Quality soft shackle brands recommendation

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kcjaz said:
I watched this the other day. Yes, he used an amazon soft shackle and he put of through the clevis holes, which was a bad choice, but the first hard pull ripped his anchor point out of the Bronco. IMO, it wasn't the Amazon shackle that caused this. It actually performed pretty well given what it was asked to do. His real issue was more not understanding how stuck we really was combined with the guy pulling him out really sending it with a kinetic rope (that was also too high of a rating). After the first really hard pull, he should have stopped and assessed his situation and he says this in the video. This really could have been Bronco parts flying into the recovery vehicle.

The part that really makes me pause is that there was enough energy/momentum to send a soft shackle through a windshield. I have always thought about a soft shackle failure sending my Factor55 flat link back at me and wondered if deleting the flat link and just using the loop on the end of the winch line directly with a soft shackle might be better.
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This is what I run. No metal in my rigging unless I have to use a snatch block. Much safer.
Even if you have a failure (and that should be your winch line) everything should basically just drop, especially if you are using a line damper,
 
The current technology allows for secure no metal connections. I know recovery gear is expensive, but for less than $500 one can get everything to run soft, and reduce collateral damage risks to near zero.

The other big thing is making sure your hard points are up to the challenge. Otherwise your soft recovery gear investment is wasted when it pulls out the hitch or the tow point rips off and goes on a targeted destruction mission toward the rescue vehicle.
 
grinchy said:
The current technology allows for secure no metal connections. I know recovery gear is expensive, but for less than $500 one can get everything to run soft, and reduce collateral damage risks to near zero.

The other big thing is making sure your hard points are up to the challenge. Otherwise your soft recovery gear investment is wasted when it pulls out the hitch or the tow point rips off and goes on a targeted destruction mission toward the rescue vehicle.
Click to expand...
I’ll tell yah what, you can buy all the correct recovery gear you’ll need for almost any situation for the price of a set Rigid or Baja Design lights 😬
 
ga12r1 said:
Even if you have a failure (and that should be your winch line) everything should basically just drop, especially if you are using a line damper,
Click to expand...

I’ve seen video of a couple synthetic lines fail during heavy pulls and while it didn’t literally drop in place, it did absolutely nothing that could lead to damage. Contrasted with the tow truck driver that I watched pop a steel winch line doing something his truck was never built for.. that was ugly. Part of why they put headache racks on the flat-bed is to protect the cab from damage. It did that job in front of me.

Which is a good point in all of this about the video.. it was a kinetic rope that is designed to lessen the peak force the hardware sees, but also return some of that force later in an elastic manner. Hence, soft shackle right through a modern windshield.
 
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Based on these comments and statistics, anything can fail which has led me down a brief mental rabbit hole.

Opening your hood maybe not a bad idea?

Winch damper on kinetic rope?
 
Artie said:
Based on these comments and statistics, anything can fail which has led me down a brief mental rabbit hole.

Opening your hood maybe not a bad idea?

Winch damper on kinetic rope?
Click to expand...
As for me I’m not a big fan of opening the hood because I think visibility is key to safety.
And I prefer not to use a kintec rope. I’m always gonna winch unless there’s no other option.
I’ve used my winch a ton over the last few years. I probably use it everytime I go out and I go out a lot.
The biggest thing is to never get complacent. You have to always be vigilant. All recoveries are inherently dangerous.
Me and my crew try not to take ourselves too seriously and we joke around a lot on the trail. But if you ever want to see us deadly serious just check us out during a recovery 👍
 
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It ripped the recovery p
kcjaz said:
I watched this the other day. Yes, he used an amazon soft shackle and he put of through the clevis holes, which was a bad choice, but the first hard pull ripped his anchor point out of the Bronco. IMO, it wasn't the Amazon shackle that caused this. It actually performed pretty well given what it was asked to do. His real issue was more not understanding how stuck we really was combined with the guy pulling him out really sending it with a kinetic rope (that was also too high of a rating). After the first really hard pull, he should have stopped and assessed his situation and he says this in the video. This really could have been Bronco parts flying into the recovery vehicle.

The part that really makes me pause is that there was enough energy/momentum to send a soft shackle through a windshield. I have always thought about a soft shackle failure sending my Factor55 flat link back at me and wondered if deleting the flat link and just using the loop on the end of the winch line directly with a soft shackle might be better.
Click to expand...

bloc said:
Yes.
Click to expand...

I plan to bring some snap ring pliers to remove my winch shackle in the event I attach it to something with a soft shackle.

If it’s attached to a bowshackle on a recovery point, it still seems like a solid option.
 
highfructose said:
It ripped the recovery p




I plan to bring some snap ring pliers to remove my winch shackle in the event I attach it to something with a soft shackle.

If it’s attached to a bowshackle on a recovery point, it still seems like a solid option.
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Strange. I assume you’ve had a bad experience with soft shackles?
 
this was, imo, a combo of cheap shackle and misuse of the kinetic.
there is no circumstance where that rope should have hit hard enough to fail his recovery point.
after the first pull, he should have sent the stranger on his way and waited for his crew.
situation sucks either way and he was lucky.
i imagine that life flight bill will keep him humbled for a minute.
 
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winches are not "Fuses" - nor is any of your recovery equipment..

Do not buy anything that is meant to fail (Max tax sells a "Fuse" soft shackle.. for some reason) this is a really bad idea.

Winches should be sized at 1.5x your vehicles actual weight but get as close as possible.

Soft shackles are used when possible and hard shackles when necessary - you should carry both, or at least 1 hard shackle, I carry 2.

Everything needs to have a load rating clearly stated on it.. it it doesn't, don't use it..

Good brands all have load ratings on them..

Safe-Xtract ® | Defining Vehicle Recovery Standards

Safe-Xtract ® is an industry leader in Vehicle Recovery education and innovation, based in New Mexico, USA. Their vehicle experience ranges broadly from two wheels up to regular size SUVs and pick-ups, to larger military and civilian vehicles. They have extensive expertise in the engineering and...
www.safe-xtract.com www.safe-xtract.com

Recovery Rope : Snatch Rope : Up to 131,500 lb. Breaking Strength : Bubba Rope • Bubba Recovery Gear

Bubba Recovery Gear • Home of the original Power Stretch™ Bubba Rope® off-road recovery rope, a faster, smarter, safer way to get your truck unstuck.
www.bubbarope.com www.bubbarope.com

Green Pin® Bow Shackle SC - Green Pin

Green Pin® Bow Shackle SC - Standard bow shackle with screw collar pin ✓ Screw pin for quick (dis)assembly.
www.greenpin.com www.greenpin.com


There is no need for a flat link or anything like that on the end of a synthetic winch line rope..
It's just another failure point. and a waste of money.

a loop guard is a good idea but not needed really


I am using a Xeon 12, Safe Xtract Line (60'), Roller fairlead, and a F55 Loop guard.
I used it yesterday in fact..
My Kit...
2x Van Beast Green Pins, 4+ bubba and safe xtract soft shackles, 2X winch line extensions, tree strap (ARB), tow strap (ARB), a few other straps 2" and 3" from lifting companies, 2 Pulleys, and a safe extract X-Lock.

I also carry a Bubba Dynamic rope but that is seldom used as static extractions are by far the safer way to go.

IMG_3034.JPG
 
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ga12r1 said:
Strange. I assume you’ve had a bad experience with soft shackles?
Click to expand...
No.

But the closed aluminum shackle I have on the end of my winch is a serious chunk of metal that I wouldn’t want flying through the air…throwing a set of snap ring pliers into my bag of kit seems a reasonable precaution to be able to quickly remove the closed aluminum shackle from my winch line should the need/want arise.

it seems reasonable/safe to use a closed aluminum shackle on a winch line with a steel bowshackle attached to a (rated) steel recovery point (unless that recovery point is specifically designed for soft shackles)…

but attaching a closed aluminum winch shackle to a soft shackle and then attaching that soft shackle to a steel recovery point (rated or not), even if it’s designed for it, doesn’t seem as safe as just removing the closed aluminum winch shackle and merely using synthetic winch line then soft shackle then whatever one might attach to.

To be clear: my arb front recovery points aren’t designed for soft shackles…so I’d use a bowshackle on them…and if I were attaching a synthetic winch line to that bowshackle, I would use closed aluminum winch shackle…metal to metal…the line will break before the rated recovery point, bow shackle, or closed aluminum winch shackle.

If attaching to my rear recovery points, rated for soft shackles, I would potentially use a set of snap ring pliers to quickly remove a closed aluminum winch shackle and use a soft shackle directly attached to the synthetic winch cable…removing the chunk of metal that would fly through the air if the soft shackle gave out.

That being said:
To reiterate what others have said, it appears the recovery point, not soft shackle, is what failed in the video…

the recovery point seems to have been jerked off the car…hood up may have protected the driver…also merely using a winch and a snatch block or multiple snatch blocks may have been preferred…slow recovery with synthetic bits under pressure is safer when possible I think.
 
highfructose said:
To be clear: my arb front recovery points aren’t designed for soft shackles…so I’d use a bowshackle on them…and if I were attaching a synthetic winch line to that bowshackle, I would use closed aluminum winch shackle…metal to metal…the line will break before the rated recovery point, bow shackle, or closed aluminum winch shackle.
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Why can’t you use a soft shackle directly connected to a metal bow shackle?
 
rlynch356 said:
winches are not "Fuses" - nor is any of your recovery equipment..
Click to expand...

Great reply and good info.

I think I called my winch a “fuse” above and all I meant was I want all of my rigging/recovery gear (including anchor points) to be stronger than the max output of my winch. I want the winch to stop pulling (hit its max) before anything else breaks.

I am going to delete my flat link. I’ll carry it in my kit but I really now can’t see any situation when I’ll need it.
 
kcjaz said:
Why can’t you use a soft shackle directly connected to a metal bow shackle?
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No need, you are just doubling up failure points.. a quality, batch tested, Rated Bow shackle serves the same purpose as a soft shackle.


....But sometimes you need to do it, when for instance the Bow Shackle pin has rusted together and is unable to be removed... pretty common on Jeeps it seems when they leave them on the bumpers forever, and not one that I have dealt with has been an actual load rated lifting shackle, either. Most of the cheap off road type.

In that situation I would prefer a soft shackle attached to the rusted bow shackle if I have no other choice of anchor points on the truck.

Neither should be used in place of a pulley where appropriate. I have seen this done too, btw.. great way to destroy a winch line.

In no case would I try a Dynamic extraction using a shackle to shackle setup...

There is very little actual need for Dynamic extractions in civilian off road recovery's.
 
rlynch356 said:
No need, you are just doubling up failure points.. a quality, batch tested, Rated Bow shackle serves the same purpose as a soft shackle.


....But sometimes you need to do it, when for instance the Bow Shackle pin has rusted together and is unable to be removed... pretty common on Jeeps it seems when they leave them on the bumpers forever, and not one that I have dealt with has been an actual load rated lifting shackle, either. Most of the cheap off road type.

In that situation I would prefer a soft shackle attached to the rusted bow shackle if I have no other choice of anchor points on the truck.

Neither should be used in place of a pulley where appropriate. I have seen this done too, btw.. great way to destroy a winch line.

In no case would I try a Dynamic extraction using a shackle to shackle setup...

There is very little actual need for Dynamic extractions in civilian off road recovery's.
Click to expand...
Agreed. I understand all of that, now. I'm guilty of just copying what I've mostly seen others do. Mostly when I'm connecting to another rig that doesn't have soft shackle friendly recovery points, and they have a bow shackle already on their recovery point, I've been adding the soft shackle into the mix rather than removing the bow shackle, and reconnecting it through my flat link. Even better would be to simply run the bow shackle through the eye of the winch line directly and get rid of the flat link. What's funny is that when I originally installed my flat link, I recall wondering what the functional purpose of it was compared to just using a soft or bow shackle directly into the eye of the winch line. I should have wondered harder. Turns out, this is just like high school. If you are going to copy someone, copy the smart kid. The cool kids are not always too smart...
 
For those running a winch line w/o a hook or flat link (just the eye on the rope), are you still using the metal rope thimble or have you deleted that too. My existing Spydura Pro Synthetic rope would need to be cut and a loop spliced back in to take the thimble off. I'm not excited about doing that but in theory, that should be fine if done properly. Also not sure I can find a replacement winch rope w/o the thimble. I've seen extensions with soft loops on both ends but not replacement winch line, though I haven't looked hard for it.

Edit: The Safe Xtract Line (60'), linked above by @rlynch356 has a soft loop on the end. I think that answer's my question. Seems like the way to go. Still curious how many folks run this way.
 
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kcjaz said:
For those running a winch line w/o a hook or flat link (just the eye on the rope), are you still using the metal rope thimble or have you deleted that too. My existing Spydura Pro Synthetic rope would need to be cut and a loop spliced back in to take the thimble off. I'm not excited about doing that but in theory, that should be fine if done properly. Also not sure I can find a replacement winch rope w/o the thimble. I've seen extensions with soft loops on both ends but not replacement winch line, though I haven't looked hard for it.
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That thimble is there for a reason. The synthetic line needs the larger radius for full strength.

Buuba Rope makes a line with a non-metal thimble though and also a line with a soft shackle built in.
I run their line with the built in soft shackle:

Bubba Rope with built in soft shackle

Bubba Rope with non-metal thimble
 
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ga12r1 said:
That thimble is there for a reason. The syntactic line needs the larger radius for full strength.

Buuba Rope makes a line with a non-metal thimble though and also a line with a soft shackle built in.
I run their line with the biuilt in soft shackle:

Bubba Rope with built in soft shackle

Bubba Rope with non-metal thimble
Click to expand...
The Bubba rope with built in soft shackle is an interesting idea. Seems functional ideal.

I edited my post above with a reference to Safe Xtract Line. That doesn't seem to have any thimble but then, I'd assume is engineered/ rated appropriately. Modifying my existing Warn line is probably not a good idea.
 
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