Trad Quickdraws

What are you all using for your Trad quickdraws? I have been using the black diamond FreeWire's but they just seem to not really doing it anymore. I have looked at the Black Diamond Oz (seem really small), Wild Country Helium's(pretty expensive), and I have even looked at just buying specific carbiners and runners and making my own draws. Any thoughts or input?

Just below your post in "trad climbing" is "carabiners for alpine draws". 57 or so replies with good info.

Definitely alpine draws

Dog bones? You want to use 60 cm slings for trad draws. Dyneema is lighter and stronger but more expensive. I personally have all nylon but ideally you would want a variety.

Carabiners are personal preference I have no problem with Neutrinos aka BD's cheapest biner.

oh i missed that one. thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Although there is that other thread, here's my $0.02:

To me, carabiners don't make a huge difference as long as they are a decent size. I absolutely loathe the CAMP Photon biners that everyone loves - too easy to open, makes me very nervous about gate flutter. I used to rack all of my nuts on Photons but I lost several nuts after they got stuck in the nose notch and immediately dropped out of the carabiner when I opened it to remove from my gear loop. Tricams are especially susceptible to getting caught in that damn notch. Of course you can save a lot of weight with the right carabiner combo, but at this point in my trad career, weight is not really going to hold me back (I lead 5.8 on gear).

The biggest upgrade that I have made to my alpine draws is switching to Trango's ultratape slings. I absolutely love them - they handle nicely, are thick enough to be confidence inspiring, rack well, and don't absorb water like my 100% nylon slings do (I climb a lot of ice).

My ideal alpine draw would be a Petzl ANGE S on the gear side, 60cm ultratape sling, and a Petzl ANGE L on the rope end for easier clipping.

Here's Outdoor Gear Lab's review of the Ultratape slings:
outdoorgearlab.com/Climbing…

They are actually very easy to find on sale, I paid about $4.50 per sling on Amazon.

I use Oz carabiners as my rope ends. I love the hoods and find them easier to clip than the neutrinos that I used previously. They are definitely more pricey though.

I am running a mix of spirit draws and the ange L. I won't use anything else put petzl caribeaners if I can help it. The smooth nose makes all the difference sometimes when fumbling with gear or trying to clip the rope and etc...

so as nerdy as this is this is my 0.02

I really like the ange S it fits in tight chain links, hammered pins, slides into cam slings, all with alacrity. I really like the DMM alpha light. So when I found those on sale I went for it. So now the webbing I have mostly ether Thin BD slings or titan runners from blue water. While it gets the job done. I think I will be moving to the 20in long draw from Metilous. Just the draw. i don't want their biners. I don't have any bias against them. I have several bravo wire gates for cams and they are quite nice. i just don't need 24 more non lockers(the number of slings i would order). I asked before and they will not sell slings alone, which is frustrating.

i think the long dog bone is more compact and user friendly with less twisting and potential to cross load and both ends have a pocket. one with the bar tacks and one with a thin stitch.

My trad QDs carries Petzl Ange S @ piece end and BD Oz (hooded) or Metolius Inferno @ rope end. I use Mammut Contact slings, and Steerling 12mm Dyneema slings. Really prefer Steerlilng slings to Contacts, but still have 5 Contacts alive. They won't last long, that's why I don't like 'em. Also I usually carry a couple of "heavy" draws (25cm Petzl Express dogbone, DMM Alpha Sport @ bolt, and DMM Alpha Trad @ rope ends) to clip to a questionable placements (I feel better when something heavy is hanging on a piece pulling it down and protecting it from walking).