New Black Diamond Anchor Sling

Found this when i was looking online at REI in the new arrival. does anyone have any thought, questions, or concerns?

does anyone know when it is coming out on sale?

Dunno when it is coming out for sale. But it is a nice bit of kit, especially when going up routes with two bolt anchors. Makes for a light, very clean, and efficient setup.

Good god Lemon!!

Coming to a top rope crag near you: another single purpose, super niche piece of gear that could be replaced by a sling or a knot.

Seems like a good way to capitalize on new climbers seeking a one-size-fits-all answer

Erik J wrote:

Coming to a top rope crag near you: another single purpose, super niche piece of gear that could be replaced by a sling or a knot.

It’s a quad without the bulky knots. Can be used in lots of applications other than TR. What’s not to like?

For 20 pitch sport climbs with bolted belays with the bolts horizontally arranged, ok.  For most everything else, meh.

Marc801 C wrote:

It’s a quad without the bulky knots. Can be used in lots of applications other than TR. What’s not to like?

Nothing. It's a great bit of kit I'm sure, and it looks more or less perfectly suited for what it's designed for. But that's my gripe, it's designed for one very specific thing and goes against the ethos of "do more with less". Unless you *know* that the anchors at the crag, route, area, etc are all compatible with it, probably best to bring a sling along too, which to me negates the benefit of having a nice small, light, anchor system. Replace the 120cm sling on your harness with this thing and you just went from a super versatile piece of gear to a single use item.

If I had to come up with a concern, I'd say it'll probably concentrate wear in one spot (the eyes most likely) with no option to move the material around and wear a different spot like you would with a sling or cordalette. 

Wayyyyy to single purpose!

ONLY rated for 2 bomber bolts.  Not for gear.

Heavy duty rabbit runners are more useful.

Marc801 C wrote:

It’s a quad without the bulky knots. Can be used in lots of applications other than TR. What’s not to like?

It's not redundant...

Stagg54 Taggart wrote:

It's not redundant...

If you look close it’s two slings on each shelf on top of each other. I guess the bar tack is technically not though? Or maybe they doubled up? No clue

$35 for a sling. 

It’s redundant like a belay loop, self equalizing, should work with any bolt arrangement except vertically aligned, and can be used as sling for pretty much everything but friction hitches and racking over the shoulder. I wouldn’t pay $35 (or even $15) for it, but I wouldn’t complain if someone swapped out one of my slings.

I think it's supposed to be part of Black Diamonds new line of big wall gear. You can't really haul on a normal quad. (this should also, in theory, be lighter/stronger/less-prone-to-durability-issues-with-leaving-knots-in). No real "shelf" might disappoint some, though I think a bit of ingenuity may be able to work around that.

It seems like if everything got cut right beneath the bartack it would fail, but, to my eye, whole thing looks doubled up (its 4 strands total) and safe/redundant enough for me to try.

In my jerry-rigged and envisioned versions, it's made of two seperate pieces (imagine two rabbit runners that have two strands each. or slings with two sewn eyes), which seems more versatile and redundant, but i can see why they sell it all as one piece. They should have also called it "the squad" for sewn-quad, but gear companies have yet to put me in charge of naming every product.

Proper listing is here: blackdiamondequipment.com/e… , they said they would be in stock in 2 weeks about two weeks ago, so maybe soon. I forgot to ask the official weight/length and why they advise against ice screw use in the manual. They also have the "warning" sign for using it with one locker and one snap gate. Probably due to bartacks being weaker than knots if the carabiner was to fail.

Was totally going to buy a nice 120 Contact sling and 2 brand new lockers, but I guess I’ll wait for this to come out.

Edit: if this was a good idea for walls, Skot Richards would have already been turning these out in his shop.

I've used one pretty extensively during the testing phase of its development. It's really a nice piece of gear. Certainly niche, and some people won't see the purpose but on bolted multi-pitch anchors it's been great. 

@Christian Hesch thats a fair point about Skots wall gear, though it seems like they don't do too much where EN/CE sorta ratings are more vital. Would be curious to hear Skot Richards thoughts. 

@NateC thanks for sharing! Any comments on @Erik J's thoughts about durability with the same spots seeing wear? 

As soon as they are in stock it would be cool to see it tested by HowNot2. 

Interesting that the instruction sheet tells you not to connect it to trad gear or ice screws.  Is BD now taking the position that anchor material has to be nylon unless all-bolt anchors are involved?

rgold wrote:

Interesting that the instruction sheet tells you not to connect it to trad gear or ice screws.  Is BD now taking the position that anchor material has to be nylon unless all-bolt anchors are involved?

I’m curious how this indicates that dyneema should only be used on bolts anchors and not gear? This image just seems to indicate that this specific piece of gear is for bolt anchors.