Opinions on EDELRID Slider

For mountainering/ice climbing I m considering switchiing most of my screwgates for Edelrid Slider to save weight.
Any idea how they perform in a frozen environement? can they freeze shut more than screwgates?
Thanks for sharing!

There has been more than one previous discussion about these. There are a few people who like them, but many like me won't use them. Mine failed in a non freezing environment. The gate latches got sticky and the gates would not close fully without fiddling with them. Yes, I cleaned and lubed them. Luckily Edelrid replaced them with screw gates.

I would not choose them for freezing environment. There is much less to manipulate than with a screwgate, the screw sleeve has more surface area to grab, just a little tab on the slider. In my mind, harder to manipulate with gloves. 

I like my slider and have taken it ice climbing without problems yet, but I would be nervous if all my lockers were sliders. some people have also had problems with the life span of the sliders being short.

I don't know how the weight my compair but the grivel twin gates would probably be my first choice for ice. 

Never had one in hand but I suspected the locking mechanism was prone to icying, apparently I was unfortunately right :(
The weight is very appealing, thus my question.
The quest continue I guess.
I m not convince by the double gates design of the grivel.
I bootied one years ago and it always stays at the bottom of the bin, I could give it a try on ice. 

I have both slider and double gate Grivel carabiners. I can’t say I like either for ice - the slider for reliability issues (still like them for rock, however) and the double gate is great but hard to manipulate with gloves. It is nice to always know you are locked, however.

I have both the wire/wire and the gate/wire and dislike both with gloves. 

The grivel doubles gates w twin wire gates are best for ice. The twin solid gates w the 'flat' surface are impossible w gloves. The solid\wire gate combo are ok but the solid gate can be hard to grab w gloves. Wire wire for the win! 

Jake is spot on. Wire twin gates are the shit. Sliders aren't really secure enough to replace lockers and also definitely are prone to gunk up and not work, I'd be happy to use one for a lanyard in the alpine but I'm also happy with using a non locking biner so I'm happy even if the slider mechanism fails. 

I've used a small slider quite a bit for hanging my belay device, it's still trucking along.

That said, I don't really get the "saving weight" argument.  The Pure Slider is 47g, so a Camp Photon Lock (43g) is lighter.  For the HMS Strike Slider, it's 55g, there are plenty of other carabiners out there that have a similar size and weight: BD Vaporlock (52g), Camp Nitro (56g), DMM Phantom HMS (56g), Petzl Attache (56g).  I don't see how the sliders are a significant weight savings over comparable carabiner.  They are an awesome option for other reasons for the right application, but I don’t think weight specifically.

Edit:  a few random thoughts…. I think that a smooth round carabiner for plaquette mode is worth the weight penalty.  I’ve been using the BD Pearbiner but lots of options.  I’ve also had good results using a small Grivel twingate for hanging the device, but it looks like they might have discontinued the smallest twin wiregate option.

Kyle Tarry wrote:

That said, I don't really get the "saving weight" argument.  The Pure Slider is 47g, so a Camp Photon Lock (43g) is lighter.  For the HMS Strike Slider, it's 55g, there are plenty of other carabiners out there that have a similar size and weight: BD Vaporlock (52g), Camp Nitro (56g), DMM Phantom HMS (56g), Petzl Attache (56g).  I don't see how the sliders are a significant weight savings over comparable carabiner.  They are an awesome option for other reasons for the right application, but I don’t think weight specifically.

The original version was 43g. The photos on their website makes it look like they redesigned it recently.

I have a bunch of sliders. as long as you check them  to make certain they are locked they are fine. Have had a few instances of sticking but that has happened in one form or another with most of the different carabiners i have used over the years. 

I like the slider in the summer, but I don't often use it in the winter due to occasional freezing. Photon screw gates are nice, and I like twin gates. I'm a big fan of the solid/solid ergonomics though (no complaints with wire either). Slightly tricky from the back of the harness, but faster than a screw gate even with my biggest gloves and zero freezing issues.

Mostly I chimed in because I haven't seen anyone in the Internet mention before that edelrid silently updated the slider design a couple years after release. I had an early model that broke, but the new ones have been going strong for years now. My partner and I use them for backpacks, shoes, taglines, etc in the summer

I became a slider diehard for use on my grigri and traxions because of the auto lock safety (no need to monitor screw gate) and lightweight. Also nice to have in case you encounter a single life saving bolt before/after long runouts. Long term though my enthusiasm has cool, or rather caveated: they get really sticky, to the point it becomes difficult to even force them to close completely. This seems most acute in the desert, which makes sense re dirt and grime. One partner also had a bad experience with his belay device stuck on his harness due to a frozen slider mechanism, though IMO they are less troublesome than screw gates in that regard, but jury is out. 

So all that said my caveat to their use is to clean them regularly - just a dip in hot water + action seems adequate - but its a real bummer if you don't and spend all day manually fumbling at every belay transition...

I have had the most events of  frozen shut lockers with screw gates.  BITD when ice tools had real hammers on them the fix was super easy. put the spine of the biner on somthing solid like ice or rock and smash the gate open in one shot with your hammer ;) now you have to carefully tap with the back of your tool so you don't damage the tool ... 

I would not use them when ice climbing, or climbing without ice. Grivel Plume Nut K3N is a 37 g screw gate that is quite good, but I prefer Petzl Spirit or something similar that is bigger when I have gloves on. 

they have been great for me ice climbing.. 

The slider is more prone to freezing than a screw gate. I have used the Grivel double gates and they for sure dont have that problem. But the plume double gate is very wide to stick into anything, you cant one hand clove them and most importantluy, it is easy to get the inner gate stuck onto something and you wont feel it by touching the gate as with a normal locker. I was into the idea, but  after the last issue, I stopped using them.

Something like this happend to me twice on rap. I dont know the cause, but I guess that I placed it like that at the start of the rap and did not notice it when I pressed the gate as I do with a screw gate. Since I have done it twice, I decided twin gates are not for me. The are nice carbiners if you dont fuck it up like me. It never happend when I belayed with them, but they are not so much better that I want to dive into it.

In my experience the sliders are LESS prone to freezing closed than a screwgate, but seconding others, for good operation in snow and ice it's impossible to beat the Grivel double wire lockers.

Also, with the sliders, it's possible, though unlikely to open them in a single motion ("karate-chop" pushing the button and subsequently the gate), so I don't necessarily use them the same way as other lockers. As other's said, they can be trusted as a locker with some level of gate minding, which means they perhaps shouldn't be trusted as a locker... locker * 0.5.

I use them a lot. my primary belay biner and several others. have been for perhaps 5 years?  never had one open accidentally but you do have to be mindful and check that they are closed properly. 

Another vote for grivel twin wire gates, they’re great, no complaints. 

I have been using the Plume Wire Lock K3L with my grigri for the last little while and it's really brilliant for it, there is a hole where the gate spring would normally be and you can put your grigri tether in there. 

The narrow nose is also incredible for getting into things so you don't have the same problem as with the super wide gates on the twin wire gates. 

Looking at getting the Tau wirelock for my pulleys and one of my partners uses it for her petzl adjust