Doe Dumper

Glad you were ok Moose! I have several Summit stands myself one of them is 6 so Im gonna look it over again before I use it. I have never had any trouble but theres a first time for everything. Thanks for the heads up.

GMMAT

My "tone"? Dude...I'm typing.

I didn't say anything about your stand....that I wouldn't have said if it were mine. If the same thing happened to me. I'd wanna know what happened to that stand along the lines to make it do that. I carry mine on my back every time I use it. I put it on my building wall when I'm done. I RARELY put it in the back of my truck.....but it has been there.

I've also got a 15 yr old.....it's been in my 4 wheeler baskets......and out of my sight while at a camp with friends. Honestly.....I couldn't say for sure if it had ever been damaged if I didn't see it. So......I'd guess if mine did what yours did.....that something happened to it I didn't know about, prior to the catastrophic failure.

I don't have a stake in this, either. I'm only being reasonable.

heavy hitter

damn. this is strange. three years ago, the father-in-law and i bought a couple summit climbers. i forget the model, viper? anyway, i've been using mine for the last three years with no problem, love the thing. this year i hung it up in wisconsin as a permanent stand for gun hunting. kind of put it in semi-retirement. myfather-in-law has been having shoulder trouble and never even opened his climber up, it justsat in his basement for the last coupleyears. so, he gives it to me to use this season, and while i'm making it just how i like it, i notice that one of the little cross braces on the bottom half of the climber (right where the bottom loop of the shoulder straps wraps around) is welded kind of "off". it isn't exactly the same on both sides. i didn't really think too much of it till i read this. i've been up in it a few times already without any trouble but now i'm a little nervous. i weigh 200-205. i'll try to post some pics later, it's hanging outside in the dark right now.

Finch

Moose

Was the tree that you were climbing small in diameter causing the stand to be at a greater angle than 90 degrees? I dunno but when I get to the smaller diameter section of the tree it seems to put more pressure on the bottom. Maybe Im just crazy.[&:]

Sorry to hear about your luck!

Rhody Hunter

I noticed its painted by spray paint the stand was doing something be for to flake off the paint . I had one i left out on the property as a quick climb stand ,well it rained then froze in the stand expanding the metal to a little round instead of square . could this have happen to you then later gave way from the previous stress?

moose1915

this particular stand was used exclusively on the same tree for its whole life. i would say the tree was "average", in that it was niether too big or too small...o couldnt give the diameter off the top of my head.
as far as the black spray paint goes, that was put on years ago just to break up the silhouette. not so much for the deer but to hide it from other hunters....

i am at a loss here, really. i could see if i climbed a tree with a radically different diameter, or left it out for a year or two and it froze and expanded, but i REALLY did'nt do anything different than i have all along...

wierd

hopefully summit will share some insight with me.

thanks,
moose

peakrut

Just glad you are safe and if you find out some results of this please let us know.

HuntingBry

Man, that is absolutely crazy. I have no idea how you got out of the tree in that thing. I'm glad you're alright. Someone mentioned earlier about a weld failing. I would guess that's what happened. There is no way you could have known that would have happened.

I would assume you're calling Summit about this. Please let us know how they handle it.

wack

Thankfully you are OK. A couple things that come to mind is:
1) Is it possible that you were close to or over the 300 pound mark? I know you say you weigh less, but with gear and everything, being a few years old maybe you just overloaded it? My Lone Wolf Sit and Climb is rated for 350 pounds. Gather up all your gear that you take, and step on a scale with all of it, see just how close you are/were to that 300# limit.
2)I broke 1 stand on a real knotty tree. Sometimes you get on a knot or bump in the tree and it twists the stand a bit, instead of distributing the weight evenly, weight shifts to one side and bends or breaks. When mine broke, I was on the way down, taking rather large steps.The deck hooked into the tree a little crooked and I dropped my weight down on it and it bent slightly. It wasn't until the next climb that it failed completely and it looked a lot like the stand in the pictures.
3) I kind of relate tree climber weight limits much like rating weight limits for a rope. A rope might be able to hold a load of 300 pounds on a consistant basis but take that same 300 pounds and drop it from 2-3 feet up. The 300 pound rated rope will break and may take up to a 1000lbs rating to stop 300 pounds on a 2-3 foot free fall. Take a 250 pound man and have him jump up and down on a 300 pound rated climber, I would expect the 300 pound rated climber to eventually fail. Add a tree that's not perfectly round or straight, it's pretty easy to stress out A climber. The entire climber industry is geared to make the lightest climber possible. The lighter the climber, the less they'll hold. I weigh 160 lbs and a 350 lbs climber is perfect for me. If I weighed 250 I'd want a climber rated to 400-500 lbs. When buying/using a climber, better make sure it fits you. A 250 lbs person, plus his cloths and gear, in a 300 lbs climber, it's just a matter of time before the climber is going to fail.

Rob/PA Bowyer

I'm glad you okay too. Odd...

My stand....Ol'man Grand...rated to 400lbs...I weigh in at 190.