Recovery gear rating range all over the place

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Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by kurl » 13 Dec 2016, 2:28 pm

Hi guys,

Just curious about this really as it makes no sense to me. The load ratings of recovery gear is spread out like a dogs breakfast when you look everything companies offer together.

It's more or less the same across different brands but I'll use ARB as an example. This is their line up of recovery gear and the things ratings.

(All converted to kg, off point but annoying how people rate half their gear in kg and half in lbs :thumbsdown: )

Winches: 4,309 kg, 4,535 kg and 5,443 kg options

Tree protector: 12,000 kg

Snatch strap: 8,000 kg

Snatch blocks: 7,000 kg and 9,000 kg options

Winch extension straps: 4,500 kg and 8,000 kg options

Shackles: 4,750 kg and 3,250 kg options.

Basically nothing lines up with anything else, not by a long shot.:unknown:

The obvious questions are, to just use one combination as an example, what good is a 12 tonne tree protector when nothing else even comes close to it, by at least a 3 tonne gap if not more.

I won't list them all but you could come up with half a dozen different recovery situations combining different equipment and in all of them one of the pieces of equipment is going to have several tonnes less capacity making the additional strength of everything else connected useless.

I'm not expecting everything be perfectly matches to the kilo, but that extra strength doesn't come for free. For any of it to be stronger you need more steel or material which means more weight. Seems like so much waste.

Hope that makes sense :mrgreen:
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by Pom » 13 Dec 2016, 3:26 pm

If I remember rightly the load rating for a shackle is 1/6th of it's failure point. So a 4,750kg shackle will actually fail closer to 28 tonnes.

Obviously 28 tonnes is hugely excessive for the amount of weight you're talking about when recovering a 4WD.

Technically they could make the shackle a lot smaller and it would still be suitably strong, but it needs to be a practical size too. It doesn't really matter what load it can take if it's too small to fit straps through and you don't want to design something that's so small or fiddly it's a pain in the ass to use.

I would say when it came to the shackles they just made one in a practical size, not highly focusing on the load rating because it was obviously going to be more than enough. The number that ended up on the shackle was probably a little co-incidental.

That would be my guess.

I'll leave the rest to the expert guys :thumbsup:
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by RealNick » 14 Dec 2016, 1:30 pm

There are 30 tonne snatch straps on ebay that are being marketed and sold as being for 4WD recovery.

30 tonne! You'd rip your car in half before the strap broken :lol:
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by VICHunter » 14 Dec 2016, 3:13 pm

Too hard and not really much point making them all even.

Just make an easy to use product and test it to failure. Stick a rating on it.

Higher number is some good marketing.
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by Baronvonrort » 14 Dec 2016, 3:43 pm

Pom wrote:If I remember rightly the load rating for a shackle is 1/6th of it's failure point. So a 4,750kg shackle will actually fail closer to 28 tonnes.



The pin will bend well before breaking load making it a real bitch to undo and do up.
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by on_one_wheel » 14 Dec 2016, 3:55 pm

RealNick wrote:There are 30 tonne snatch straps on ebay that are being marketed and sold as being for 4WD recovery.

30 tonne! You'd rip your car in half before the strap broken :lol:


I found this article when deciding which size snatch strap to buy. Its definitely worth a read.

Heres a short paragraph;

HOW STRONG DOES YOUR SNATCH STRAP NEED TO BE
We’ve been concerned for some time at the trend towards stronger and stronger snatch straps, because we felt that elasticity, not ultimate breaking strain, was the key to successful snatch strap performance. We’ve also long suspected that the loads involved in snatch strap recovery aren’t as great as most people seem to think. But how to test these hypotheses?
Here's the whole article......................
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&sour ... Anm15cTesg
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by AusTac » 14 Dec 2016, 4:40 pm

A mate and i both bought recovery kits a while back, and out comes thw snatch straps for a recovery, and once done we were like that was harsh! Turns out the strap was an 11 tonne rated lol for a landy disco and a jeep, waaaaay over kill
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by Blackened » 15 Dec 2016, 10:52 am

on_one_wheel wrote:We’ve also long suspected that the loads involved in snatch strap recovery aren’t as great as most people seem to think. But how to test these hypotheses?


To add some data to that:

I couldn't find it off hand but a video has been posted here before of TJM testing their straps with a load cell, snatching out a laden dual cab which is axle deep in the mud and towing a full size camper trailer.

In repeated testing the peak load is about 3,200kg.

Anyone telling you that you need 10t, 15t or stronger gear for standard four-wheel-riving recoveries is pulling your leg.

Variations aside, on average it seems like most brands are aiming for around the 8,000 rating mark. This is plenty.
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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by Blackened » 15 Dec 2016, 10:54 am

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Re: Recovery gear rating range all over the place

Post by crush » 16 Dec 2016, 3:39 pm

RealNick wrote:30 tonne! You'd rip your car in half before the strap broken :lol:


Literally.

I know ARB rate their winch bars for 9500lbs, about 4,300kg.

Frankly without doing something really stupid how could you ever get anywhere near as stuck as you've have to be to need 10, 20 or 30 tonne of pull?

The TJM video and on_one_wheel's article show how stupid it is.
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