How NOT to use a swivel

This is an approximate recreation of the near catastrophy with our haul bags. Note that the swivel is upside-down here. The black side is supposed to be on the bottom, with the gold side on top. The carabiner hole on the black side is significantly smaller than the hole on the gold side, so when it is rigged properly, it can't slip down over the sheath of the main haul biner. The gold side, however, can (and did) slip down over the sheath, and can easily cross-load the biner across the gate. Keep in mind that the sheath on a locking carabiner is really not all that strong, so if a locking biner is cross-loaded with a fairly strong force pulling inward on the gate, the gate will open. (The Petzl ball-locks, like the one shown here, have a plastic sheath, but the aluminum sheaths of regular lockers are similarly weak.) The biner shown here is a new one in perfect condition, but the original biner that this happened to had the sheath broken in two places, and it wouldn't even close properly without some manual intervention.