An oval carabiner was the first shape that was widely available to modern recreational climbers. However, carabiner design has changed a lot over the years, and now we have LOTS of different styles.

Does that mean the oval is obsolete? Nope! They’re great in certain applications.

Why are oval carabiners useful?

• Behaves nicely with boxy devices like a Petzl Tibloc or Micro Traxion, or a fixed gate pulley

• Perfect for racking stoppers. The stoppers rotate nicely around the oval end, and don't get jammed up like they can on a D shaped carabiner.

• Works well with a Grigri and other types of assisted braking devices (ABDs), generally avoiding cross loading.

• Tie a Munter hitch on them, and the hitch flips nicely back-and-forth. (That's right, you don't need a pear-shaped HMS carabiner for a Munter hitch.)

• Rotates through loaded anchors, pitons, clove hitches, and other attachment points; doing this can be a problem with some D / asymmetric carabiners.

• If ovals are three-way loaded, they retain almost full strength, (tested up to about a 60 degree angle), see video below.

• Great for aid climbing, when you often have more than one carabiner clipped to another.

• Works nicely as a top rope master point, using three snapgate ovals opposite and opposed. Functionally the same as two lockers, gives a nice smooth lower, and maybe puts the wear and tear on less expensive ovals instead of your more $$ locking carabiners. Here's how to set that up.

• Reasonably lightweight; about 60 grams.

• Fairly inexpensive, compared to other specialized lockers.