17. July 202217. July 2022 by Ripperkon (Tactical)

Arc’teryx E220 Riggers Harness

You can get this product at HQG

An extra light weight and compact climbing harness with certification.

Product Details

Small pack size
Wide leg loops for comfort
Light and compact
Weight: 245 g/ 8.7oz (L)

Material

Tweave® Durastretch™ (Belt)
Vapor Mesh™ 7075 (Leg loops)
Buckle made from T6 eloxiertem Aluminium

Certification
Meets European EN 12277 (safety relevant requirements) and EN 358.

This set consists out of a belt and leg loops. Here you can see, how compact this system is. I added the shock-cord later.

Belt

The belt has got a width of 50mm. So it fits in all standard tactical pants. The belt has got a curve. With this it better fits the hips. In this review you can see the version in Multicam.

The Harness comes with a long and easy to spot label. If you remove it, read it and keep in mind, what is on it.

On the left side there a two loops to stow away the extra lenght.

On both sides you can find a little loop. This can be used as a small gear loop (not load bearing!).

The webbing is threaded trough the buckle. Here you can see the “tie in point”. But it also has to be combined with the leg loops!

Leg Loops

The legs loops can be stowed away in a cargo pocket super easy.

The loop is made out of a material, which can be bent in one direction, but in the other direction it is stiff.

How to use

You have to step inside the leg loop with both legs. Then you pull it up and grab both sided of the leg loops. Pull them forward to the belt.

Add a carabiner through all (three) loops, and you are ready to go!

With this you can for example clip a tube and rappel.

Or you tie in like you do with a classical climbing harness.

Conclusion

I am using this harness for approx. 3 years now. I often used it in duty. Now I only use it, when it is truely needed.

Comfort
In daily duty and in short therm use on the rope, the harness is comforable. For some climbing it is also fine. If you weat the leg loops for a longer time, I recommend you to add some shock cord to the back, to keep the leeg loops up. Otherwise they will slide down towards your knee.

Buckle
I am used to Cobra buckles. So it took some time to get used to this buckle. Of course this buckle is not as fast as a buckle you can open with one “click”.
The movement of the webbing in the buckle causes wear on the webbing.
The theory you can also use this belt as a lightweight riggers belt. But for this I prefer a belt with a buckle, which I can open easily. An example of this is the Linderhof Taktik Abseilgurt Set.

Area of use
This harness is a perfect emergeny harness system. This is also quite a good thing for via ferratas. For technical climbing the lack of gear loops makes it hard to be happy.
Now I started to use this harness mainly, when I really need to rappel or climb, but weight is super important.

Attention!
A small Problem that the carabiner can twist and cause cross loading. This will lower the breaking force on the carabiner or can manipulate the gate. For rappelling and static use, this should not be a big problem. But I try to avoid this.

For this I use a rappel extension with a girth hitch. With this there is no cross loaded carabiner. This is especially important, if you want to lead climb!