Load testing real trad gear placements

Michael Law has tested a collection of trad gear placements to see how solid 'real' placements are in real rock. He used a hydraulic piston to pull each placement until failure. Some of the results are quite surprising - with some very marginal looking placements taking surprising loads. He tests Camp Double nuts, a Wild Country Hex, an HB Quad Cam, a Camp Tricam, and a tied off chicken head.

This extremely marginal looking hex took around 14kN before failing:

Images from http://www.sanguma.org/destructo/result2.php

The anti cam by Matt Maddaloni - cam for large detached flakes

Matt Maddaloni designed and built an ingenious anti-cam in 2010. The anti-cam is designed to attach to large flakes by gripping to only the two sides of the flake itself (as opposed to the inside of the flake and wall). He documents some of the process on the rockclimbing forums

Image from  Matt Maddaloni  on rockclimbing forums 

There's also some vimeo clips of the process and of the antic-cam in use:

The Season Episode 9 from Duct Tape Then Beer on Vimeo.

The Season Episode 15 from Duct Tape Then Beer on Vimeo.

Other parts: http://vimeo.com/11641154 and http://vimeo.com/11745783