about our products. I Just wanted to clarify the information to dispel any rumors. We absolutely are CE & UIAA certified. Please check our website for the actual certificates from CE and UIAA:

fusionclimb.com/Testing_ep_…

Here’s an example of the certificate from CE:

fusionclimb.com/assets/imag…

And another example from UIAA: fusionclimb.com/assets/imag…

Here’s the link direct from UIAA that shows our certificate holder status: theuiaa.org/safety-label-ho…

We only sell products that we would use ourselves and most of our products comply with ANSI ratings and they always have, ever since we started in the construction industry for the last 17 years. We also have a 3rd party testing certificate on our products available upon request.
If you have any questions it is always better to contact us directly and we are more than willing to send you certificates for any carabiners, harnesses, hooks, buckles, grabs, rings, and swivels, etc. I just hope you all will try our products first and come straight to the source instead of relying on rumors from blogs that can be written by anyone. We are the little guys trying to make our way up and we have very competitive pricing for our great, quality products. Feel free to call us at (909)393-9450 or email us at info@fusionclimb.com at any time.

Thank you.
Fusion Climb Team

my work used fusion gear for a hot minute and the soft goods like webbing and harnesses sucked. frayed rather quickly and the harnesses were poorly stitched ". I recently tossed out about 15 brand new short slings and 5 daisy chains. not worth saving or using