Rock Exotica
rockO ORCA

A standard Rock Exotica locking oval with a unique feature - the locking sleeve.

The locking sleeve on ORCA lock carabiners can be manually set to the unlocked position with the standard lower-and-twist common to Rock Exotica autolocking carabiners. If the gate is opened fully, the frame of the carabiner bumps the locking sleeve off of the lower hinge pin, which had been holding the sleeve in the unlocked position. This causes the sleeve to return to the fully locked position once the gate closes again (if operating properly). The locking sleeve can also be manually lifted to re-engage the locking mechanism.

The sleeve will not automatically lock upon closing if the gate is opened partially (no more than 14mm of gate clearance) - so care must be taken to look, listen and feel that the gate closed and locked properly. But this should already be the habit of an experienced user.

In practice, I find this design provides some of the convenience of a screwlock carabiner, with similar security to standard triple-action autolocking carabiners. I use the ORCA feature primarily in two ways: a) setting the carabiner to the unlocked position on my harness, for easy deployment and b) unlocking the gate and slipping in/out other items without fully triggering the re-locking mechanism. That said, I do catch myself accidentally relocking the gate when I do not intend to do so.

It is possible to trigger the relocking mechanism, then set the sleeve back in the unlocked position by twisting it once the gate has closed halfway again.

The CMC Manual Lock has a similar feature which does not automatically reengage the locking action when fully opened. The user must manually trigger the sleeve, which then engages two-stage locking under spring pressure.