I am in the midst of 'building' my first trad rack and I am thinking about adding a set of BD or DMM brass stoppers. I mostly climb the granite at the City of Rocks, basalt, and some gneiss in the Tetons.
Thus far, out of my set of alloy BD stoppers, I have been using the smaller sizes(#6-#4) more than the larger nuts.
Would adding a set of the smaller brass fellas be worth it?

Thanks for the help.

Are they worth it - / probably not. are they glorious - ? absolutely! feeling them take inspires confidence like few other pieces do, and they are truly marvelous for aid of course. But generations of others have likely climbed the same routes that you will long before these came along, and they'd likely be just more weight. That's a California climber talking; i'd chime out more opinions from locals climbing the specific formations you have in mind: maybe they're the Silver Bullet for some types of rock/routes besides aid. The DB Offset Micros have an excellent reputation as well

The more you climb the more you will buy "specialized" gear. Yesterday I decided to take them up a short pitch cause I thought they might come in handy. Turned out I was out of large cams when I topped out and was very glad I had the brass offsets for the anchor, although another #2,3, or 4 C4 would have worked also as would hexes, but I left my hexes in the pack at the base and I left my partners larger cams so I didn't have doubles.

For the most part I don't cary them, but when I do I am normaly glad I did.

For about 20 years I carried and still do (much less now), set of RPs.

If/when you hit a section of very thin crack, or the cracks just peter out, or nothing but very thin cracks are available, thin brass nuts are sometime what can keep you from running it out without any pro at all.

I keep a set (5) of them on the back loop of my harness when I'm in the terrain that I don't know anything about, just in case. It saved my hide a few times.

The brass nuts are specialty gear, so you don't need them on every climb, but when you do a route that has little or no information available, or venturing into unclimbed terrain, having a set of these as well as the two smallest Lowe Balls is very,very useful.

asmrz wrote:For about 20 years I carried and still do (much less now), set of RPs.

If/when you hit a section of very thin crack, or the cracks just peter out, or nothing but very thin cracks are available, thin brass nuts are sometime what can keep you from running it out without any pro at all.

I keep a set (5) of them on the back loop of my harness when I'm in the terrain that I don't know anything about, just in case. It saved my hide a few times.

The brass nuts are specialty gear, so you don't need them on every climb, but when you do a route that has little or no information available, or venturing into unclimbed terrain, having a set of these as well as the two smallest Lowe Balls is very,very useful.

I agree. Not "necessary".....but nice to have. I'll carry a few copperheads as well....but I don't recomend falling on those.

asmrz wrote:For about 20 years I carried and still do (much less now), set of RPs.

If/when you hit a section of very thin crack, or the cracks just peter out, or nothing but very thin cracks are available, thin brass nuts are sometime what can keep you from running it out without any pro at all.

I keep a set (5) of them on the back loop of my harness when I'm in the terrain that I don't know anything about, just in case. It saved my hide a few times.

The brass nuts are specialty gear, so you don't need them on every climb, but when you do a route that has little or no information available, or venturing into unclimbed terrain, having a set of these as well as the two smallest Lowe Balls is very,very useful.

That is good to know, asmrz, and I appreciate your input.
Thanks to everybody else who participated in this thread, also-I would normally post a 'Thank you' for your contributions, but SP isn't letting me do that now, for whatever reason?


Anyway, thanks again!