Outdoor Gear Lab

Unlike Black Diamond, which seems to have a different draw for every day of the week, Petzl has stuck to manufacturing two for many years now: the Spirit Express and the lightweight Ange Finesse (not reviewed here). Their decision to make another sport-specific draw might just challenge the popularity of its ubiquitous Spirit Express. The Djinn Axess is a great, though heavy, sport climbing draw that should stand up to the wear and tear that bolts and repeated top roping will dish out to..." go to full review

The Wild Country Nitro uses a slightly bent wire gate that is one of the easiest to clip. It was a solid performer in nearly all our tests. It is one of the easier carabiners to handle due to it's friendly size and featured spine that makes it easy to grip. Yet despite its generous size, it is still pretty light...." go to full review

The bottom biner on the Black Diamond LiveWire Quickdraw is great to clip due to the wiregate, ridge on the spine, and deep basket at the bottom of the biner. The ridge gives a nice catch for your thumb or index finger to grip the carabiner. The deep basket means you can clip a lot of ropes and slings into this biner. It scored high is most other categories. The old version of this product had a notch on the bottom wire gate carabiner that easily got snagged when cleaning steep routes. When..." go to full review

The Wild Country Helium is the Aston Martin of quickdraws; smooth and sleek, and really expensive. It's not the absolute lightest draw on the market, but it still keeps the weight down while using full-size carabiners that are stronger than the typical smaller carabiners found on lightweight gear. Its "Clean Wire" carabiners bring the best of keylock and wiregate design to your rack, and it won't ever snag on your gear or rope. If you want the best product around for long..." go to full review

No one draw can have every feature or be best at everything, but when it comes to sport climbing, our Editors' Choice winning Petzl Spirit Express is our hands down favorite. It clips and unclips better than most other draws that we tested, and the ease of grabbing can't be beat. They are not the lightest draw, but the updated model shaves some ounces off your rack and wont weigh you down as much when you go for that hard on-sight attempt. They are on the expensive side, but we..." go to full review

This is ideal for climbers who want to save weight and bulk. It is ideal for alpine rock climbs, but we also enjoyed using them on Yosemite trad climbs and big walls. It is not an ideal sport climbing biner because it is so small and tricky to handle. That said, we like the Metolius FS Mini Quickdraw for alpine rock climbs or anytime you want to save on weight and bulk.go to full review

The CAMP Nano 23 is one of the lightest full strength carabiners on the market. CAMP likens using lightweight gear to giving your rack an enema. We could take that analogy one step further, and say that while it might lighten you up, you probably won't enjoy the process. Our testers found it hard to clip and unclip, and you wouldn't want to use these with gloves on or at an anchor. All that being said, if you are looking for the lightest possible climbing rack (and aren't into..." go to full review

Ovals are great for top roping or any situation where smooth rope pull is needed. It's not a bad idea to buy four to six of them when you first start climbing because they are cheap and you can learn the old school "carabiner brake rappel."..." go to full review

These work fairly well in just about any application, whether it's big wall climbing, trad climbing, or sport climbing (though we wouldn't recommend them on overhanging routes since they lack a snag-free design). They are especially awesome for alpine rock climbing where you want to be as light as possible for those monster approaches. On a big wall they will dramatically reduce the weight of your rack, especially if you are still using oval biners!..." go to full review

There is nothing wrong with the CAMP Orbit carabiner, but nothing great about it either. It performed well in all our tests and categories, but at the end of the day, it just fell a little flat. With all of the exciting biner innovations out there, even from CAMP's other products like the Photon Wire, it feels like the Orbit's design is phoned in a little...." go to full review