DMM Alpha Sport Quickdraw Review

The DMM Alpha Sport comes with dual keylocking hot forged carabiners. The bottom carabiner has an ultra-bent gate with a distinct notch for easy clipping. The smaller sized sling that we tested (12cm) weighs 3.8 ounces, and it also comes in 18 and 25cm sling lengths. This draw retails for $27, making it one of the more expensive options in our review.

Performance Comparison

We loved using Alpha Sport while sport climbing. It clips like a dream, and is easy to handle and grab.

Ease of Clipping

The gate on the bottom carabiner has a unique shape to it. It's "extra" bent, with almost a notch for the rope to fit onto. This helps you find the sweet sot for clipping every time, and it pops into the carabiner with ease.

When you're stretching to your max to make the clip, you don't want to blow it with a misfire. The bottom carabiner has a significant curve which helps you land it in the right spot and clip it fast.

Ease of Unclipping

The Alpha Sport was also a cinch to unclip. The keylocking bar gate and the shape of the carabiner help it pop off the bolt without catching when stripping a route.

Nothing to snag on here! The rope slides out easily thanks to the keylock gate.

Portability

This quickdraw weighs 3.8 ounces in the shorter 12 cm sling that we tested. That makes it about on par with the Petzl Djinn Axess and BD LiveWire, but noticeably heavier than the Spirits (3.3 ounces), particularly when climbing with a full set of each. That makes these better suited for redpoint burns rather than onsight attempts.

Brendan hanging the draws on The Fiend (12d). This one was on the heavy side, but it was fine in situations where we hung the draws first to suss out the moves before going for the redpoint.

Ease of Handling

In addition to everything else we like about these draws, they also handled well. They're full-sized, have external rubber keepers, and never seems to do anything weird on our harness, like bunch up or cross clip. We've used the 12 cm and 18 cm lengths and like them both equally. They are also available in a 25 cm sling, though that is a less useful length — better to double up two for the occasional times that you might want a longer draw.

The spine on these carabiners have texture and are easy to grip. We liked the external rubber keepers as well. And check out that bent gate - so cool!

Ease of Grabbing

Since they were easy to grab, the DMM earned high scores in this metric. The 25mm wide sling fits perfectly in the palm of most adult-sized hands. This was similar to the Petzl Spirit but much better than the BD LiveWire. That sling is even wider but has a rubber piece stitched onto it that digs into your palm if you grab it the wrong way. If you're a perpetual draw-grabber (no judgment here!), you'll want to take a look at the Alpha Sport.

The wide sling fits well in our palms and was one of the easiest ones to grab.

Best Applications

This is the best draw for hanging on your project in our estimation. Not only were the easy to use, but we loved clipping. They are a little less well-known in North America, but DMM makes some great climbing gear, and the Alpha Sport doesn't disappoint.

Glenda taking flight and trusting in her Alpha Sports. This is a premier sport climbing draw, perfect for locations like Ten Sleep, WY, shown here.

Value

The Alpha retails for $27, making it the second most expensive model that we tested after the Edelrid Bulletproof ($29). We appreciate that it is a quality product and high-performing, but the price tag can be hard to handle, particularly if you're buying a dozen or so. The Spirits are a few dollars less a draw, and there are other options out there for only $11! However, those $11 models won't work as well on harder sport routes, which is where the Alpha Sport excels.

Conclusion

We really liked the DMM Alpha Sport and can't say enough good things about this quickdraw. They clip and unclip exceptionally well, and are an excellent option for harder sport climbs. Now if only they didn't cost so much…