UKH

Hi All!

I am thinking of doing a few hard roped scrambling routes this coming season and want to ask what is the best length for dyneema slings used for natural protection (rock features, tree trunks..)

Can I get away with 60cm or is it better to have something longer and half it when necessary?

Best

I've always found 120cm the most useful size 

60cm is the diameter of the sling so that doesn't usually equate to a very big tree trunk or rock. If the sling is too big you can shorten it. If the sling is too small you'll not be able to use that tree or rock for protection. 

I reckon 120cm will likely be at lot more use.  For very big trees or rocks you may even need a 240cm.  

You can use a 60cm sling on a 60cm feature.

You can use a 120cm sling on a 120cm or a 60cm feature.

You can use a 240cm sling on a 240cm, 120cm or 60cm feature. 

You can always make a sling smaller but you can't make it bigger. 

Thanks PaulJepson! Does thickness of sling matter?

Thanks Fiona!

Does sling thickness make a difference in practical use? I see options for 11 and 20mm all rated with the same breaking load.

Depends! 

Where are you going, what's your budget, what are your intentions going forward?

If you'll just be doing a bit of scrambling and mountaineering then you might want to save yourself some money and get nylon slings (chunky, hard-wearing, cheaper, but bulky). If you want to potentially get into climbing then climbers tend to prefer dyneema now as they carry a lot of stuff (thinner and lighter but more expensive). There are other more niche options for slings like the mammut magic sling, which is supposed to be way more abrasion resistant and is more rigid or the Edilrid Aramid slings, which have similar properties but their rigidity lends them to threading or lassoing well. 

Slings will have different thicknesses depending on the material but they are usually rated to an industry standard of 22kn. Nylon isn't as strong as dyneema so has to be thicker to make this rating. Thinner slings will usually wear out faster but out of the box will typically be the same strength as the thicker ones. 

Rock & Run do some deals on multi-packs of DMM slings. A good place to start might be a 3 pack of 120cm and a 240cm dyneema. 

See Paul's response 😀

Nominally, you'd want wider if you're using it on trees, as it'll spread the load on the bark better, but that only really applies if you load it - and with a longer sling, you can use more turns to spread the load anyway.

Narrow ones will fit through smaller holes if you find a thread you can use.

I've always carried a couple each of 60cm and 120cm, mostly 11ish mm - although I think an 8mm one has now crept in. Haven't carried a 20mm sling in decades.

I've got a couple of 240cm x 11mm slings reserved for belay anchors.

I agree with the others re: lengthh. If I were heading into Ogwen, for example, with the idea of doing some good scrambling, I would go with 1 x 240 cm and 3 x 120cm. The bigger one would be for slinging chunky blocks for a belay or creating belays when the anchors are a bit spread apart and I want to keep leading through. The smaller ones for pretty much everything else. Depending on various factors, I might also take something like 4 x 60cm slings as sling draws, with carabiners.

If you have some spare cash, the Edelrid Aramid sling is great for natural threads, easy to tie/untie and very durable, so I would get one of those. I wouldn't bother with nylon slings, myself: I prefer 10- 12 mm dyneema as it's very light and very tough. In my view, nylon ones are just chunkier, heavier, harder to thread, harder to handle and quickly look furry. Those are just my opinions though, and you know what they say about opinions...

If anyone starts on here about nylon slings being "dynamic" or "stretchy", or starts rambling about dyneema melting, do ignore them because they're just recycling what amounts to very little beyond urban legend.

Enjoy your scrambles!

60cm is roughly the length of the sling stretched out, ie it's made from 120cm of material. 

Agreed on 120com being the most useful.

You're right, that's what I meant length not diameter. Apologies, dunno why I said diameter - was about to head out for a run and brain was already half way out the door, oops.

For belays do not forget the walk round the tree/Boulder option, so cannot see a 240 being of much use 

Generally, what will do more will do less, therfore 120s.

No, it‘s not - it‘s the approximate length of the sling if it‘s attached to 2 krabs and pulled into a straight line. If you arranged the effectively 120cm of material used in a 60 cm sling (sewn overlap ignored) into a circle, then its diameter would be ca. 38cm (120/Pi)

I know that, I've already been corrected and apologised for using the wrong word. Apologies once again. 

I always have to check, there's also the whole metric/imperial can of worms!

Ah ok sorry, I´d missed that - hope you had a good run!

I gave you a dislike. It's a public Internet forum! Wheres the denial, the arguments over minutia? But no, you gave a commendable, reasonable and honest answer accepting your minor mistake with grace.  I'd give a thumbs up but I am not sure of how to do so with grammatical correctness. 

top marks you. 

smiley face, smiley face. 

Plus the added complication - for older readers, at least - that back when sewn webbing slings and 'Troll' were pretty much synonymous, the 2ft [60cm] ones were called 4ft and the the 4ft [120cm] were called 8ft. Fortunately 240cm didn't appear to be a thing at the time; that would have been almost as long as a rope!

EXCUSE ME! Never mind "Wheres the denial" - where's the apostrophe? [We'll overlook the minutia/minutiae thing, for now, on the basis that one can argue over detail as well as details - although either, maybe, should take the accusative form. Mutter.]

I almost mentioned that, but 4' and 8' slings should be museum pieces these days

I did have a longer one made from some tape off the reel tied with a tape knot.

I think I still have a couple of bits of the tubular webbing with the interlocking purple and green "T" pattern kicking around in the garage - most recently used for attaching some guy lines to the kids swing in the garden.

Basket

But then if you compress that same circle so that it becomes an oval with sides pretty much touching along the length - ending up approx 60cm long - would that inner measure not still technically be a diameter?

No: half the circumference.

The elipse will have many diameters....is defined as the distance between two parallel tangents...the important diameters are the longest (long diameter) and shortest ones (for a circle the diameters are (all) the same so no descriptor is needed and you get THE diameter).

I'm not as experienced as many others that have responded, but in my mind the slightly thicker furrier materials grip better to rock than slim sick ones.

Furrier material is never going to counteract the upward force that may be applied to the sling by the rope. The only way to help prevent that - if there’s a risk - is a heavier krab/s, or placing a nut in some way to hold it.

Troll Supertape blue.. was a winner

Fuzzy slings are an important part of the rack on the Elbe sandstone. It‘s not about resisting an upwards force; the fuzziness grips the coarse-grained rock and on more rounded features it prevents the sling from riding outwards due to the natural swinging movements of the sling when you continue the pitch. Probably not much good on limestone, but the rougher the rock, the better they are.

They got taken off the market in Germany recently, something to do with UIAA/CE norms, but you could still get fuzzy tape from the reel under the counter for a while and the locals filled their rucksacks; fuzzy slings can be damn useful in certain specific and not infrequently occurring situations.

Sounds like the underrated virtue of woolly jumpers when struggling for the elephant’s @rse gritstone topout. 

That’s interesting. I didn’t know anything about that.

Found a pic of a perfect fuzzy sling placement (note how the load-bearing strands are at the back, where the rock will be strongest, and that they are being held in place by the secondary loop which will have been wrapped tightly and can be relied upon to stay in place, thanks to the fuzz):

PS it wasn‘t until I entered my apprenticeship under Tony&Sarah (Whitehouse) of this parish that my eyes were opened to the multiple protection possibilities on the Elbe sandstone (no metal protection allowed). Before, I‘d just have cranked on the jug and climbed blithely and ignorantly on, solely on the lookout for threads and v-shaped cracks for knotted rope slings, similar to nut placements.

Probably obvious but slings can be joined to make them longer, eg girth hitch or square knot (probably my  terminology wrong  here) at the expense of strength but almost certainly still adequate,or more simply a krab if available.

Yes but then you need 2 of them

I do say this as someone who pretty much only carrys a 240cm sling if I'm block-leading a multi-pitch. 120cm are for sure the most useful length but a 240cm will do anything and there are a few occasions where it is the only option. There have been times where I've had to chain hexes and shorter slings around trees because I didn't have a 240cm sling.

There is also the possibility of using a snake/rabbit type sling ie single strand with a loop in each end, eg 110 cm which can be used full length, halved with both ends  clipped together, or "girth hitched" around a natural thread etc. However a single snake sling can only be used full length to extend something else.

I've carried a homemade one of 1 inch tape with overhands each end but personally found standard slings more useful unless I'd run out of long slings for extensions.