OH9JK

Crosby or Van Beest shackles for me.

I don't have any experience with snatch blocks but would stick with a name like Superwinch, Warn or ARB.

Pape

Got the ARB 9000 one here, love it.

When you buy your D-Ring keep in mind the poulie working principle "if your snatch double the pulling power, you will need a D-ring that can handle double your winch"

Jersey_Devil

I got a Smittybuilt snatch block.... And I'd go ARB for the D rings

JKingAround

Crosby D-rings are American made

TJM12

Van beest green pin. They are made in the Netherlands and are widely considered the best. I have them in 3/4, I got them at MasterPull. Just be careful there are a lot of Chinese shackles with the trademark green pin and they are junk.

dustdriver

It actually does matter a lot, because the rating of your winch and your synthetic rope (or cable) should determine how high your snatch block should be. When dealing with the forces involved in offroad recovery, the energy will try to find the weakest link and break it. IMO it is better/safer to have the winch fail, then some other part of the rigging, due to the kinetic energy release and the hazard it presents.

Snatch blocks should be rated at least twice that of your winch and line, because that is realistically what the snatch block is going to be asked to carry, even when your winch seems to be doing just fine.

This is one of the best explanations of snatch blocks and the forces involved I've found yet:

Snatch Block Basics

As mentioned in that article, "the block is being subjected to twice the force of any of the other components, and consequently the winch operator may never know he is exceeding the capacity of the block until it parts and takes his head off."

I use this diagram to illustrate:

12JKR

Very helpful info, thanks!

RoysRig

If I had to guess as to where the "weakest link" is in that picture, it's going to be that 7 foot pine tree.

Tripletsi

Is this picture wrong? Isn't a snatch block supposed to decrease the load on the winch by half? So instead of pulling one line at 9000 lbs it would only be pulling two 4500lbs lines. The second picture would only be correct if you were not connected back to the Jeep and to another stationary object.

EzK

I think the second pic is definitely not right?

The first wont load.