Recovery D Rings

They look silly.

I put 4 shackles on my Jeep...$40 each. Now I am looking at the Bronco and figure I will go with soft shackles and a kinetic tow rope. No more rust points with the shackle and the soft shackles are vastly stronger than the steel shackles, less expensive and they actually float if you toss one to someone and it lands in water.

IMHO.
Hard bow shackles are fine for most applications but you need to buy actual rated and tested shackles. Not the stuff from the 4wd places. there is actually a lifting spec, batch numbering as well as proper testing that you need to look for.

Having 4.5T stamped on the shackle is not enough, if they don't batch test them, its simply marketing.

lifting industry rated shackles are made by
Crosby (USA)
Van Beest Green Pin (neatherlands)
among others..



To compare shackle types look at the MBS (minimum breaking strength or load). A rated bow shackle is 6 x WLL (working load limit):
So a Green pin 4.75T bow shackle is rated at a minimum breaking load of 57,000lbs
vs say an ARB soft shackle which is rated at 32,000lbs
or a standard single rope soft shackle they are all over the place in ratings..

I am seeing more people doing recovery with kinetic rope and soft shackles, using frame mounted hard recovery points.
Idea being less metal to fly around should something give.

and just saw a post about these on Facebook;

https://www.bigfootwinchropes.com/soft-shackles

A dynamic recovery should be your last option, VS a static (winching for example) recovery..

Sometimes its needed but we only use it as a backup. The risks are a lot less with a winch recovery.

I frequently watch Matt's Off-road Recovery on YouTube. He uses a modified old Jeep Cherokee with kinetic ropes and soft shackles most of the time. Lives in Hurricane, UT and does a lot of deep sand recoveries. Yankum is the brand ropes he uses. Amazing what he is able to do. Give the channel a look.