Sterling Hollow Block Review

The Sterling Hollow Block is a nifty little piece of gear I picked up at the summer Outdoor Retailer show while visiting with the folks at the Sterling booth. It’s an 11″ long sewn prusik made from their RIT 900™ cord, which basically means it’s badass strong, with a breaking strength of 4000 lbs, and super heat resistant, as in you couldn’t melt this thing in your oven. This combination creates a versatile sling that can be used for backing up a rappel, prusik style, or as a full strength sling.

The Hollow Block clamps down on ropes from 7mm on up, and can even lock down on metal, should you find yourself in a rigging situation. I’ve been using it for about a month now, and it’s pretty cool. It makes life just a little bit simpler, as I’ve got a sling that I can use for any number of tasks, and then when it’s time to rap, I can use it as a backup without worrying that the heat from the friction of going down will weaken the material.

Anything that makes life simpler is good in my book, and the Hollow Block certainly fits into that category.

You can check it out for yourself on the Sterling website.