Best quickdraws?

Hi,

i’ve been looking into getting some new quickdraws and i’m having a hard time choosing.

I’ve been eyeing the petzl spirit express (favourite) or the black diamond hybrid forge but i read some reviews talking about the petzl turning in the bolts and ending up cross-loaded.

any experiences and/ or tips and advice with these or other quickdraws?

I’m from Belgium and budget is not really a consideration, i mostly would like to find the best quickdraws for me and my small-ish hands.

much love! 

Edit: i only sportclimb at this moment with not really a multipitch interest (maybe a wall of 100m or something but nothing too crazy)

If your worried about cross loading, check out the climbing technology nimble evo pros. Hard to find in the u.s.

Evelien, please forgive me if what I say below is obvious to you. It may not be obvious to a beginner who is reading.

When people talk about buying quickdraws they are usually talking about the premade quickdraws which have a heavily bartacked, relatively short sling, aka a dogbone. This configuration works best on non-wandering, steep sport routes. I've never bought a pre-made quickdraw.  That is a relatively new marketing ploy.  Before that, everybody just bought a variety of sling lengths, some not bartacked at all, some partially bartacked, some fully bartacked, some short, some long, and put that together with whatever carabiners they preferred.  I still do exactly that because top biner, bottom biner and sling wear out at different rates, and because I grab the variety of draw I want for the place I'm at on the route, with rope drag and direction of travel as factors. I change my slings about every 6-8 years, usually the bottom biner wears out faster than that, the top biner could last much longer. You can also buy the rubber bottom gaskets as an accessory, if you want to add that for restriction of rotation on the bottom biner, which I do on some draws, not others, e.g the alpine draws have no rubber keepers.

IMHO, the circumstances where something gets crossloaded are mostly due to using the wrong quickdraw at the wrong spot - usually choosing something too short and too stiff - for the (non)steepness of the route, the direction of travel, and the way the biners lay on the rock, and the way the quickdraw has been placed relative to the direction of travel. You can see this happening at sport areas when people show up with a dozen identical stiff dogbone quickdraws as their sport rack, and end up with bad rope drag from any roof or deviation from a straight line.

I have small hands and I use Petzl Spirit on most of my top biners and Petzl Ange on the lowers. One of my draws has an Edelrid sliderlock biner for the bottom draw for places where a locker could be critical.

Petzl Spirit Express are my personal favorites. Burly, very satisfying to clip (and/or grab!). phylp phylp has some good points worth considering above. My solution is to carry about half short draws (11cm) and half longer versions (17cm) along with one or two (or more) alpine draws for when extension is needed… the exact combination will depend on the route.

P.S. I also have two draws dedicated for the anchor with one draw set up with lockers, the other without.  For rope side on these anchor draws, one has a steel locker and the other has one of those Edelrid Bulletproof thingies. 

If I could only buy one set for everything I would go with the Camp Dyon. 

GearLab does really solid and up-to-date reviews and comparisons for tons of climbing equipment. They really break it down factor by factor, which is nice: https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/topics/climbing/best-quickdraw

I personally use:

• Petzl Spirit Express: My go-to draws for sport climbing.  I love em.
• Edelrid Bulletproof Quickdraw: Nice to keep aluminum dust off the rope.  1 or 2 is nice, especially for the first draw.  I much prefer the Spirit's handling and weight though.
• DMM Chimera Quickdraw: For long multis where the weight of 15-20 draws becomes an annoyance on the harness.  These are very nice, but I think I would have preferred the Petzl Ange Finesse (S-L), but it's not worth replacing to me.

In my experience, DMM Alpha Sport quickdraws are the nicest draws out there — heavy but great clipping action. I have Petzl Spirits also but always find myself going for the DMMs.

Top tier, you won't regret - DMM or Petzl (any really, but top of the line are spirits and Alpha sport)

Mid tier - most brands with a beefy dogbone and solid gates

Low tier - you likely will wish for new ones - tiny dogbone and hook-nosed wiregate that will snag, small gate openings. 

All this depends on the type of climbing you do. I've written the above assuming you're doing primarily sport climbing at crags. 

Everyone upthread has great thoughts on this. 

As for crossloading, I think that has more to do with knowledge of orienting the draw based on the direction you're going on route more than individual quickdraw design. Any quickdraw can potentially get cross loaded (except the ones with the keepers Wes Farrar mentioned - very nice draws btw), if placed without a proper understanding of how the rope will interact with the bolt, the rock and the gate as you progress up the route and towards the anchor. 

If you are new to leading, definitely check out some videos on clipping and gate orientation for best usage of your new draws outdoors! Best of luck finding a set that fits your needs :)

Wild Country Proton.

Petzl spirits are popular for a reason. The new ones (with holes in them) are lighter than the last generation. Spirits are an excellent option, especially for pure sport climbing.

I have Camp Dyon Quickdraws. For me they are the easiest to clip of all carabiners and they are light enough for alpine climbing. The narrow nose profile helps in many situations.

I like four in 11cm and eight in 18cm. Camp's rope-side carabiner retention system is the best on the market. The middle size (width) dogbone the "sling stop KS" is the goldilocks option. The wide version is easier to grab but a little heavy (fine for sport climbing). The dyneema dogbones are super light, great for long approaches, big climbs, trad, and alpine climbing, but they twist to easily for hard sport.

For sport climbing having 2 to 4 quickdraws with Edelrid bulletproof carabiners rope-side is really nice. One for the first bolt, a directional if needed, and two for anchors. The steel inserts keep the rope clean and they last like 50x longer than aluminum carabiners. 

I’ve always considered the petzl spirits the gold standard for quickdraws.

I like Trango Reaction draws. The gate on the rope side feels good to clip imo. Don't know why they put the opposite of every other brand as far as which side carabiner is colorful vs neutral but you adjust to it. 

I also second the above opinions on Camp Dyon and DMM -- both good too

Petzl's are nice but I've only used them once and didn't prefer them over any of those others

For small hands I would suggest the DMM Chimera quickdraw. The biner is a bit smaller than full size, but not so small to make clipping difficult and has a nice open gate strength. They clip really well, even for kids, and have a snag-free nose. The dogbone is thin/lightweight, so if you want to be able to grab draws for working sport routes I'd suggest buying the Chimera 'biners individually and pairing with a Petzl Express, or other well shaped dogbone.

DMM alpha sports all day long. Love the clipping and dog bones. So good. I have shorter ones in the lime and longer ones in the red to make it easy to identify which I might need mid-climb. I haven't used anything I like more.

Dmm Alpha Sport or Petzl Spirits. Nothing else comes even close. 

DMM alpha sport, Wild Country Helium, petzl spirit are my favorites. Between the three - just depends on mood.

I’d probably go with the spirits for best all purpose draw. They’re pretty light and relatively durable and not too pricey. 

I have a full set of spirits which I won, they are super great draws. If I was buying new, I slightly prefer the DMM alphas and I prefer Camp Dyons over both the Sprits and alphas (and can typically be easier to find on sale, $105 for 6 at camp saver right now)