Crampon Metal Alloys - Compare and Contrast

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 sanguine 09 Feb 2021

Hello Forum,

Having finally retired my second set of Petzl Lynx front teeth and ordered my third set, just wondering about the different alloys used on different crampons. I have generally reserved these crampons for technical climbing on mixed and ice, and don't feel that I am any more or less violent than my partner who is using the older Grivel G20 crampon, yet his wear and tear rate seems slower; hence my thoughts.

Any knowledge here on the different alloys between these two crampons and their inherent properties?
 

Cheers in advance

 HeMa 09 Feb 2021
In reply to sanguine:

They do use different alloys, and some are more prone to wear than others.

But also the teeth profile/shape affects how much they wear, as does your preference on sharpening them and your climbing style (skid much?).

Can't comment on Lynx, as I haven't used Petzl in some time (had the orig. Darts, and still occasionally use 'em for drytoolin' and muckin' around). But for Grivel, I have both the Racing bolt-ons and G14s (which use the same). And now using BD Stingers as my daily driver.

The Grivels are considerable softer than the BD, and wear almost twice as fast. But aftermarket points (have had both Krukonogi and Kuzniaplezu sp?) seem a lot more robust... Kuznias are even cheaper than originals (for both BD and Grivel).


For the record, since your friend uses G20, not G20+ it has a non removable front-point.... so perhaps the alloy is stronger/harder, than what is used with 'poons that have changeable front points. 

 Mark Stevenson 09 Feb 2021
In reply to sanguine:

Short answer - I need new monos but despite various discussions with other climbers, I've not found any great concensus amongst them as regards durability. Hopefully some other replies might be more conclusive. 

Long answer... 

I don't climb particularly hard but I do have friends and acquaintances who climb far more and far harder than I ever will...

They mostly seem rather resigned to trashing picks and crampons at a fairly rapid rate of knots regardless of make/model and despite many years of experience or climbing at a high level. 

At least one well known (sponsored) climber is rather notorious for the abuse they give their (free) equipment. I'm not particularly gentle on my gear but that amount of force they'll use with their axes gives me pause for thought. 

Conversely, one friend climbs with (and rather envies!) an individual at the cutting edge of Scottish climbing who is well known for exceptional technique and somehow makes their gear last 3-4 times longer than. 

I'm pretty sure that the same applies at most grades. Technique and precision will always make far more difference than a slight difference in forging or heat treatment, but as soon as you climb regularly enough you just need to treat Winter gear is a consumable. 

I didn't do much harder stuff last year so I didn't need to buy a replacement for my second set of now blunt G20s but lots of mountaineering routes meant I pretty much trashed a pair of Air Techs within the season. I also finally killed off two Quarks that I'd been using for a while.

Whilst I've been happy with my G20s (by the time the front points are trashed, the rest of the crampons have also been pretty worn), I can't really offer any testimony about how they directly compare to anything else. 

In discussions over recent years with a view to replacing them, I haven't heard much evidence that any particular manufacturer is vastly better than another. About the only thing people seem to be relatively consistent about is that the aftermarket imported picks and front-points are at least as good as the originals.

Probably not that helpful and I'll be interested in what anyone else thinks. 

 HeMa 09 Feb 2021
In reply to Mark Stevenson:

I'm actually in full agreement with you. How long the gear lasts, depends on how you use it... and also what kind of terrain.

For nice, pure fat ice... you'll not really get any wear on your crampons (other than how often you sharpen them). To an extent the same also oddly applies to full on dry tooling (provided the route is not too hard). You place your feet carefully and keep them there (no skidding etc.). The front points don't really wear out that much.

Now head onto thin ice, with snow, turf and rock (so Scottish winter) and start climbing OS and/or ground-up. You don't always know how thick the ice, snow, or turf is, but you kick hard enough for it to stick so you can make progress... And if it is thin, you'll hit the rock and blunt the sharp point... you then sharpen it, and it again gets blunt -> you'll wear out the front points sooner.

Now, if you're a sponsored climber, you have less to worry about getting spares... heck a good sponsor will send you them in abundance for some good PR (social media, magazines, webzines, now FAs and so on). So you simply don't care and you can mis-treat the gear...

So in short, while some 'poons might use softer alloys. How and where you use the gear will most likely make a bigger impact, than the alloy. 

 Jeff Ingman 09 Feb 2021
In reply to HeMa:

I have experience of using grivel (G20 & Rambo 4) petzl (Dart) and the Kuznia Speju aftermarket stuff from Poland.  At a very basic level, Petzl stuff just about scratches Grivel stuff, so it's slightly harder. Kuznia easily scratches both of the others, and is the hardest that I've used.

Anecdotally, I've used one set of Kuznia fruitboot crampons since the start of November 2020 until now and I haven't yet touched them with a file. That is after about thirty or so dry tooling outings at Masson Lees and the other Matlock venues, all limestone, but the points are still very sharp.

I've been told that Krukonogi are the next level up, made from armour steel - but I've never used them myself.

 HeMa 09 Feb 2021
In reply to Jeff Ingman:

> I've been told that Krukonogi are the next level up, made from armour steel - but I've never used them myself.

Armor steel, is indeed a tad harder (especially when you try to sharpen them). But in all honestly, I'm really not sure that they are worth the price premium over Kuznias.

Berg-Steinle or something is supposed to be even tougher (at least for pics, the only one to survive without braking the abuse Dennis van den Hook did to them). But again, there's a price premium over Krukonogies...

But my grades and climbing is such that it really doesn't matter much. So I get the cheapos from Poland (both for 'poons and also for tools) and call it good.

For reference, I only get minigolf where I live.. so the climbing is like this:
vimeo.com/510194049


vimeo.com/304147831

vimeo.com/321432461

But even that beats out indoor bouldering...

Post edited at 14:09
 TobyA 09 Feb 2021
In reply to HeMa:

> But even that beats out indoor bouldering...

Is that on the wee crag by the church near my old house? If so there wasn't much ice in the normal place that season!

And to not move away from the thread totally, I used Terminators for over a decade for weekly ice climbing and some scratchy mixed - 3 to 5 month season I'd say. With my first pair I snapped the frame before I wore out the front points, but that's probably because I was lazy about sharpening them much. That never seemed to make much of difference on ice.

 HeMa 09 Feb 2021
In reply to TobyA:

Yes it was. And there was ice, but the normal pillar is just to the left of the frame. 


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