Anyone had a chance to play with these?

MSR Camring tensioners

I saw them at a local shop and was interested by the design. Curious if you get the same performance from a plastic line-lock device.

Edited by adamallstar on 04/30/2012 12:40:40 MDT.

I have not used them, but I have made and tested similar things.

They don't hold very well under a gusting wind. There is very little bend in the string, and nothing to stop them slipping when the tension goes off slightly. For that matter, I doubt they would hold at high tension either.

Good things for transferring a bit more of your wallet to the shop, and increasing your pack weight.

Try using a taut-line hitch instead. Zero cost, zero weight.

Cheers

At a price of $10 for a set of 4, I had a feeling the only thing loosening up would have the grip I had on my wallet. Glad I held off on purchasing them, thanks for the advise!

Yeah, I've never used them, so they cant possibly work. They are probably just a gimmick like line locks. Besides tautlines are easy to tie, especially when you have gloves on, because the weather is bad. But then again you are probably in the US, so the weather will be good, even eaier to tie with no gloves.

To the OP, if you are interested in advice that is grounded in reality, and has a leg to stand on, try asking your question some place besides BPL.

"To the OP, if you are interested in advice that is grounded in reality, and has a leg to stand on, try asking your question some place besides BPL."

Nasty Boy.

"To the OP, if you are interested in advice that is grounded in reality, and has a leg to stand on, try asking your question some place besides BPL."

What prompts all this vitriol, Josh? Seriously, what has gotten under your skin?

i think they look pretty cool and may try them some day. i love tying knots and am pretty good at it, but there can advantages to being able to quickly rig and unrig tarps. i only do mulitple large tarps base camping and canoe camping. the nite ize figure 9s work very well and are just like a truckers hitch, but are much easier. i dont see that these would provide 2x mechanical advantage, so these would not be as good for a ridgeline.

Can certainly sympathize with your sentiments, Josh. Every time I go to look for information on a piece of gear, I come across the epinions claiming that that gear is: badly designed, won't work, looks funny, clashes with their feng shui, etc. Recent example that comes to my mind is just about every thread I have read that mentions the MLD Cricket tent/tarp (used to be Solo Trailstar) has most people proclaiming it unworthy of using in any weather other than sunshine.

That being said, I saw those camrings a while ago at REI, they looked like a cool option, but they were quite expensive for just 4 of them.

Edited by afterburner2020 on 05/01/2012 18:50:30 MDT.

Got a ring tightener & mini plastic snap hooks in the same package with some MSR tent cord. Tried one on my Moment but I like my plastic mini cord tensioners that came with the Moment. The MSR tensioners are not as fast to release and I don't quite trust their holding ability. Probably they WILL hold fine or MSR would not have put them on the market.

** IMHO these aluminum ring tensioners can freeze up with ice much "worse" than the mini plastic tensioners Tarptent and some others use. Time will tell. But they are ducedly clever anyway.

Edited by Danepacker on 05/01/2012 21:15:38 MDT.

After spending $10 to try and help settle this dispute..........I went to work collecting data......I first tried a tautline knot on the 1.8 mm line provided by MRS.........It was easy to tie and it held solidly and could not be budged.......The knot would however be a challenge in cold weather or when wearing gloves.......The MSR tensioners have specific rigging instructions and they were rock solid and easy to work......with a slight change to the rigging instructions, the tensioners were rendered useless......Like Josh, I prefer opinions from people that have actually put their hands on a product......on the other hand, Roger has great knowledge about backpacking and all should try a tautline knot on your tent guylines.......The MSR tensioners (4) and 50' of line weigh 1.2 oz. with the 4 tensioners weighing .2 oz........The commonly used (by many of us) plastic cam tensioners are prone to slip especially with small diameter guylines and with "slicker" spectra and dyneema cordage......I think this MSR set of cordage and tensioners are worth a look......but make sure and learn Roger's tautline knot.......it's solid......hope I don't get busted by REI should I later decide to return my purchase......

"Like Josh, I prefer opinions from people that have actually put their hands on a product.."

Plus 1 on this statement.

Thanks for the testing and reporting.

I've used them, but only once so far, in drizzly but windless conditions, so I can't tell you how well they hold in windy conditions. I was curious about them, and don't really like wrestling with knots, so I bought some to try out. I put two of them on some 2 mm line I had sitting around. I'm not sure what the line is made of, but it isn't slippery. I don't think these rings would work as well on a slippery line, but they were very easy to use and held very well on the non-slippery line.

The rest of my lines came with my tent when I bought it second-hand, and they have rectangular plastic tensioners on them. Those work well enough but I find them cumbersome to adjust, since they don't really slide. I like the MSR Cam Rings much better, and will probably replace the plastic tensioners with them (as well as replacing the lines themselves with better stuff).