Best Locking Pliers (VISE GRIPS)? Irwin vs Knipex, Milwaukee, Craftsman, Stanley, Malco, Pittsburgh.

i've owned some very good pairs of locking pliers in the past and i've owned some that just don't seem to want to lock or unlock so today we're going to test 13 different brands and we'll see which brand is the best and the first test we'll see which brand of locking pliers has the best gripping strength on the grade 5 bolt then we'll see how well they maintain a grip on high carbon steel we'll see which brand of locking pliers release the easiest finally we'll test the failure load of each of the pliers at a price of 10 for all three or just a little over three dollars each the least expensive brand we'll be testing is made by pittsburgh and sold at harbor freight the heat treated carbon steel construction of pliers allows you to grip onto fasteners pipes and more we're going to test that nickel plating quick release soft handles for comfort and control unfortunately the pliers are extremely stiff and hard to open there's quite a bit of resistance with the adjustment screw the pittsburgh pliers are made in china the pittsburgh has a jaw width of 0.44 inches and weighs 474 grams adjusting the tension screw before clamping the pliers onto the work piece is typically how i use locking pliers however that approach just won't result in a fair test between the brands since i won't be able to set the tension on each of the pliers equally so i'll first clamp the pliers onto the smooth portion of the grade five bolt and then i'll use a rounded nut extractor to fasten onto the adjustment screw then i'll tighten the adjustment screw to 120 inch pounds unfortunately the adjustment screw for the pittsburgh can't handle 120 inch pounds so i'll set the tension as much as i can before it slips let's test it anyway five inch pounds is just not very good and the harbor freight pliers just couldn't get a good grip on the bolt so let's get rid of the rubber grip and take a closer look at the build construction it looks like the threaded portion of the pittsburgh pliers was just pressed together and not welded at a price of nine dollars the second least expensive brand we'll be testing is made by tekton two inch capacity rugged five rivet construction durable chrome plated finish drop forged hardened steel jaws anvil type wire cutter the tecton brand is made in china the adjustment screw on the tecton is extremely stiff the jaws on the tecton are slightly narrower than the pittsburgh at .42 inches and they're 31 grams lighter at 443 the tecton pliers have a weld so 120 inch pounds shouldn't be a problem and the tecton pliers did a lot better than the pittsburgh but 59 inch pounds just isn't very good the teeth and the pliers just aren't very sharp and the bolt actually caused minor damage to the teeth on the pliers also coming in at nine dollars is this hardened brand wires can be used as a speed wrench a super plier all-purpose clamp to remove headless nails wire cutter emergency handle pipe wrench and even added leverage the hardened pliers move freely just like detecting the adjustment screw on the harden is extremely stiff the hardened brand is made in china the jaw diameter on the harden is the same as the pittsburgh at .44 inches and they weigh 449 grams and the hardened pliers did a much better job than the tecton at 226 inch pounds the teeth did cut into the bolt a little bit but unfortunately the teeth aren't very sharp and the bolt caused some minor damage to the teeth at a price of 12 is this original vice grip brand constructed of high-grade heat-treated alloy for durability classic trigger provides maximum locking force includes wire cutter for more versatility we're going to test that curved jaw with hardened teeth are designed to grip a variety of shapes from any angle hex key adjusting screw tightens to adjust pressure and draws materials together for controlled release the adjustment bolt moves very freely the hardened pliers are on the left and the vice grip pliers are on the right the size of the head and the vise grips is a lot larger and the bolt moves a lot more freely the vice grip brand is made in china the vise grips have the widest jaws yet at .47 inches and they're the heaviest yet at 514 grams and the original vice grips did a much better job than the previous brands at 594 inch pounds very impressive and the teeth on the irwin did a great job digging into the bolt the erwin pliers are on the left and the hardened pliers are on the right the irwin has much sharper teeth and experienced a lot less damage which explains the huge difference in performance at a price of 13 is this j.h williams brand curved jaw with wire cutter heavy duty jaw surface that provides extra gripping power convenient one-hand release lever the adjustment screw just doesn't move as freely as the irwin but it's definitely better than the other brands the williams brand is made in china the jaws are 0.42 inches and the pliers are nearly as heavy as the irwin vice grips at 507 grams and the williams pliers performed nearly as well as the irwins at 552-inch pounds the teeth did a great job of digging into the bolt and the teeth held up really well also at a price of 13 is this crescent brand non-slip cushion grip release lever adjustment includes hex keyhole for increased tightening capability the adjustment screw on the crescent moves just as freely as the irwin curve jaws with angled teeth for maximum grip on pipes the crescent brand is made in china the jaws are 0.45 inches in width and the pliers are slightly lighter than the williams at 504 grams and the crescent performed better than the first three brands at 324 inch pounds but irwin and williams did quite a bit better at over 500 inch pounds the teeth on the crescent just aren't as sharp as the irwin and the williams and the pliers weren't able to gain a strong grip at a price of 14 is this milwaukee brand torque lock provides faster tool setup more locking force and easy release hardened jaws offer more gripping power ford's alloy steel provides maximum durability the adjustment screw is very easy to move the milwaukee brand is made in taiwan the milwaukee players have the widest jaws yet at half an inch and they're the heaviest yet at 528 grams and the milwaukee performed quite a bit better than the crescent brand at 445 inch pounds but the irwin pliers are still in the lead the teeth in the milwaukee held up really well also at a price at fourteen dollars is this craftsman brand craftsman pliers have multi-zone by material grips adjustable pliers are made with high-grade heat treated alloy steel easy release mechanism the craftsman pliers are made in china the jaw width in the craftsman is .46 inches and they're by far the heaviest yet at 575 grams and the craftsman pliers move into second place behind the irwin at 572 inch pounds the teeth aren't quite as sharp as the erwins and they experienced a little bit more damage at a price of 23. is this canipex brand the number one choice of tradesmen worldwide made of chrome vanadium comfortable in the use and quality assured design the release lever is nice and tight the adjustment screw is nice and smooth the canipex brand is made in germany the jaw within the canipex is the same as a craftsman at 0.46 inches and it's nearly as heavy as a craftsman at 568 grams and the canipex moved into fifth place at 378 inch pounds unfortunately the teeth just aren't very sharp and they experience a little bit more wear than some of the other brands at a price of 29 dollars is this ch hanson automatic self-adjusting locking pliers set and forget pressure control patented locking mechanism automatically adjusts the jaws to any size object without having to adjust the knob seven times faster and 100 percent easier the ch hanson brand is made in taiwan the jaws on the c.h hanson are wider than average at 0.47 inches and they're the heaviest pliers yet at 626 grams i've had a lot of requests to test the automatic adjusting pliers but there's just no fair way for me to test them so i'll apply quite a bit of pressure to the handles and we'll see how they perform 389 inch pounds for the c.h hanson the teeth on the pliers look just as aggressive as the erwins and it's probably my fault that they didn't perform better the teeth are still in great shape at a price of thirty dollars is this grip on brand epoxy resin coating high quality materials for an extremely durable tool no pinch lever unlocks the pliers forged jaws and redesigned teeth profile for greater strength and durability the adjustment screw is fairly smooth but not quite as smooth as the canipex the grip-on brand is made in spain the grip-ons have the narrowest jaws yet at .41 inches but they're the heaviest pliers yet at 630 grams 366 inch pounds for the grip-on pliers the teeth on the grip-on are nice and sharp but they don't appear to be an even height from side to side there's a small amount of damage to the teeth at a price of 33 dollars is a stanley fat max patented trulock mechanism helps to prevent unintentional jaw release innovative eye bolt design is contoured for easy adjustment induction hardened jaws help to extend product life the adjustment screw moves very freely the stanley brand is made in china the stanley fat max has the widest jaws yet at .53 inches and is nearly as heavy as the grip bonds at 623 grams and the stanley fat max made very good use of the extra wide jaws and did by far the best yet at 751 inch pounds very impressive the teeth on the stanley really dug into the bolt while the teeth are very sharp they did experience some minor damage during the test at a price of 44. the most expensive brand we'll be testing is made by malco the adjustment screw is definitely the smoothest of all the brands the malco pliers are made in usa the job within the malco pliers is .43 inches and they're heavier than average at 538 grams and the malco eagle grips did by far the best yet at 1053 inch pounds very impressive and the malko pliers had the most aggressive grip yet and really did a great job digging into the bolt the teeth experienced a small amount of damage so the malco eagle grips totally crushed the competition at 1053 inch pounds but the stanley fat max also did very well at 751 the very affordable irwin vice grips finished third at 594 in pounds craftsman 572 and williams 552 inch pounds most of the locking pliers have cutters so let's see which brand performs the best cutting through a 16 penny nail once the pliers are bolted onto the holder i'll go ahead and slide the front piece with the two bolts towards the pliers the two bolts will hold the nail in place against the cutters to allow for maximum leverage the hydraulic press will be applying force to the very end of the handle unfortunately the 16 penny nail proved to be too much for the pittsburgh and the adjustment screw moved out of position at 173 pounds the pittsburgh did leave a small dent in the nail and the tecton pliers made it to 178 pounds when the handle began to bend and the pliers gave up the tecton did perform quite a bit better than the pittsburgh unfortunately the cutting knife on the pliers experienced quite a bit of damage we'll skip the hardened brand since it doesn't have a cutting knife the erwin vice grips did by far the best yet cutting through the nail at only 140 pounds the cutting knife in the irwin still looks as good as new the williams did even better than irwin cutting through the nail at only 120 pounds the cutting knife still looks as good as new let's get the crescent since it doesn't have a cutting knife and the milwaukee performed very well cutting through the nail at 147 pounds there's a small amount of damage to the cutting knife the craftsman made very easy work of the nail at 136 pounds and moves into second place behind the williams the cutting knife still looks as good as new and it took a little bit more pressure than average for the knipex to make the cut at 153 pounds the cutting knife on the canipeex still looks to be in great shape we'll go ahead and skip the ch hanson grip-on and stanley fat max since they don't have cutters and the malco eagle grips took more effort to cut the nail than most of the other brands at 173 pounds however the cutting knife still looks as good as new so the williams brand came out on top at 120 pounds of squeezing force but the craftsman also performed very well at 136. the irwin vice grips did well at 140 pounds milwaukee 147 and canipex 153 in the next test let's compare the gripping strength of the front teeth beginning with the tecton i'll also use a new bolt between testing each of the brands i'll tighten up the adjustment screw to 120 inch pounds and the tecton lost grip on the bolt at only 21 inch pounds and the harden did quite a bit better than detecting at 50 inch pounds to move into the lead and the irwin once again does a terrific job for a budget price tool and moves in the lead at a very impressive 134 inch pounds and the williams perform well at 99 inch pounds and moves into second place behind the irwin and the crescent brand barely edges out the williams pliers at 102 inch pounds and moves into second place and the milwaukee pliers performed even better than the crescent brand at 112 inch pounds but that's not enough to take the lead from the irwin and the craftsman performed the best yet at 155 inch pounds and takes the lead from the irwin pliers and the kinepex locking pliers perform fairly well at 107 inch pounds and moves into fourth place behind milwaukee it's definitely not a fair test to include the ch hansen since it uses a different style of jaw pressure adjustment but let's see how they perform anyway 195 inch pounds and the grip-on pliers didn't perform nearly as well as some of the less expensive brands at 95-inch pounds and the stanley fat max performed better than the grip on pliers at 111 inch pounds but the craftsman holds on to the lead and malcolm moves into the lead with a very impressive 209 inch pounds beating the craftsman by 54 inch pounds very impressive so the malco came out on top at 209 inch pounds craftsman 155 irwin 134 milwaukee 112 and stanley fat max 11 inch pounds up next let's see how well the locking pliers are able to grip a half inch socket extension which is made of high carbon steel i'll torque each adjustment screw to 180 inch pounds beginning with the tecton and the tecton really struggled with the high carbon socket extension and a lost grip at only 75 inch pounds let's use an impact wrench for 5 seconds to see how much damage it causes to the teeth on the pliers and the pliers really struggled to slow down the impact wrench and it caused quite a bit of damage to the teeth on the pliers and the hardened pliers once again outperformed the tecton pliers at 99 inch pounds the teeth on the harden also experienced quite a bit of damage once again the very affordable irwin pliers performed very well at 167 inch pounds and moves into the lead over the hardened pliers and the teeth on the irwin brand held up really well from the socket extension the williams performed very well and moves in the second position behind the irwin at 144 inch pounds however the teeth on the irwin definitely held up better than the teeth on the williams the crescent pliers performed nearly as well as the erwin pliers at 166 inch pounds and moves into second place and the crescent pliers experienced about the same amount of wear as the williams brand and the milwaukee performed well at 128 inch pounds but that's not enough to move into the lead just like the erwin pliers the teeth on the milwaukee held up really well and the craftsman moves into the lead over the irwin brand with a very impressive 196 inch pounds however the teeth experienced a little bit more damage than the irwin and the milwaukee pliers the canipex performed nearly as well as the erwin pliers at 149 inch pounds however the teeth did experience quite a bit of damage from the socket extension while not in apples to apples comparison the ch hansen performed very well at 137 inch pounds the teeth on the c.h hansen also held up about the same as a craftsman and the grip-on performed very well at 169 inch pounds but the craftsman holds on to the lead unfortunately the teeth on the grip-on experienced quite a bit of damage the stanley fat max performed very well and takes the lead from the craftsman at 199 inch pounds the teeth on the stanley fat max held up about the same as the craftsman and the malco barely edges out the stanley fat max at 206 inch pounds to finish in first the teeth on the malco also held up extremely well showing less wear than average once again the malco came in on top at 206 inch pounds but the stanley fat max finished in a close second at 199 the craftsman performed very well at 196 inch pounds grip on 169 irwin 167 and crescent 166 inch pounds while assessing wear is highly subjective the teeth on the irwin milwaukee and the malco experience the least amount of wear of all the brands sometimes getting the pliers to unlock can be a bit of a challenge so i'll go ahead and tighten up the adjustment screw to 120 inch pounds and then we'll see how much force it takes to unlock the pliers i'll use a push pull meter that measures force in kilograms and it took 13 pounds or 5.7 kilograms to unlock the tecton pliers the harden took even more effort to unlock than the tecton at 15 pounds or 7 kilograms the irwin vice grips did slightly better than the harden at 14 pounds or 6.5 kilograms the williams took quite a bit more effort to unlock the pliers compared to the other brands at 19 pounds or 8.5 kilograms and the crescent brand performed exactly the same as the williams brand at 19 pounds or 8.5 kilograms the milwaukee performed the best yet only requiring 12 pounds or 5.5 kilograms to unlock the pliers and the craftsman performed the same as the harden at 15 pounds to unlock the pliers which is three pounds more than the milwaukee most of the pliers unlock by applying an upward pressure on the release lever while others require a downward pressure including the canopex and it took 17 pounds or 7.5 kilograms to unlock the canipex pliers i tried to estimate the amount of clamping pressure with the c.h hanson pliers and it took 17 pounds or 7.5 kilograms to unlock the pliers the grip-on pliers took more effort to unlock than the other brands at 25 pounds or 11.5 kilograms just like the grip-on pliers the stanley fat max also took quite a bit of effort to unlock the pliers at 24 pounds or 10.75 kilograms the malco eagle grip pliers performed very well unlocking at 13.7 pounds or 6.25 kilograms the easiest pliers to unlock are the milwaukee pliers at 12 pounds but the tecton pliers perform nearly as well at 13. the mauko pliers finished in third at 13.7 pounds erwin vice grip 14 hardin and craftsman 15 pounds up next let's test the durability of the pliers by tightening the adjustment screw until we reach failure load beginning with the tecton brand and the adjustment screw bottomed out on the tecton pliers at 349 inch pounds the handle on the tecton is bent pretty badly and the harden gave up at 252 inch pounds the failure point was the weld on the threaded part of the handle and irwin moves into the lead finally giving up at 444 inch pounds just like the hardened the weld on the threaded portion of the handle broke the williams held up really well finally letting go at 352 inch pounds just like the hardened the weld on the threaded portion of the handle broke and the crescent didn't make it nearly as long as the irwin or the williams with the weld breaking at 265 inch pounds and the milwaukee moves into the lead hanging in there until 556 inch pounds the weld actually held up just fine but the end of the adjustment bolt came apart and the craftsman held up really well barely edging out the irwin at 466 inch pounds just like the irwin the weld in the craftsman broke and the adjustment screw is bottomed out and unfortunately the knit back stopped making progress at 186 inch pounds the adjustment screw experienced quite a bit of damage and the grip-on pliers held up nearly as long as the milwaukees with the head on the adjustment bolt finally twisting off at 543 inch pounds and the stanley fat max let go at 311 inch pounds once again the weld on the threaded part of the handle broke and the mulching pliers move into the lead finally breaking at 593 inch pounds very impressive and the point of failure was the weld in the handle so the malko pliers proved to be the most indestructible at 593 inch pounds but the milwaukee also performed very well at 556. grip on broke at 543 craftsman 466 and irwin 444 inch pounds so which brand of locking pliers is the best in my opinion the malco did a terrific job and easily won this competition however the malco is very expensive at over 40 dollars so if you're looking for an affordable brand the irwin performed very well as did the craftsman all the videos in this channel including this one are viewer suggested so if you have a video idea i hope you'll take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 1,174,565

Keywords: project farm, Best pliers, plier brand comparison, best locking pliers, locking plier comparison, best vice grips, vice grip comparison, best vice grip brand, which vice grip brand is best, vice grip review, locking plier review, plier review, usa vs german vice grips, usa vs german locking pliers, usa vs china vice grips, Germany vs china locking pliers, Irwin vice grips, Irwin vice grip review, Irwin vice grip comparison, Stanley fatmax vice grip review

Id: X8BDMF8KKlQ

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/reggieb]

What?!?!?! These videos need to be banned. We all know that Knipex tools are far better than any other tool, especially those of us that have never used them.

He keeps lying with all these "objective" tests (I think this is the third time) that fail to show that Knipex is better than any other brand that has ever existed, handed down by God himself, riding in on his personal chariot (an e30 M3 for anyone that doesn't know).

[u/dodgecharger65]

This has totally sold me on the eagle grips, while also reassuring me that my Chinese Irwins weren’t a total waste of money

[u/carmike692000]

I was very excited to see an item from Tekton making one of his videos, but then was super disappointed to see he's testing an old version that's no longer even produced as far as I can tell.

I don't know how old the Tekton 3711 is, but as stated in the video it's made in China.

Since at least as far back as June of last year when I bought a few of their locking pliers, their model numbers are completely different, the design is completely different (number and location of rivets), and they're made in Taiwan. I suppose the PLK10010 would be their current version.

Love his videos, but kind of defeats the whole purpose when he uses older, no longer produced versions of tools.

[u/metera952]

Pretty thorough video, nice job!

[u/RickyPetite]

I just got a set of Eagle Grip locking pliers. As luck would have it, about a week later I needed them to remove a rusty bolt whose head had broken off. First of all, the construction is like no other. Heavy, perfect chrome...just better in every way. They dug into the bolt and left deep teeth marks as they turned it without difficulty. Really impressed.

[u/GSA62]

I've been wasting my money on Grip on..😒

[u/ForWPD]

FYI, the eaglegrips are made in Dewitt, NE in the exact same factory as the original vice-grips.