China Tool Test

Ratchet Torture Test and what is made in China? Well most of the major tools are now produced in China today and there is not much you can do about it.

Don’t get me wrong as I would much rather buy American to support our country rather than make someone else rich for Branding something as produced here.

However seeing as how Unions strive to bleed every last dollar out of a company. Most manufactures cannot make a living producing tools that can be sold for a reasonable or human price as you may put it these days 🙁

So Hot Rod Magazine did this Ratchet test a while back that keeps getting lost to me when I try to show people why I do buy Harbor Freight stuff now when I needs something fast. I do not have a Snap On account and when I did buy from them way back when it was a stretch to afford the tools.

Anyway most of my tools are Craftsman and are the old school Craftsmen at that. I do have quite a few Snap On Impact Sockets, even the swivel Impact Socket sets. However I scored them used from EBAY for the win. Entire 250 piece set cost me less than 1 new Impact Swivel set from Snap On and that includes 3/8 and 1/2 sets of standard and Swivel Impact sockets!

Hot Rod figured a way to test the breaking point using a test made by Steve Watt from Maxwell Industries. He made a fixture to mount the 1/2 inch ratchets to so they could be stressed with a hydraulic Ram while a Load Sensor measured the force applied.

The load was applied on a 1 foot fulcrum so the measurement was easily come up with instead of using any formulas that could be brought into suspect. This test would show the maximum torque before the wrenches would break much like when you put a cheater bar on to multiply the force. That and no impact was used to change the true amount of force being applied.

Anyway no Snap On units are tested or Matco and Mac are left out of the picture too. Just in the explanation video on the top but, the Harbor Freight unit lasted fairly well with no the ratchet system being the failure point!