DMM Rhino Belay Carabiner

In the past few years there have been a lot of new belay carabiners coming onto the market. Most of the new technology has been focused on preventing accidental cross-loading during the belay. DMM has come up with a pleasantly simple way to prevent the carabiner from rotating when using devices like a GriGri or pulley. Chris Rowlands from DMM told us all about their Rhino belay carabiner at Outdoor Retailer.

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The excitement for this carabiner actually comes from what it lacks. There’s no extra wires or metal or plastic to complicate the belaying experience for any level of climber. The carabiner looks pretty much like most large (belay) biners with a few subtle but profound differences.

As the Rhino name implies, it is super strong, and it has a horn. The horn prevents mechanical devices from rotating on the carabiner causing cross-loading, creating an elegant solution for use with brake-assist devices like the GriGri. The horn adds no hinderance when using an ATC style device so this could be your go-to belay biner if you use both types of devices. Note: If you’re looking to ensure no cross-loading while using your ATC, then you’ll have to look elsewhere.

DMM made the smart decision to hot-forge this baby so they could take weight away from the spine and transfer that material to make the top of the carabiner super strong and rope friendly. Where the rope runs you’ll find fat round stock, that will help prevent kinking and make it easier to take in or pay out rope. The other main stress point, where the carabiner contacts the harness has a specialized shape to sit properly in the belay loop, a great feature for a belay specific carabiner.

As with most lockers, you can get a few different gate styles: a screw gate, dual auto-locking (DMM’s name: quicklock), and triple auto-locking (DMM’s name: locksafe).

As of November 1st, 2013, the Rhino hasn’t hit US stores yet, but if you need a new belay biner now, check out WeighMyRack’s carabiner page to narrow your choices from over 500 different carabiners on the market.