Wild Country Xenon Lite Quickdraw Review
Reviewed by Jon Griffith
Quickdraws have always been the very last thing on my rack to get replaced. The very little money that I can afford to allocate for new gear tends to get swallowed up very quickly with other more important items such as ropes, ice screws, and other necessary gear. For some reason quickdraws have never really needed replacing in my eyes as how much more innovation and improvement can you really put in to them? Over the last 5 years it seems that the reply is “a lot”. My previous set of QDs were a set of heavy DMMs which whilst they were fine for cragging they weren’t ideal for the Alps. Not that I am slagging DMM equipment off as I did get the cheapest there was available, but here I am 5 years later with a new set of impossibly light quickdraws (65 grams!) thinking “how on earth did they do that?”
I have to be honest and say that I was a little worried about these draws because of their size. They are slightly smaller than a standard size and I thought that this would be a problem in the alpine environment with thick gloves on. I was also worried that the head size would be too small to clip into badly orientated bolts (yes that’s right if I see a bolt in the alps I use it!) and that the force of a fall would cause the head to snap (imagine a bolt orientated horizontally instead of vertically and you might see what I mean). Of course after 40 years of production you would expect the designers at WC to have thought of this and many other variables that I havnt and therefore it wasn’t a problem.
As you might expect from a superlight QD it comes with a superlight sling- at 10mm wide they perfectly complement the lightweight biners at both ends without compromising on strength. In addition those clever WC people have sewn in a rubber ‘Tadpole’ into the rope clipping end of sling meaning that your rope clipping biner won’t move and thus avoids cross loading completely. I know its not exactly a new innovation but in a QD which is trying at all costs to shave on weight and promote itself as one of the lightest QD in the world its good to see that they didn’t put marketing over design in a further bid to impress you with its lightweight appeal (something that gear companies do alot these days). Rated at 22kn these slings wont let you down. They come in lengths of 10cm, 15cm, and 20cm so there you can use them on all occasions.
As for the wiregate I have to say that I was impressed with the clean action and I have yet to catch my glove in it (something that happened quite a bit with my last set). From comparing the two, the Xenon has (as they call it) a hooded nose shape which makes clipping a lot easier (I cant really explain why, it just does). In addition the small metal tooth (see photo to understand!) on the Xenon is rounded and very small which would probably explain why I have yet to catch anything on it- in comparison my last QDs had a much larger catching area and was more pointed instead of rounded. The Xenon is also, as you would expect, a strong karabiner rated at 24kn closed gate and 7kn cross and open gate. The tadpole will help avoid a cross gate scenario anyway.
One of the things I really like about this QD is the way it racks on my harness. I often find myself with too many things hanging off me and if you add the fact I always have a camera hanging off my hip belt you can imagine that It can get a little hectic down there. A set of 5 Xenon Lite QD just sit so perfectly its ridiculous. They slide up to each other and take up almost no space- this is due to the smaller heads, thinner karabiner, and the thinner slings between them. In contrast my last QDs are much bigger due to a lager head and full size 20mm sling. Ok it might sound like I’m being very picky here but at the end of the day 5 of my last QDs took up quite a bit of space on my gear loop and they didn’t fit snugly together whilst these new Xenon Lite QD take up less than 2/3rds of the space (honest!). The tadpoles also are a great help in this case too as when the bottom biner is able to move about they can often get a bit tangled with one another if you are jostling them about.
Conclusion
Well as you might have noticed I’ve been impressed by the upgrade in my rack and especially appreciate the saving in weight in the Alpine environment. I think what’s also great about these QDs is that they are very well priced. Here is a top of the line QD that is only £10.99! (Needle Sports) I would have been expecting this to be pushing into the £15+ category which automatically excludes it from your average climber. In addition you can buy them in sets of 5 which will save you between 5-10%. Even better is you can buy a ‘Trad set’ which offers 2×10cm, 1×15cm, and 2×20cm so you aren’t forced to buy 5 of the same lengths to get a discount.
Be aware though that the karabiner are slightly smaller than full size and some people may find this a little disconcerting. The karabiner is still very strong and uses the tried and tested ‘I Beam’ construction but some people may prefer the full size. I havnt found it a problem even with thick gloves on, so do be too worried about it.
At the end of the day they aren’t the absolute cheapest quickdraw and if you want to save a couple of pounds per draw and only go cragging then so be it, but if you want to enjoy a major upgrade in quality and lightweight ingenuity then a couple of extra pounds is not a lot to pay for it.
