Review: knock off Gravity Hook

One of my friends lent me this piece to compare. I have covered the Fishbones Gravity Hook a number of times, and have been involved with beta testing, so my appreciation and bias is pretty well known.

It appears that the Kickstarted design that Eldrick Garcia and his team developed, over many iterations, and put into production has been copied and is now for sale and being plugged online. Now, I am all for free market, and it's inevitable that great ideas will be copied, I wanted to try at least to compare and contrast the two designs.

Here are the two hooks side by side, with the Fishbones version on the left, and the Molibao version on the right. You can see they are essentially identical, remarkably so. The "arms" of the hooks are essentially carbon-copy of each other. The arcs, bolt-holes, the middle-notch hole and even the curves of the hooks are identical.

The mounting hardware is different, but bolts and self-locking nuts are ubiquitous, as are the shackle loop at the bottom. No big issues with that, obviously.




The batarang cross-hook pieces indicate pretty well the differences between the two pieces however.


The Fishbone cross-hook is obviously thicker, which is true for the entire construction which is made out of 1/8" thick 304 stainless steel and all of the Gravity Hooks and weighs 360g all told.

You can also see the finish of the Fishbone hook is much neater, with the Molibao finish having a notch still present inside the cross-hook. Thicker steel means stronger steel in my books, assuming it was the same grade, which I have no way of knowing.



The differences between the thicknesses of the steel used between the two Gravity Hooks have been taken into account in the Molibao version, which was good to see.

The notch-holes were differently spaced, and adjusted to still ensure a good fit, so the hook actually works identically to the original.

Essentially, if you didn't know that it wasn't from the original manufactures and had one to had to compare with, you wouldn't know it wasn't an original.


One thing I wanted to cover, then, was the price point. I went back and checked the Fishbone website and the steel Gravity Hook is $39.99, the titanium version is $79.99

On the Nifty Thrifty Store site, where I -think- you can get the real deal (maybe, given the use of the official promo-shots) they are $65.37.

The Molibao versions are on AliExpress and other cheep-gear sites, but really, you get what you pay for. I know you're not supposed to be putting your life on the line (literally) with the Gravity Hooks, but, why not spend a little more, for a better quality, original product, and give back to the people who are doing the innovation in the first place.

Review: Fishbones - Gravity Hook (production)

Production on the left, prototype on the right

I covered the original release of the prototype Gravity Hook back in March, when the prototype was sent my way by the guys from FishBones. Not long ago the final production version of the Gravity Hook arrived, with some improvements.

The Gravity Hook is a combination grappling hook, and gravity claw. (Here's their promotional video...) By removing the middle cross-bar the more than serviceable grappling hook can be quickly converted into a claw-machine like grabbing claw. The clever design allows you to swap between these two features in just moments.

Production on the right, prototype on the left

The whole assembly weighs around 360g in its stainless steel configuration, a complete assembly includes 3 links, 3 "hammers", a cross hook, and hardware, in bolts and self-locking nuts.

One of the production improvements is the notches cut into the throat of the hammer, these allow the cross hook to seat much more securely that in the prototype, where it was held in place solely via the notch cut into top of the cross hooks. 

Production on the right, prototype on the left

The stainless Gravity Hook is made out of 1/8" thick 304 stainless steel and all of the Gravity Hooks hardware hardware is also stainless. When the hook is fully open, the 1.5" mouth will hold over 165lbs when biting into a 2x4.

When fitted, the cross hooks set in the jaws of the hammers, the Gravity Hook up as a quite effective grapple. The jaws are held in place and stopped from opening the by the twin o-rings which seat in a set of notches cut into the link pieces, and hold the jaws surprisingly tightly.

Production on the bottom, prototype on the top

 Given their design, any the pull on the tines of the hook only act to pull it further closed, the effect of the o-rings is really quite sufficient.

FishBones have suggested that an after market modification, drilling a hole in the middle of the hammer arms to fit a locking pin, for extra security, but so far, I haven't felt the need myself.

The bolts and locking nuts supplied with the production model are a much slimmer profile than the nuts and bolts I picked up at the hardware store, that was a big help.

The production version has nicely rounded notches cut into the links, where as the prototype version is rather a bit more rough making it rougher on and harder to remove the o-rings.

Production on the right, prototype on the left

One of the other backers of the Gravity hooks asked if they wanted to use it as a boat anchor for an inflatable lake boat, how they would dislodge it should it hook onto something on the bottom. Another backer suggested it could be set up with a failable style link like this  where if you pull hard enough the top link breaks and lets you pull the anchor from the bottom. A second way would be to use 2 ropes; one attached to the shackle, and the other looped through the claw to act as an emergency release in case the hook snags.


Here's me testing the grappling hook


Here's me testing the claw feature on a variety of dropped gear.

Two kinds of cross hook: plain and gear-tie batarang!

 You might ask "what makes it high performance?" well, this is probably a matter of its features:

• It can be used either as a 2 or 4 pronged grappling hook.
• In the claw mode it "bites" objects that might slip out of a grapnel.
• Compact enough to be stowed on a back pack strap, by clamping the jaws over the strap and feeding the tail end through a loop
• Can be dismantled into its base components for more compact storage. 
• It's available in stainless steel, titanium or even non metalic Derlin.

There are also two options for the cross hooks, with the classic solid hook, as well as a version with cut-aways, both lightening the cross hook, and also offering a place to use it as a gear tie, not unlike the FishBones and Piranha gear ties these guys came to the front with. 

Ss, you have a very cool tool in the Gravity Hook, but what are its limits? Well, the Gravity Hook was specifically designed for retrieving. It has not been tested or certified to bear human weight. The makers strongly state that you should never use it in a situation where it's failure or dislodging might cause bodily harm or property damage. In a pinch though, it can certainly take a fairly hefty load: 

using the Gravity Hook as a bogged truck rescue tool

How do you get the Gravity Hook to release something whilst under tension?



Here's their testing underwater!


As well as being a really useful dropped-gear and treasure retrieving claw, and a sturdy and rugged grapple, the Gravity hook is also a really well made piece of engineering. I really appreciate its design and functionality. I've got a small CountyComm grapple, which is billed as a trip-wire clearer, but for bigger jobs, when you want to snag, yank and retrieve gear, or haul something you would do well with one of the FishBones Gravity hooks.

Better yet, the guys at FishBones have just launched a NEW project, the Gravity Hook XS, a pocket sized version, in just two-pronged format, on KickStarter. You should totally go check it out, and add some grabby, grapply goodness to your loadout.