Nuts with curved faces have long been the standard in passive protection. The curved faces provide 3 points of contact with the rock, which make the nuts more stable as well as more versatile than older, straight-sided nut designs. However, existing curved nut designs have been limited by the available technology. Metolius has been working to perfect CNC machining to the point that they can sculpt almost any shape they want from metal. This has allowed them to optimize the shape of the nut and orient the curve from side to side rather than top to bottom. The Metolius Curve Nut shape offers all the advantages of existing curved nut designs (3 points of contact), but it is naturally more stable in flares, and because they have a straight taper from top to bottom, it is much easier to judge placement quality.