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Soft shackles and kinetic ropes

Dirtyjed

Dirtyjed

Samurai Ewok
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May 20, 2020
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Anyone ever had a soft shackle get cut and turn a kinetic rope into a missile?
Had a situation go down today and wondering if this is a common thing.
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Yikes man, everyone was alright though? I've heard of snapping kinetic ropes being able to do similar, but haven't heard of too many soft shackle failures (not that I'm exposed to recovery as much as a lot of you guys are these days)
 
A kinetic rope will absolutely become a missile if one end gets free under load. It's actually a design feature.

Any kind of sharp edge could take out a soft shackle in short order. What was the soft shackle connected to?
 
gt1guy said:
A kinetic rope will absolutely become a missile if one end gets free under load. It's actually a design feature.

Any kind of sharp edge could take out a soft shackle in short order. What was the soft shackle connected to?
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I think that is exactly the problem. Shackle was hooked to a point that's designed for a D ring
Over time it probably slivered enough of it that the shackle cut and full sent the rope.
I know I've found cuts/slivers in some and just throw them away or let my dog chew them.

The driver had to get choppered out because of a throat cut that wouldn't stop bleeding. He is good now with no permanent damage.

Definitely a lesson in knowing how to render aid and carrying a HAM.
 
I've watched a lot of people stick soft shackles through lugs meant for D rings and it's made me cringe. This reinforces me wanting me to be a dick about it when I see it. Thanks for sharing this and glad the driver is doing OK.

Although not a chunk of steel, that knot on the soft shackle still has some mass to it. :eek:
 
In a class, we put a load on 14mm rescue rope and put a knife to it. Just to see how easy it is, under tension to to cause it to shear. Any hard edge put a lot of stress on the fibers.
Also, how much force is generated when using a kinetic rope. Was the soft shackle large enough?
 
I dont understand the soft shackle craze at all. Significantly lighter duty than a steel shackle and obviously weaker than your rope.

If your useing the connetic rope as its intended you probably trippled the "load rating" on that shackle (aka piece of fucking rope) when the truck hit tension on the connetic and it did its thing.
 
total newb said:
I dont understand the soft shackle craze at all. Significantly lighter duty than a steel shackle and obviously weaker than your rope.

If your useing the connetic rope as its intended you probably trippled the "load rating" on that shackle (aka piece of fucking rope) when the truck hit tension on the connetic and it did its thing.
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I think they have their place. To me, the bigger thing I see is people backing up bumper to bumper and going like hell, generating unbelievable forces.

I teach backing up no more than 5’ and using a mild acceleration. Anything more than that is too risky.

The biggest advantage is connecting two straps together. But this pic shows the need to still use a winch line weight.
 
Too many variables involved for a simple yes or no.

My guess is the shackle had wear, was used wrong or was overloaded. Ropes, rigging and shackles (soft or hard) don’t fail when used as designed.
 
Yeah them and seatbelts :flipoff2:

I don't know why manufactors of the dring don't run a radius around the edge. I did a 3/4 on all mine on the crawler for the soft rocks.

I usually try and use a hard connection for yanks. But not always. Will have to check that in the future. That quite a smack!
 
Ooo, that is scary. Driver is okay?

Curious what the connection looked like to cause the break.
 
Hooligan said:
Ooo, that is scary. Driver is okay?

Curious what the connection looked like to cause the break.
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EE8C0454-1799-468D-BE10-472296C0E59E.jpeg

Looked like this afterward. Before it looked fine, had the sleeve on it and only had normal, very minor fraying. I was able to find this particular shackle online and it’s “rated” for 55,000 lbs breaking. I agree with te posts above, poor placement through a D-Ring connection on bumper followed by a massive, 10-15 ft head start on a pull full throttle.

Overloaded the rope, snapped the shackle and because the pull was so hard, created a much stronger then normal “snap back”. Causing it to go like a bullet through the window.

Also, the break occurred where the knot was and not at the sleeve where it had been placed through the bumper mount. I would hazard to guess the bumper mount didn’t cut it and the shackle just failed
 
Soft shackles are a wear/consumable item and need to be replaced regularly.

It is very likely that the snow stuck vehicle and kinetic strap exceeded the soft shackles rating. It is a little concerning that they give a failure rate but not a Working Load Limit (WLL.) The WLL may be quite low and every pull over the WLL is getting closer to failure and lowering the failure rate.
 
Not to mention the knot is supposed to be in the middle of the pull not at either end.

But ya putting on a sharp straight edge is retarded. Put thee bow shackle in the hole first and put soft shackle on bow shackle if you must use...

Last snow recovery on Matt's offroad shows him cut through 1 or 2 when wrapped around a trailer axle...
 
Dirtyjed said:
I think that is exactly the problem. Shackle was hooked to a point that's designed for a D ring
Over time it probably slivered enough of it that the shackle cut and full sent the rope.
I know I've found cuts/slivers in some and just throw them away or let my dog chew them.

The driver had to get choppered out because of a throat cut that wouldn't stop bleeding. He is good now with no permanent damage.

Definitely a lesson in knowing how to render aid and carrying a HAM.
Click to expand...

Sounds like the driver was very lucky to have you there. Well done Sir:beer:

Ya, padeyes are no place to put a soft shackle.....or rope...or anything other thing besides a shackle pin.


Weasel said:
Yeah them and seatbelts :flipoff2:

I don't know why manufactors of the dring don't run a radius around the edge. I did a 3/4 on all mine on the crawler for the soft rocks.

I usually try and use a hard connection for yanks. But not always. Will have to check that in the future. That quite a smack!
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While the radius is a great idea for eliminating cuts, there's still a major problem running soft shackles through a padeye.

Let me try to explain this so everyone can understand the problem. I'll probable fuck it up.

So, when we put a soft shackle through a padeye, at the padeye, it looks like the soft shackle is in a basket. Normally a basket doubles the lifting capacity of the rigging and a soft shackle is just a piece of rigging.

Here's where the major problem arises. the radius that the soft shackle has to follow around the padeye hole is so tight that it can no longer be considered a basket. The fibers on the outside of the soft shackle take all the load and the fibers on the inside (the part of it being squished against the padeye) see no load.

At that point it has to be looked at as a choker, but in fact it's even worse than a choker. Since there's no load charts to look at for these things, just how bad it actually is, is just a guess. But I'd bet you're down 80% of what it could handle being wrapped around a 2" tube.

And to top it all off, the other problem is that the other end of the soft strap is already a choker.

This applies to all rigging not just soft shackles. A 4"4ply strap in a basket around a roll bar should be considered a choker.
 
SLOWPOKE693 said:
And that's why I don't use soft shackles. They are and always will be a stupid idea that somehow caught on.....
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I saw them being used for the first time 3 years or so ago when I did a ride with some 'overlanders'

I thought at the time it seemed like a nice idea and worked well for the gentle ass pulling they were doing to get a Honda Ridgeline (not kidding) over small obstacles.

However I never bought one as I just didn't feel like they would be the right solution when shit gets real.

I also will not do the full throttle 10 foot running snatch as that always seems too fucking risky to me.

I'll use a snatch rope but I just let it slightly slack then give it a good tug, has always worked for me.
 
Winchested said:
But ya putting on a sharp straight edge is retarded. Put thee bow shackle in the hole first and put soft shackle on bow shackle if you must use...
Click to expand...
Or use the fucking bow shackle to connect to the kinetic rope. No need for the huge chain of potential fail points. Minimize the connections. No need to use a soft shackle to connect to a d ring mount. If you've got a shackle mount, you should be using a shackle. Imo, Soft shackles are for connecting to points, like tube chassis b pillar, where a bow shackle doesn't work.
 
How’d that fit into a D-ring mount? The d-ring is like what a 3/4” hole or less, the soft shackles have like a 2” knot at each end.
 
samy crawler said:
Or use the fucking bow shackle to connect to the kinetic rope. No need for the huge chain of potential fail points. Minimize the connections. No need to use a soft shackle to connect to a d ring mount. If you've got a shackle mount, you should be using a shackle. Imo, Soft shackles are for connecting to points, like tube chassis b pillar, where a bow shackle doesn't work.
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I do agree. But there are plenty of posers/ idiots who leave their bow shackles on their bumpers year round and the bastards are rust locked in lol.
That's only why I suggested using the soft on the bow shackle.

I've got a few soft shackles but only use them for snatch rings or winching.
 
Dirtyjed said:
I think that is exactly the problem. Shackle was hooked to a point that's designed for a D ring
Over time it probably slivered enough of it that the shackle cut and full sent the rope.
I know I've found cuts/slivers in some and just throw them away or let my dog chew them.

The driver had to get choppered out because of a throat cut that wouldn't stop bleeding. He is good now with no permanent damage.

Definitely a lesson in knowing how to render aid and carrying a HAM.
Click to expand...

Wow.

Crazy accident, glad to hear the driver is ok.
 
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You guys saying no more than 5' of slack have obviously never done much deep snow wheeling. Lots of times, just light bumps do nothing and will sometimes make it worse.

If the soft shackle really was in good shape before hand, it's definitely a weird chain of events. How many times did they try to pull them out like that before it failed?

Did he actually have the sleeve through the eye on the bumper? Because judging by the Pic, it looks like he just got the loop end of the shackle through the bumper eye enough to put the knot though.

Soft shackles are just like anything, if you're retarded, they suck. Use them properly and they're great. Personally, I carry both. I've used soft shackles a ton and like them a lot.

I've never used a kinetic rope personally, mostly cause $$$, I've heard some guys say they don't work well for snow because they don't hit hard enough.

It's weird to me that the end of the rope was heavy and hard enough to go through a windshield. +1 for regular tow straps I guess?
 
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