China Snap Hook | Best Snap Hook

Snap hook carabiners come in four characteristic shapes:

Oval: Symmetric. Most basic and utilitarian. Smooth regular curves are gentle on equipment and allow easy repositioning of loads. Their greatest disadvantage is that a load is shared equally on both the strong solid spine and the weaker gated axis.
D: Asymmetric shape transfers the majority of the load on to the spine, the carabiner's strongest axis.
Offset-D: Variant of a D with a greater asymmetry, allowing for a wider gate opening.
Pear/HMS: Wider and rounder shape at the top than offset-D's, and typically larger. Used for belaying with a munter hitch, and with some types of belay device. The largest HMS carabiners can also be used for rappelling with a munter hitch (the size is needed to accommodate the hitch with two strands of rope). These are usually the heaviest carabiners.

Snap hooks are an important piece of hardware in many industries. They provide a quick and easy way to connect two items together, making them ideal for applications where speed and convenience are important. Snap hooks are also available in a range of sizes and load capacities, making them suitable for a wide range of applications.

Snap hooks are used in a wide range of industries and applications. They are commonly used in construction, rigging, and lifting operations to quickly and easily connect ropes or cables. Snap hooks are also used in outdoor recreation activities such as camping and hiking to attach gear to backpacks or belts.

Snap hook carabiners are widely used in rope-intensive activities such as climbing, fall arrest systems, arboriculture, caving, sailing, hot air ballooning, rope rescue, construction, industrial rope work, window cleaning, whitewater rescue, and acrobatics. They are predominantly made from both steel and aluminium. Those used in sports tend to be of a lighter weight than those used in commercial applications and rope rescue.

Often referred to as carabiner-style or as mini-biners, carabiner keyrings and other light-use clips of similar style and design have also become popular. Most are stamped with a "Not For Climbing" or similar warning due to a common lack of load-testing and safety standards in manufacturing.

While any metal attaching link with a spring gate is technically a carabiner, the strict usage among the climbing community specifically refers only to those devices manufactured and tested for load-bearing in safety-critical systems like rock and mountain climbing, typically rated to 20 kN or more.