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Who the heck is making Amsteel tethers and Amsteel prussic combos and selling them on FB???

SETX hunter said:
Sorry man, I didn’t realize I was talking to a bonafied hillbilly bad@$$ who can climb trees without a fort AND fight with his bare hands. That changes everything. Obviously you’re right - if you can do those 2 things without being scared, then it makes sense you will never fall out of a tree and snap a piece of amsteel with your body weight. That is unless you wanted to, because I’m sure if needed you could break amsteel with your bare hands too.


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At the risk of all things ridiculous, because again I do not use amsteel for my tether and do not recommend using it, however if he is using amsteel that is 3/16” or larger, he would have to generate over 3000 lbs of force to break it (I’m subtracting strength for the girth hitch to the tree which reduced rope strength by around 45% and 3/16” amsteel breaks at 5400 lbs. Your body can only tolerate about 1800 lbs of force before you sustain life altering injuries or death. This is well documented. What I am getting at is he if he falls hard enough to generate a dynamical shock high enough to break amsteel, then his body has given out and he would most likely be dead even if a fall did not occur. This is why keeping the slack out of your system is the single most important thing you can do when using a fall restraint harness to hunt. I say fall restraint because saddles aren’t designed to arrest a fall, they are designed to keep the fall from occurring. It’s up to you to use it correctly
 
SETX hunter said:
Sorry man, I didn’t realize I was talking to a bonafied hillbilly bad@$$ who can climb trees without a fort AND fight with his bare hands. That changes everything. Obviously you’re right - if you can do those 2 things without being scared, then it makes sense you will never fall out of a tree and snap a piece of amsteel with your body weight. That is unless you wanted to, because I’m sure if needed you could break amsteel with your bare hands too.


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Just add drink wisky strait and have babies.and you just described my little sister
 
a few years have passed. Has anybody had a failure or seen excessive wear climbing with Amsteel bridge/tether/lineman’s? I’ve been using it for a lineman’s belt and backup tether, curious about others’ experience.
 
Bigterp said:
Unknown, there have been injuries & 1 saddle related death I know of. But this thread was more PSA about using amsteel as life support out of specs.
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and I think its a great discussion to be had.. We all use things outside manufacturers recommendations. I have been using Amsteel, and envision continuing to use it in a backup function, but am curious especially as its usage seems to be increasing exponentially if anyone has some cautionary experiences.
Additional background, when I get to hunting height, I've been using a second bridge, attached to a second tether, because I'm probably overly cautious, but also because on long sits I find I lose focus and until it becomes more second nature I prefer to know I have to screw up twice, or dissimilar materials have to fail simultaneously before I fall out of the tree. And since I'm carrying a lineman's up with me to get around branches(but actually use it as a tether-personal preference), the only extra gear is an extra bridge attached to the lineman loops(weighing essentially nothing). So I was sort of asking myself yesterday whether my backup bridge should be something other than amsteel if anyone has noticed unacceptable wear under constant (/lateral) load, abrasion, etc. I'm a small guy, so it may take longer to notice in my use than others.
 
kstetar said:
and I think its a great discussion to be had.. We all use things outside manufacturers recommendations. I have been using Amsteel, and envision continuing to use it in a backup function, but am curious especially as its usage seems to be increasing exponentially if anyone has some cautionary experiences.
Additional background, when I get to hunting height, I've been using a second bridge, attached to a second tether, because I'm probably overly cautious, but also because on long sits I find I lose focus and until it becomes more second nature I prefer to know I have to screw up twice, or dissimilar materials have to fail simultaneously before I fall out of the tree. And since I'm carrying a lineman's up with me to get around branches(but actually use it as a tether-personal preference), the only extra gear is an extra bridge attached to the lineman loops(weighing essentially nothing). So I was sort of asking myself yesterday whether my backup bridge should be something other than amsteel if anyone has noticed unacceptable wear under constant (/lateral) load, abrasion, etc. I'm a small guy, so it may take longer to notice in my use than others.
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The reason why amsteel is so popular is that it is strong, cheap, and you can make nice looking DIY stuff because it's so easy to splice.

The downside is that if all parts of your chain to the tree (your tether and your bridge) are both amsteel, then you have a close to zero stretch system. This isn't a good idea if you take a spill. First, your body and the saddle will take all of the force. Second, the instantaneous force when the tether/bridge tries to stop you all at once will be high enough that the dyneema can break.

Check out drop tests where a nylon sling with a lower rating takes a drop easily while the statically stronger dyneema breaks.
 
raisins said:
The reason why amsteel is so popular is that it is strong, cheap, and you can make nice looking DIY stuff because it's so easy to splice.

The downside is that if all parts of your chain to the tree (your tether and your bridge) are both amsteel, then you have a close to zero stretch system. This isn't a good idea if you take a spill. First, your body and the saddle will take all of the force. Second, the instantaneous force when the tether/bridge tries to stop you all at once will be high enough that the dyneema can break.

Check out drop tests where a nylon sling with a lower rating takes a drop easily while the statically stronger dyneema breaks.
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Well yes, because its strong, low elasticity, and high toughness + light, small and easy to work with. And because of its construction, visually identifying wear is also easier than most things we climb with. Aside from that, they show breaking strength actually increases in cold rather than decreasing which is good for hunting, but low heat tolerance means its not good as a rappel rope. Nylon is strong, but has a fairly high elasticity which is not ideal in saddle hunting, and as a result has high toughness. To me, the point of saddle hunting is you're creating a situation where you dont have a fall of more than a few inches at a time, so I struggle with these comments of breaking it from falling. I'm more interested in any abnormal wear observed because of its construction vs other ropes.
 
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