Black Diamond Oz Quickdraw Review

Posted by Joe Dobson on 9th Sep 2010

I've had these for around a year now and they're been used in all disciplines of climbing. They're been up countless Gritstone routes, placed while being scared in Pembroke and placed blindly in the depths of Scottish winter. One of the main things I like about this quickdraw is just how light it is! I can hardly feel a full rack of 12 of them on my harness. Hence I don't mind taking all 12 of them even on short routes as they hadly make a difference. They are a top notch draw for mountain routes because of this.

On the down side there are a few things that I dislike about them, they a rather small karabiner (just a smidge smaller then a DMM Spectre) . But I have used them with thick winter gloves on and had no problems but I know some people struggle with the new style small biners we're seeing more of these days. Another things is that they only come in 12cm lengths, I'e had to replace 10 of my quickdraws with longer slings (I used DMM 18cm slings http://www.rockrun.com/products/DMM-Dyneema-Sling-11mm-x-18cm.html). The last problem is that they have no 'clean' nose so they can get snagged on wires and when stripping sport routes (but they aren't really for that).

All in all i highly recommend this quickdraw for everything except sport climbing and maybe winter if you don't get along with the size.