Brand new sling from REI is already 1 1/2 years old???

You could call or write REI if you wish to discuss getting climbing gear made more recently. Who knows if they have any control over it. Like the min wage worker at their shipping facility is gonna go look at the dates in all the slings..

I bought some X4s a while back and they were made 3 year prior. It's not a great feeling paying full price for old stock, but they still work the same, and I think you're over worried about the whole deal. 

It's probably safer to use old stock products than it is to rap off sun bleached tat with a rusty quicklink, but we still do that too. How many many pins and rusty bolts you clip?

(I do try to carry cord or webbing and rings to replace old rap anchors when I know they are in bad shape)

Don’t get mad at rei for selling 2 year old slings, 10 years in a box never used and you should retire it (according to manufacturers), 3-5 years of use is what you should expect the life of the sling to be depending on usage. So if you start to use your gear 5 years from now, you should expect the same life as if you started using it today. You didn’t get cheated, its fine. 

Eric Compas wrote:

My question is more directed at the retail space -- should we, as climbing gear consumers -- not buy something (or return it) if it's been too long from the date of manufacture. Now that we have dates, what's "too" old for woven materials? At some point, you'd say to yourself -- I'm not buying this. If not 1 1/2 years, what about 3 years? 5 years? 

Really? I think of manufacturing dates on climbing gear to be a convenience provided by the manufacturer. But if you retire your soft goods after 10 years of use or whatever, just note in Sharpie (here comes another thread!) the date it was put into SERVICE. Personally, I rely much more on hands-on inspection of my gear to decide if it's too worn or not.

As I often say, when was the last time you replaced the seatbelts on your car because they were too old? 

Eric Compas wrote:

Just had a Mammut Contact Sling 8.0 (dyneema) from REI arrive today. It was manufactured in 9/2020, so it's already a year and a half old. If we use slings for 10 years, I've already lost 15% of the sling's life.

How "old" is reasonable for "new" gear?

Use/wear matters much more than "age". 

Got my first trad draws tested - "Bought new, online, March 2013, used until January 2019" -- One of them was dated 2009 - spoiler - it wasn't the lowest breaking strength.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/114128257/tensile-testing-old-slings?page=4

Matt N wrote:

Use/wear matters much more than "age". 

I have a couple unused slings that are 25 years old, if anyone wants to arrange for them to be tested.

Gunkiemike wrote:

I have a couple unused slings that are 25 years old, if anyone wants to arrange for them to be tested.

Id chip in a buck to ship em to HowNot2 for ryan to snap em, thatd be fun to watch to show how lucky those lucky slings really are and how lucky the user is :)

Obligatory “ygd send to me for proper disposal” reply.

Unless you are just keeping the sling in a sealed box you are going to have to retire the sling several years before that 10yr mark anyway, so who cares if you lost 15% of the max shelf life?

Brett Harris wrote:

Obligatory “ygd send to me for proper disposal” reply.

Unless you are just keeping the sling in a sealed box you are going to have to retire the sling several years before that 10yr mark anyway, so who cares if you lost 15% of the max shelf life?

I think it makes people feel like when they buy a new car under warranty and there is already several thousand miles on the odometer. 

Derek Bristol's test of old static ropes found about one third loss of strength in nylon and polyester ropes from the early 1990s, most after years of service.  This result should not be interpreted broadly as these ropes were not exposed to sunlight, UHMWPE was not tested, and elasticity was not measured.  It does show that at least the static performance of some textiles does not degrade catastrophically after ten years of careful storage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hfJ2chytYg

If your close to an REI store, go look at the slings in store, check the dates & exchange it if you find one with a newer date.   I've noticed same thing with most of the gear I've purchased, i.e., it's generally 12 months or more since it was made.  

Wait. There are dates on slings/draws now? Certainly not on any gear I own.  Of course the last draws I bought were probably 8-10 years ago. 

Marc801 C wrote:

Wait. There are dates on slings/draws now? Certainly not on any gear I own.  Of course the last draws I bought were probably 8-10 years ago. 

All my slings and dogbones are dated, the oldest marked 2009.  What brand are yours?

Jason EL wrote:

None of this discussion changes the physics of what's going on.  Only the language.  And the language is an inconsequential matter.

Technically, you are wrong, the best kind of wrong. Had you said "changes the CHEMISTRY of what's going on", you might've been technically correct, the best kind of correct.

Reason why - chemistry usually deals with chemical changes in slings and any soft goods - breaking down polymer chains, oxidization and all that sciency crap. Physics deals with bashing and smashing, not something that slings fresh out of old box would've encountered.

And words matter - why do you think some posts get removed?

Webfoot wrote:

All my slings and dogbones are dated, the oldest marked 2009.  What brand are yours?

A mix of BD and Petzl mostly/probably. I don’t really recall. I stopped being a gear junkie a few decades ago. 

amarius wrote:

Technically, you are wrong, the best kind of wrong. Had you said "changes the CHEMISTRY of what's going on", you might've been technically correct, the best kind of correct.

Reason why - chemistry usually deals with chemical changes in slings and any soft goods - breaking down polymer chains, oxidization and all that sciency crap. Physics deals with bashing and smashing, not something that slings fresh out of old box would've encountered.

And words matter - why do you think some posts get removed?

You need to spend more time around pompous physicists. They claim that ALL behavior of matter is due to physics.  Your "bashing and smashing" is just entry level mechanics; there's much more to physics e.g. atomic level sh:t.

amarius wrote:

Technically, you are wrong, the best kind of wrong. Had you said "changes the CHEMISTRY of what's going on", you might've been technically correct, the best kind of correct.

Reason why - chemistry usually deals with chemical changes in slings and any soft goods - breaking down polymer chains, oxidization and all that sciency crap. Physics deals with bashing and smashing, not something that slings fresh out of old box would've encountered.

And words matter - why do you think some posts get removed?

Chemistry is a subset of physics.  

It probably says so somewhere in that 1/2" thick product information guide attached to the gear we buy.  The one with the umpteenbazillion folds in it.  The one we mindlessly toss.  

Matt N wrote:

Use/wear matters much more than "age". 

Got my first trad draws tested - "Bought new, online, March 2013, used until January 2019" -- One of them was dated 2009 - spoiler - it wasn't the lowest breaking strength.

https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/114128257/tensile-testing-old-slings?page=4

Matt, thanks for the link and the results of your tests. Pretty reassuring. Back to my hypothesis that a 10-year life is on the short end for slings and that unless a piece of gear is egregiously old -- let's say 3-4 years on the shelf -- it's fine to purchase and use as if "new."