Black Diamond
Oz v2

A clever use of existing production techniques to produce a hooded wiregate carabiner. Unlike the Wild Country Helium, the HoodWire, Livewire, and Oz does not require any forging or milling beyond what is performed on all modern carabiners. The HoodWire has a flattened wiregate, which reduces the minimum width of the nose, but climbers complained about the wide nose fitting through crowded bolts or belay stations.

The Oz is a lightweight (1oz/28g) compact carabiner commonly used for racking or lightweight quickdraws. I have a "rackpack" of color anodized Oz carabiners intended to match the colors used to indicate cam sizes. This assists a climber in quickly finding the correct cam - a small quality of life improvement when fishing for the correct cam during a sketching lead climb.

The dot peened batch markings have been done prior to anodization on the colored carabiners - hardly visible with minimal final depth. The thinner coated bright model does not have that issue, but does have a significantly different batch # so perhaps the dot peening machine was set up differently that day. All batch markings read correctly when the gate faces right on a horizontal surface. The letter "A" in the batch marking indicates production in Black Diamond's (former) Asia facility.

I have a factory second bright model has no batch marking but clearly dot peened "2ND" and reads with the gate facing left. The marking is located more to the hinge end compared to where a typical batch mark is located.

Discontinued in 2019, reportedly because of the manufacturing difficulty (as with all snagless wiregates), and possibly the BD factory move.

As of 2022, CT/Climbing Technology, an Italian company, is producing a HoodWire style (and weight) carabiner named the Berry W.

Black Diamond did apply for a true keylock wiregate patent so perhaps we'll see that design someday (limited gate opening though, would need to be offset).

This particular example was not part of the 2016 recall of many BD carabiners.

Black Diamond produced a promo video in 2013 of Oz carabiner production.