>>2327780Glad you found it useful.
I was also using another method yesterday: brake down, grasp above your brake hand with your other hand, then walk your original hand up to near the belay device - essentially just walking your hands up alternately. Useful maybe where your movement is limited, or if you're feeling lazy.
I've removed the paint from the cam lobes of my c4's, to make them more like wild country or DMM who does this on purpose - because raw aluminum has better friction on rock. This is especially important on c4's which have a higher camming angle than many.
I'm also experimenting with tricams to make them stick better. My hypothesis is that if you sharpen the fulcrum, then it will stick better in the rock. This would explain why the smaller tricams bite better - because their fulcrum is sharper and hence the metal compresses a little bit more to seat it more. If you've ever seen those Russian abalakov cams, they have a sharper fulcrum than tricams. If i remove metal from the bottom of the tricam fulcrum (the face with the slight curve), then the cam angle will only decrease. That will also improve the sticking power. I wouldn't want to increase the cam angle at all. The downside is i could create a tricam that can't be unseated after a fall.
Picrel: left new mammut, vs a bunch of other slings used about the same amount. Mammut definitely shows more wear but still very usable at this point. How not 2 highline did some informative break tests, plus you really don't need 22 kn - i mean, your pro will break before that.
