The braking krab makes any descent much nicer - by making it much easier to feed the rope in thereby controlling the speed of descent :thumbsup: as well as giving you some additional braking.

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I started off using a stop with the local mining club.

I did more and more challenging holes until I ended up at Sim's Shaft, Wheal Gorland, which is over 200' with an exciting swing in. My chum used a new rope and didn't need to touch the handle of the stop. I used an old rope and found, rather alarmingly, nothing happened, no matter how hard I squeezed the handle....wait, I'll try and feed the rope through...nothing, nope, I'm stuck, yep stuc............aaaaaaaagghhhhh!!!! DOYNGG!!!

The whole descent was a combination of this stopping, dropping and bouncing around on the semi-static caving rope. By the time I got level with the shaft station and needed to lock off, it was red hot, so much so, I burned a shiny patch into my hand.

I went online and bought a Petzl Rack. Job done. It doesn't matter if I have 400ft of rope below me or 40. It is totally and utterly smooth. So much so that I don't have to focus so much on my descender and can note my surroundings, hazards, etc.

I would never ever use a stop and the only positive I can see about them is that they are small for going through gaps. Some other chums all use ID's and I've dabbled with these and if I needed something fiddly for horizontal fiddling and macrame style rigging, I'd buy one of these.

Aaaah, the old 'rack vs. Stop' debate.

I use a rack. It's been perfectly functional on pitches as diverse as 40' with rebelays and mud, to clean 450' with deviation and knot changeover.
The only problem I have is finding new bars for a 'well used' CS rack..... 😉

I am goiung to need some BIG reasons to swap to a Stop.

The braking krab makes any descent much nicer - by making it much easier to feed the rope in thereby controlling the speed of descent :thumbsup: as well as giving you some additional braking.

I'll chuck one on, but I think it'll be pitch and rope dependant as to whether it get's used.

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Have an old Caving Supplies rack and switched to a Stop+Freino about a year ago - found the CS rack a bit awkward for changeovers due to its length. Also the Stop can also be used to make a Z-rig, an emergency ascender or pully.

Had exactly the same problem on old ropes as you stuey, the rack is a hell of a lot smoother.