Hunter Campbell sent us some old corroded cave gear and we pulled it till it snapped. It's interesting how gear left inside of the earth will get so gnarly. I'd expect that for any non stainless steel, but the aluminum is what is the most interesting. There is also a surprising amount of home made gear in caves and it was nice to test some of that too.
OUR RESULTS
The Camp 22 rated for 21kN broke at 15kN. The blue carabiner rated for 21kN broke at 20kN. The omega rated for 31kN broke at 29kN. The other omegas broke at 26kN and 27kN. The Black Diamond carabiner rated for 24kN broke at 26kN. And the unknown 23kN carabiner broke at 25kN. The Petzl D Link rated at 15kN broke at 22kN
The homemade hangers broke crazy low. The normal looking one broke respectably at 23kN but the others broke at 7kN and 10kN which is way too low for a hanger. And the weird titanium one had such a small bolt that the bolt snapped at 10kN.
Read the bolting bible at https://www.hownot2.com/boltingbible
Behind the Scenes
I couldn't make it to the lab when John was in town, so Bobby met up with him and broke our last bit of cave to do list. These carabiners and old hangers were sitting around for a year because we did the video below and then got really busy with the drop tower and the Dano project and moving out of state. It's nice to have a handful of old gear tested just as a rough idea on what stuff does over time.
Check out the other stuff we broke from Hunter that he found in a cave.
