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Metolius Mountain Products donated my first BRD in 2001. I acquired another BRD from Amazon.com in 2012
The Metolius BRD is milled from aluminum alloy and then hard anodized. This BRD is 102 mm. long, 79 mm. wide, 44 mm. tall, and weighs 83 g. It has two 33 mm. long, 15 mm. wide slots, a release tab, and a plastic covered cable keeper. There are five thin cooling slots cut at each end.
One side is printed with a rigging illustration. The top is printed with the Metolius logo, "11.00" (probably indicating manufacture in November 2000), and the BRD logo. My first BRD is a cosmetic second, and has "2ND" stamped under the finger tab.
The
Metolius BRD (Belay Rappel Device) is a hybrid
between a slotted-block belay device
and a belay tube. The BRD is asymmetric,
and the instructions warn that the device is NOT reversible: in
other words, the rope going to the climber must always come out
of the tab side of the device. The bottom of the device is
shaped so that the carabiner is forced to the opposite side of
the slot, increasing the friction. Control is good, but not as
smooth as some of the belay tubes,
primarily because of the increased friction. Personally, I think
the increased friction is worth sacrificing a tiny bit of smoothness.
Curiously,
Metolius says that the device is reversible for rappel. The reversed
configuration gives less friction, so I don't use it this way.
The cooling slots look to me to be more cosmetic than functional. Something in my engineering background tells me that the slots are far too thin to allow much air flow through them. The cooling slots do not reach to the rope channel. The cable keeper is nice, and helps prevent dropping the device while at a hanging belay. It is quite stiff, and acts more like a rod keeper.
I cannot find the flaw that made the first one a cosmetic second, so someone at Metolius must have inspected this one very carefully before rejecting it. My guess is that it is the gap at one end of the plastic cover on the cable keeper. Just in case you ask, Metolius did ask me if I wanted a cosmetic second before sending it - and I answered yes.
By the way, the cable on the cosmetic second was much shorter than on the later one, making the total length only 84 mm.
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