Splicing both ends after milking will not solve the long term milking process as I understand. Milking comes from strech which happens over time as the centre core is not a fixed part of the outer sleeve so, although you milking now will solve the immediate problem, further down the line, pardon the pun, you will have to remove the splice to once again milk the rope.

What you milk off in those first few descents is the overwhelming majority of the cover that will EVER milk off of it. My current climbing line is almost 3 years old. I milked about 3' of cover off the first day. I clipped the end off clean and only saw about an inch of extra milkage after 3ish years of climbing on it.

I've seen this occur in MANY ropes. If you are a tiny bit mindful not to jam excess slack into the splice on the other end, you can double-end it with no problem.

love
nick

a good way to "milk" the rope outer sheath is to attach the factory spliced end to a suitable anchor, then use a rappel rack (does'nt spin the rope like other rappel devices) and rappel over and over again down the line, say aorund 20 times. You want to rap down the full length of the rope, this will stretch it out, set the weave, and the end of the rope can be trimmed of the excess sheath.


EDIT: i just did this on a friends kernmantle core static static rope, milked over 3 feet off of it. Helps to use a spring loaded clamp to hold the milkybits from creeping back upthe rope, at least until you can cut and whip the end.