Climbing nut tools

Have a good story of a nut tool coming in clutch? We want to hear about it! Comment below! If you enjoyed best climbing nut tools, you might check out our other Climbing Content , or you might like one of these:. A California native, Grant worked as a climbing guide for many years before selling out and getting a "real" job.

He was once told by a nun that he looks like Justin Timberlake—the jury's still out on that one. He co-founded Adventure Protocol with his three brothers to share his love of climbing and adventuring.

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Integrated wiregate carabiner for easy carrying. Extremely thin design allows you to get into even the tiniest cracks. Stainless steel is incredibly strong and sturdy. Built in wrenches fit most common bolt sizes for tightening on the go. Attachment point functions as bottle opener. Pro tip: wrap the end in climbing tape for a softer striking surface.

Combining two useful tools in one but still under 3oz. Plastic piece covers knife blade when not in use to minimize risk of cutting hand. Rubber handle plus finger holes allow for more comfortable and controlled use. Strong steel while still being inexpensive and lightweight. Rounded striking surface for more comfortable use. Having a clip-in point is convenient and provides an ounce or so of weight savings since you don't need an additional carabiner to attach the tool to your harness.

Of the tools we tested, the BD Wiregate Nut Tool has the largest clip-in point, making it the easiest to attach it to or remove from your harness.

The Metolius Torque and Feather have smaller gates on their built-in biners, making them more finicky. The Pro Key also features an extendable keeper cord with an additional attachment point. If you're terrified of accidentally dropping your nut tool off the mountain, the keeper cord spells sweet relief. It has plenty of reach, so you can fully extend your arm with the tool while it remains safely tethered to you.

Our testers are evenly split between feeling that the cord is superfluous and annoying and never wanting to leave home without it. Anyone who has stood at the bottom of their first El Cap route with daisy chains, aiders, an assortment of hooks, and a double rack weighing them down knows the anxiety of the tangle factor.

Before you've dialed in your aid climbing skills turns out, it actually takes skills , you'll be cursing the tangled mass of webbing and hardware hanging off your tattered dehydrated body, and an 8-inch tool with a hook on the end doesn't help. So, predictably, the WC Pro Key may frustrate some users due to its keeper cord, which some see as just another thing for a carabiner to accidentally clip into or snag on. The tip of the hook on the Pro Key is pointy, which could create some discomfort or even injury if you took a whip and landed on it just right.

The Metolius tools are the shortest, most low-profile, and least likely to get tangled in your aid climbing rat's nest. A few nut tools have some distinguishing features that make them even more useful or are just gimmicky depending on your perspective. Besides the Pro Key and its keeper cord, there's the Metolius Torque with its built-in bolt tightening wrench, and the Camp USA Tool with its rubber-coated ergonomic handle.

The Camp USA Nut Tool's rubberized handle makes it easier and more comfortable to grip, but only in one orientation how you would hold an ice tool. We found that more often than not, we ended up holding the tool in different ways while we pounded on the end to free nuts that have been weighted.

Finally, the Metolius Torque has wrench sockets in four sizes for tightening bolts. Not only does this reduce the weight of the tool, it adds functionality to an already valuable little tool.

The Torque is many of our testers' go-to nut tool. All of the tools in our review are constructed from stainless steel, with the exception of the super-light Metolius Feather , which is aluminum and receives the lowest durability score.

You'll be hitting these tools over and over, and we feel like all of the steel tools are up to the task. We never managed to break any of the tools during our testing process. For the weight-conscious climber, the obvious choice is the Metolius Feather. Next is Torque 2. The heaviest tool is the Wild Country Pro Key. With the keeper cord, the Pro Key weighs 3.

GearLab is founded on the principle of honest, objective, reviews. Our experts test thousands of products each year using thoughtful test plans that bring out key performance differences between competing products.

And, to assure complete independence, we buy all the products we test ourselves. No cherry-picked units sent by manufacturers. No sponsored content. No ads. Just real, honest, side-by-side testing and comparison. Photo: Tino Villanueva. By Ian Nicholson and Matt Bento. Share this article:. Our Editors independently research, test, and rate the best products. We only make money if you purchase a product through our links, and we never accept free products from manufacturers.

Learn more. We took 5 of the best nut tools and tested them at cleaning a variety of cams and nut types in all sizes and over a broad spectrum of rock types. We compared their weight, durability, ability to clean a nut, ability to clean a cam, the comfort level while pounding on the nut tool with our hand.

We also looked at how nicely they ride on a harness and each tool's overall value. Whether you are climbing on granite, sandstone, or volcanic cracks, we have a recommendation for you. Top 5 Product Ratings. Displaying 1 - 5 of 5. Metolius Torque. Black Diamond Wiregate. Wild Country Pro Key. Metolius Feather. Show full specification details Hide full specification details. See all prices 3 found. Nut Cleaning Rounded end more comfortable for bashing with your palm.

Nut Cleaning 9. Larger hook good for cam triggers. See all prices 2 found. Nut Cleaning 8. Score Product Price Our Take Truly, the best reason to own a nut tool is so you can climb El Cap. Sometimes a nut tool is the only way you'll be able to retrieve a stopper that's been weighted by the leader. A nut tool or two can come in handy when cams walk into a crack and are unreachable.

The Trango Shark and the Camp tool will need an additional carabiner to clip to your harness, while the other 4 in our selection have built-in clipping points. A curved head can hook cam triggers and lobes or even fish out garbage from cracks.

It can also poke you in the leg in an unlikely, worst-case fall scenario.