Sometimes, usually with shallow cracks, it seems better to place my BD stoppers in sideways. By this I mean using the wider side in the constriction and then trusting that it won't rotate out. This just seems wrong though, so I don't do it.

So my question is, do you guys ever place your nuts in sideways, and is it safe or only as a last resort?

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Go for c3's in those. Its not wrong to pace nutts sideways. U will know when a nutts is well set. C3's don't require much finagling with when u need to place. Invest in a set of those. Yea find a mentor who may have them and see how u like placing them.

One more thing: placing is an applied science so place tons and tons. Find a line with varied crack, get on tr and fake aide it. Place every foot. U will get eye to crack connection that way.

Troll. Please see Freedom of the Hills.

Not a troll, but perhaps I should have researched it more before asking here. I seem to remember the literature saying, "You can do it, but be careful cause they could rotate out." I figured people do it, but I was just trying to gauge how often in real life.

Anyways, thanks for the info, and I suppose I deserve the abuse.

I don't always place nuts in horizontal orientations, but when I do, I prefer two oppositional placements.

I think this is perfectly safe if the placement is secure and the rock is good (as with any placement). That said, I don't generally find myself making sideways placements with Stoppers smaller than #7 or so.

Grab a copy of Long's Climbing Anchors if you want a convenient and authoritative reference for these sorts of questions.

I do this a lot, especially on granite. I've used just about every size BD sideways at one point. The #3 is a little sketchy because of how little metal is in contact with the rock, but it is effective. There are a lot of podded features that you put the nut in so that it has a small profile then you rotate 90 degrees to make it bigger. It can sometimes take a few extra tries to find the correct width nut to set properly. If it is set, it shouldn't rotate if slung correctly. Using normal and sideways placements increases the overall range of your rack of nuts. Some nuts are also better for this like the WC rocks. They are better because not only is the normal placement tapered, but so is the sideways placement tapered. So it sets much better than the BD stoppers a lot of the time. The one major downside to the WC rocks sideways placement is that unlike the BD stoppers the normal and sideways settings aren't that much different in size.

It really depends on the shape of the crack/pod.They can be bomber. You'll want to set them with a tug.

My willingness to climb past one also depends on the number of nuts left on the rack. Sometime you gotta make do.

It's not a contest though. If you can get one in the primary config. do it. The more surface area the better.

If you're concerned that the nut may twist out slap a runner or trad draw on it that twists easily. Climb on.

Sideways stoppers? You mean like those:






What's this nonsense from BigDumb Jongson about a C3 in shallow placements working better?

I do this with big stoppers all the time. Especially the DMM's have more of a taper than the BD's. With small and medium stoppers I refrain from doing it.

For once...big juggs is on to something:

Nuts are pretty fricken simple to figure out. You put them in a constriction they can't pull through. Sideways or any other fucked up orientation they're not gonna pull through provided you've taken into account the direction of force. Does it really warrant online instruction from interweb geniuses?

Buy a set of these and it will fix all your problems...
www.wildcountry.co.uk/products/passive-pro/superlight-rocks/

Everyway is sideways.