silent partners are useless

why would anyone want a silent partner?  

You can lead solo on a grigri.  

You can lead solo on a revo.  

You could lead solo on an auto locking munter if you are bold enough.  

silent partners went out of production for a reason, and are sold all the time in mint condition for a reason.  stop fawning over an absurdly overpriced piece of gear with hundreds of viable alternatives.

Silent partner is safer than all the alternatives.  By safer I mean less prone to failure with the climber falling to the backup knot or the ground.

Isnt a clove hitch better than a munter for this?

Joe Lynch wrote:

You could lead solo on an auto locking munter if you are bold enough.  

thin line between bold and dumb...

1/10 (Have a hunch this is an attempt to win a silent partner...)

Grigri will work but does not feed at smooth and locks up if any quick jerking movements.  

I have used the Revo and it works great but also back feeds REALLY fast if you aren’t paying attention. But it’s a pretty good choice.  I’ve also taken a few big falls soloing on it and it did fine.

I have never used a Munter for lead solo but have used a clove hutch with a biner through the top of the hitch for easy release.  Best used for aid climbing than free climbing.  

IMO the Revo is the only one that gives the SP a run for its money for lead free free climbing.  

The Grigri comes in second and the Munter or Clove don’t even compare unless you are aid climbing.  

I still prefer my SP over everything else for solo aid. 

curt86iroc wrote:

thin line between bold and dumb...

it’s subjective, one mans bold is another mans dumb.  the munter was just an extreme example however 

climber pat wrote:

Silent partner is safer than all the alternatives.  By safer I mean less prone to failure with the climber falling to the backup knot or the ground.

Do you have any data to support this theory?

I suspect the reason the Silent Partner was put out of production is because it is JUST a lead rope solo device, whereas the grigri and revo can both be used to belay a climber normally, so they have a broader range of uses. 

Believe it or not, lead rope soloing is a pretty niche market, so there's not a big enough demand to keep a device specifically for lead rope soloing in production

What would Jim Beyer do??

Ģnöfudør Ðrænk wrote:

Do you have any data to support this theory?

Because I'm not willing to do the work to sort through the AAJ accidents for the data I'll just do a deeper dive:

SP doesn't have the ability for the handle (grigri) to be locked open by getting caught on something so after one instance of this happening with the grigri the SP wins

The original person you quoted was certainly not aware of the full story as the SP does have a significant failure mode; when in freezing temperatures it will fail to lock up so that dashes the argument of the poster when those situations are considered.  

Ģnöfudør Ðrænk wrote:

Do you have any data to support this theory?

GriGri high clip failure demo and GriGri lead failure mode demo.

If you watch dawn wall carefully there GriGri failed on one of the climbers while they were practicing the crux move.  The grigri slide down to his very poorly tied back up knot.

Kevin is right about the silent partner freezing up in cold weather.

There are videos and examples of the Revo shredding ropes too.  

EDIT:  I am over my post limit for this thread.  As to Kevin's response below.  I believe we will soon see shredded ropes with live falls.  Dead weights are used in all UIAA test falls and are useful in testing.  There are already many examples of revos being damaged in falls.  I think there are issues with the robustness of the revo and with the rope path in and out of the revo.  It is really wishful thinking that a dead weight is the determining factor.

climber pat wrote:

Kevin is right about the silent partner freezing up in cold weather.

There are videos and examples of the Revo shredding ropes too.  

The problem with the Revo videos where it shreds the rope is that they're using a dead weight that does not accurately emulate a climbers fall where force is distributed to more than just to rope/device point. Essentially it's interesting but ultimately useless for evaluating the likilhood of the same thing happening in real world applications

SP is the only device purposefully made for rope solo.

JCS 

Maybe get back to us when you 

free rope solo El Cap in a day        

jackscoldsweat wrote:

SP and the soloist and the solo-aid are the only device(s) purposefully made for rope solo.

Fixed that for ya. 

jackscoldsweat wrote:

SP is the only device purposefully made for rope solo.

JCS 

Wrong. The Soloist was and is still the best device solo free climbing. If you are actually redpointing.

I liked the Soloist for putting up steep slab routes. The Soloist requires adding a chest harness to use it safely. I was always careful to use a backup knot. The system felt secure. But then my first soloing was with the Barnett System, early 1970s. That held falls, most of the time...

I love the Soloist, but....

I had a Silent Partner...now I just solo.