Wild Country Rock On Wire

Does the job as a piece of passive protection, just as any of the rocks on the market. Overall these are well made, light, and handy in that they are a slightly different shape to the DMM Wallnuts, so work well in conjunction with them as a second set of nuts. The coloured anodising, which I originally thought was a gimmick, I now find quite helpful, especially when I've already placed a lot of gear and my rack is starting to get a bit thin - I can see at a glance whether the size I want is still there or if I've already placed it. The only thing which stops me giving these a 5-star rating is that the new ones seem to have less friction between the wire and the nut itself, so that while it's on the harness the nut drifts from the end of the wire to about half-way along it. This means that a) you have to drag it up to the end of the wire (with your teeth if you've only got one hand free) before you place it, and b) when seconding you can't use the wire to lift it out of its placement, so you have to get a nut-key on it. Of course this problem's not insoluble, some tape just below the nut should hold it in place, it's just that it's such a trivial thing to get wrong in the first place.

An excellent set of nuts, they can either be used on their own on short pitches. e. g. , gritstone, or in combination with a second set for longer pitches. Once you get used to the colours, they do speed up finding the right size, as you want to quickly grab the Rock that is 'smaller than the blue'. Personally I like having a 1-11 set of WC Rocks on one side, and 1-11 DMM Wallnuts on the other side. The shapes are different enough to give you plenty of placement options. I haven't tried the sizes bigger than 11, which seem quite well covered by hexes (or cams). Nick Smith, UKClimbing. com

Perfect set of nuts! They are light, well designed and fit perfectly in a huge selection of cracks. They are colour coded with DMM's Wallnuts so I tend to rack a the small Wallnuts and Rock's on one crab, the medium on another, and the larger on a third. The price is a good bit steeper than the older classic rocks, but for the weight saving and the colour coding with the Wallnuts I would say the extra is worth it unless you are just starting out!

Before I purchased my set of nuts, I read a lot of reviews that compared DMM and WC nuts, and a lot of reviews mention the different shape profile. Rather than echoing those reviews/articles, I would like to add that WC rocks 2 and 3 apparently have a higher kN rating than their DMM equivalent (9+11 vs 12+12) and being relatively new to leading, I find that reassuring (even if in reality this represents a negligible difference) The colours are cool (although I havent been climbing long enough to comment on how necessary this is), they seem to seat well, and I/my partners havent had any more problems retrieving these nuts over other brands.

I need to add to my collection for occasional outdoor climbing. This is a reasonably priced item for the low level climbing I am likely to be doing.

The wild Country Rock on wire is a tried and tested product. In the upper sizes (particularly 11 to 14) the long and narrow profile is definitely very helpful and aids the nut 'sitting' into place better than shorter, plumperalternatives. The hollow section is also a bonus saving considerable weight and also give better purchase with your fingers for placing and removing the nut. The anodising is helpful but I would have preferred to have the colours to be replicated on the swaging area as well - hence only 4 stars out of five. I add matching coloured tape of my own to the swaging area to make up for this so it is possible to overcome this little flaw with very little effort. At the larger end of the size range the placement of the Rocks can be a bit awkward as they can 'wave' around a little on the wire but generally I find them easier than the equivalent sizes in hexes (a size 14 rock is similar in size to a size 8 or 9 BD Hexcentric which uses much softer wire and can be very hard to work with) anddefinitely prefer wire based passive protection as you have better control over final'setting' of a the placement; an added bonus is that you can place gear higher in a crack if you really have to. On most long and multi-pitchtrad routes from Diff to E3 in the Highlands I find them invaluable.

DMM is always my first stop when it comes to protection, but with the extended size range of the Wild Country Rocks On Wire they are hard to better. Colour coded for size range and slick to place. Great value for money, quality kit.