Breaking Flaky Carabiners that have been in a cave only 10 years!

Ooh. Oh, gosh. Caves are so aggressive on gear. I just got a box of goodies of stuff that was found deep in a cave, and we are going to brake test all of them to find out. Here, let's see if we can just do the episode really fast. No, it didn't break yet. So we're gonna put it in the brake test machine and see what they break up. I have never seen a carabiner look like this. Hi, I'm Ryan Jinks, and welcome to my lab, where we are going to brake test some of the gnarliest cave gear I personally have ever seen. Hunter Campbell has been projecting a cave in the southern tip of Antarctica, and they've been pulling this gear out, and it was super gross and dirty before they sent it to me. But now we have, I think, 14 samples that we're gonna brake test today, and we're gonna get right into it. But first, let me show you the Instagram posts that I did just two hours ago, and the comments in it are hilarious. I just asked people what they thought these specific things would break at because they look like croissants. Some of my favorite comments were, Sammy K, bitch, is a solid 12 pounds right there. And then a bunch of people think it's gonna break anywhere between 12 kilonewtons in full strength. Some people don't think it's gonna break above one. And Joey Avalanche, I honestly thought that was a piece of wood at first glance. Pushkaraj1995 said, try pulling it with your hands. You might be the first person to break a carabiner with hands. Tupac Runs, 420 gigawatts. Birkeglglgl said, wood whip. Ivan Lawrence, do a side-by-side break with an actual weak old croissant. And I like what Elmanoloco said. He thinks that there's still a solid core in this carabiner. That top looks really, really, really bad, but inside is being protected by this outer layer. We're gonna find out. I personally wouldn't wanna be using these, especially because the gates, they like kinda open and then stay open. And that, you lose, I mean, more than half your strength right there. So in the cave that Hunter Campo pulled these out of, it has silica in the mud, AKA liquid sandpaper. And so it's super rough on all the gear, including their personal gear, which will just wear it down really quickly. But aluminum, or non-stainless steel, just corrodes really fast. It gets rusty, it goes bad. And even aluminum, as we can see here, is a problem. So our first test is these two quickdraws that are 10 years in the cave. They are Trengo brand. Their breaking strength is 22 kilonewtons. And we are going to pull it just the way they are right now. And whatever breaks first, we will then break the second item. Now, Hunter thinks that the dog bone might be fine. It hasn't seen any UV light. And we don't know if just being wet for 10 years is a problem. But the carabiners, well, besides what's obviously a problem, what I think is that the gates, because they don't work well, and I don't think the notch is going to grab the gate, I actually think they're gonna break really, really low. And in that case, you're, in best case scenario, going to get seven kilonewtons with an open gate on a carabiner instead of the 22 that it's rated for. And I still don't even know how much this exfoliation of the aluminum is going to affect this. So nine kilonewtons and 12 kilonewtons. And it's interesting that this broke before this. Now, you can see here, this pin is intact. And you can still see that there is a lip here for it to grab. But on this one, when it broke lower, you can see that that pin just wouldn't grab the notch and it broke. But then in our second test, kind of did the exact same thing when it was like nine, I think 12 and 15. And you can see here, the metal is still pretty solid on the inside and the outside is the part that's corroding. But it just shocked me that it broke the same. I can't believe that these dog bones weren't stronger considering they're rated for 22 kilonewtons and they had no UV light. Now, of course, I don't know if they were old before they even went in. Still, I'm quite shocked. Maybe the sand gets inside the fibers and just micro cuts them. Who knows? Put that in the comments below. Let's get to the next one. Now, samples three and four are pretty bad. They don't have the croissant thing going for them nearly as much as the first two. And these are Metolius quick draws at a 22 kilonewton MBS. And we're going to try to keep the gates as closed as much as possible. And we're going to pull and find out if the carabiner breaks before the dog bones. The dog bones do feel like they're in pretty good shape. I would assume I'm going to get full strength out of these. And if I had to guess, these carabiners are going to break maybe at 50%. So I feel like I'm putting mummies back together when I put these carabiners, trying to shape them. You can see that the pin came off this backside here. Yes, there's a lot of metal when you're looking inside of this thing, but there's some areas that are pretty important that are pretty thin. And these dog bones actually perform better than the last samples, up to 15 kilonewtons. And I was shocked how low one of these broke. But technically, if you're just repelling, they're still not breaking at what you're repelling at. So I definitely wouldn't want to use these if I didn't have to. Samples five, six, and seven are Kong Bonetti oval old style carabiners. And this one's super interesting because it's rated in kilograms, 2,250 kilograms of force in order to break it in this orientation. Now, it's interesting that these have more of like pitting happening more than the croissant thing, even though this one gate has a lot of croissantness. Croissantness is an official scientific word, by the way. And yeah, it looks like it was more chipped away by hammer than it was just flaking apart. So yeah, these are, I wouldn't necessarily trust these. Well, for 22 kilonewtons, we got, I think, 16, 12, and nine. Yeah, it's lower than I thought, but they're just not as corroded the same. You can see a lot of solid metal is in there. I think I wonder how much of it has to do with, that's probably what it is. Yeah, I noticed it'll snap when the gate opens up and then when the spine fully stretches apart and finishes, they all have this part of the graph here. Before I show you samples eight and nine, check out Cave Exploration Society. They're giving 5% off. If you use the how not to affiliate link in the description below, that really helps me out. I try to get you guys discounts and I appreciate Hunter for donating these, but it takes a lot to make an episode like this since we're trying to make the edits better and tighter. So please donate at PayPal or Patreon and the link will be in the description below. So samples eight and nine, the gates don't quite open very good, but they do operate, no, actually they're terrible. It's just, they are not as pitted as the other stuff and they definitely don't have a croissant thing going for them. But these are just black diamond carabiners that have an 18 kilonewton MBS error seven with the gate open. A fun fact is these have only been under the ground for three years instead of 10 like the previous samples. Wow, it flew all the way out here. Gnarly. 17 and 20 kilonewtons is way more impressive considering I thought these were going to be worse. But as you can see, the metal inside is mostly there, except when it comes to this nose. As soon as that nose breaks, the gate's no longer engaged. Hmm. For our 10th sample, we have Omega's oldest carabiner here and the twist lock on the gate doesn't move at all. This has been underground for 10 years. I cannot read the MBS because it's completely disintegrated. And when I open the gate, it stays open. Would not whip. Wow, I guess cave goo makes them stronger. 28 kilonewtons. Would consider whipping if it was my only option. I do think the corrosion on the outside of this is what protects the inside, but I'm not a metallurgist. That is amazing. Our 11th sample is Omega Pacific's middle-aged locker here, and this had a ton of ooze. A lot of the carabiners collect ooze over time as part of their corrosion process. Read the comments below. Hit a thumbs up on any comment that has a lot of value so it ends up being bumped as the top. There's a lot of people that'll contribute a lot of information about why all this happens down below. This is the carabiner that Kyle was snorting the ooze off of to test for psychotropic compounds. Kyle is still chipping his sack off, only recommended for those seeking Hero doses. I thought that was really funny what Hunter wrote about that photo. But yeah, this was super oozy, super gooey, but it doesn't have the flakes like the other stuff. The gate seems to work just fine, but the twisting action isn't there. It's just seized shut. I didn't see the thing that bends right there, so it was a complete break all at the same time. That's an interesting little mark on the graph. Let's go to the next one. And we got our strongest one yet at 29.68. Now this one did lock, and as you can see inside, it basically completely broke the nose and then broke the spine. Our 13th sample is a little groovy. A giant groove in this hanger from the liquid sandpaper that's in this cave. Those caves in Antarctica. This is not a zinc-plated hanger. This is a stainless steel hanger from Fix, and it was attached with stainless steel quick link. And it just, caves are so gnarly on this stuff, but the quick link, rubbing back and forth, I think from being on a hand line, wore through this because of the silica and the mud. And so, what has it been? Since 2004 is what the note said, so about 17 years. I bet you, if it wasn't for that groove, this would break at full strength because it doesn't feel like anything is corroding into the metal. It feels like it's all a surface issue. But that groove's an issue. Well, 20 is impressive, and so is our little hanger adapter. It usually breaks around 30 plus, technically, but, or even more. I've actually had these things break above 40, but it broke 20. And for our 14th test, we have a treasure they found that's been underground for about 10 years. And this is a Fifi hook for when you're aid climbing, it's attached to you and you can clip into things temporarily. And it looks really corroded. But I don't know what our normal Fifi hook breaks at other than the one that I straightened out. Oh my gosh. I guess I do know how strong a Fifi hook is. I took a, not a factor two, maybe a factor two on this Fifi hook. I was top-stepping, slipped, and just shock-loaded my Fifi. I went, swoop, and it straightened out. But that's, that just triggered a memory. Sorry about that. Let's just find out how strong this guy is. Mm, it broke there where the metal is thinnest. Imagine that. And that is the metal inside of the surface corrosion. Well, that technically should be around 20 kilonewtons. And it wasn't. Crazy. Well, after those tests, I have to vacuum my test bed now. I've got flaky aluminum everywhere. I hope I, I hope it's not poisonous. Anyways, I'm shocked they didn't break lower. I bet everybody on Instagram is gonna be shocked they didn't break lower. But you don't put that much force on when you're repelling. So if you were in a bind and a pickle, yeah, these ones could have been used. I can't say that about all old beaners. But I wanna know what you think. People are gonna probably leave a lot of interesting comments below on why stuff is doing what it's doing, including the goo. So you're gonna learn just as much from the comments as you are from this video. Let me know if you like this style, because we're trying to compress everything tighter and still include the context and the results and the backstory. So thank you, Hunter Campbell, for hooking us up with all that yucky stuff. And head over to John Fiorni's Cave Exploration Society, because even if you climb, he's got a ton of static ropes, climbing gear in there, but they are cavers, and it's a nonprofit that helps them go do cave expeditions. That's the way they raise money, is by selling gear. And they were so nice to give us an affiliate link and you a discount of 5%. So if you watched all the way through and this really helped you out and you've binge watched all the other videos, please spot us 20 bucks. This video took five hours just to film and about 12 hours to edit. But 100% of the donations go back to this channel, and I'm even using a microphone. I wanna make these episodes exactly the way you want to see them. Speaking of episodes, we've got a couple more that you can go check out, and we'll see you in the next video.