CAMP Photon Wire Straight Gate

The Camp Photon wire gate carabiner is the lightest full size carabiner in the world and has an extremely large gate opening for easy clipping.

Review

The Camp Photon carabiner is amazingly light weighing in at 29 grams. It also has a one of the largest gate openings at 28mm for the straight gate and 29mm for the bent gate. I currently have 12 Photon Wire Bent Gate carabiners on the rope end of my quickdraws and they are noticeably lighter than the hotwires I replaced while still being easy to clip. There have been reports of the Photons having sticky gates but I haven’t had any issues after year and a half of use. 

Large Carabiner Overview

Full size carabiners have also come down in weight in the last few years. The lightweight carabiners with the largest gate opening are the following. The Camp Photon is the lightest at 29g and has a large gate opening. They are also reasonable priced and the straight gate comes in multiple colors.

The Wild Country Helium is award winning and one of the first carabiners to use I-beam construction to reduce weight. It is one of the most expensive carabiners out there. Finally, there are a few new carabiners from Cypher and ClimbX that have good specs and are affordably priced. With that said, I haven’t had any experience with either one.

• Camp Photon-straight   29g         $7.95     28mm   21/7/9 kN
• Camp Photon -bent       29g         $7.95     29mm   21/7/9 kN
• Wild Country Helium     33g         $13.50   27mm   24/7/10 kN
• ClimbX Ultra-straight     33g         $5.95     30mm   25/8/8 kN
• ClimbX Ultra-bent          33g         $5.95     33mm   25/8/8 kN
• Cypher Echo Wire          33g         $6.50     27mm   25/8/9 kN