I won't argue that the Wilton Bullet Vises are some of the nicest made but a past experience has always made me leery of them.
As a kid, at maybe 8 or so years old my pop had a Wilton vise on his work bench in the basement. Although he wouldn't have likely ever spent the kind of money they cost on a vise, my grandfather got it for him as a Christmas gift sometime in the mid to late 60's. As a kid I was always a tinkerer, working on bicycles, motorcycles, small engines, and such and I even had my own welder at that age. My grandfather was a machinist for a big oil company in a department that built and repaired pumps and had been at the same company for decades so I had a basement full of tools at hand.
The vise was mounted to an all oak work bench my pop and grandpop had built in the basement The vise sat atop the left corner of the bench mounted to a welded 1/4 " steel corner cap on that side of the bench.
I was trying to removed a pulley off a broken jack shaft on a homemade go cart. The shaft was 1" in diameter and the inner end had two lock nuts holding a pulley on a stepped part of the shaft. The shaft had snapped about 1" from the backside of the pulley, which i needed to reuse. Keep in mind i was around 8 at the time and maybe 70lbs at best.
I got the outer nut loose and with some effort, it came off fine. The second nut wouldn't budge. I was trying to lock the broken stub of the shaft in the vise and with a large wrench, knock the nut loose by hammering on the wrench with a lead hammer.
The thing kept rolling out of the vise, so I got a buddy who was there to help me get the vise tighter, I put about a two foot long piece of water pipe on the vise handle and cranked it down, but it still wouldn't grip the end of the shaft, so we tried again, this time making it tighter yet. On that attempt the one vise jaw broke loose, shearing both screws off and the jaw slid out to the left.
Knowing I was already in deep **** for breaking the vise, I wanted to get done even faster.
Luckily neither of the broken screws were hard to get out of the jaw, they both spun right out. Wanting to to at least finish what I started I stole one of the screws from the rear jaw to hold the front jaw in place. I knew enough not to use the thing without a jaw, knowing that pop would completely loose it if I buggered up the main vise doing something stupid.
So, with each jaw held in place with one screw, I went back to trying to get the broken shaft and pulley held tight enough where I could brake the rusted on nut loose on the end of the shaft. My next attempt is where I really screwed up. I realized that the vise couldn't hold onto the round shaft tight enough to prevent it from turning and another attempt would likely only break off the remaining two jaw screws. I got the idea of flipping it over, clamping the nut in the vise, and using a huge pipe wrench to loosen the shaft. The nut was recessed just enough where it was out of reach using the top of the jaws, (about 4 1/2" wide), I then used the left end of the vise jaws to grab the nut. My thought was that it wouldn't put as much side stress on the two remaining jaw screws, and it let me get a grip over the full width of the nut flats.
On the first try, the nut rounded a bit and slipped out of the vise. I rotated the thing to an undamaged pair of flats and this time we both used our weight to tighten the vise. Two kids, both 75-80 lbs each, a couple foot long pipe and all our strength to tighten the vise wasn't enough and it slipped out again.
This was round two, strike two. Seeing that we were destroying what remained of the rusty axle nut I knew if we rounded off the nut it was going to take some heat to loosen. I didn't have access to torches, which was probably a good thing. There also was no air compressor or air tools, only my father's old Snap On tool box and basic hand tools, he kept the power tools locked up. On try number three we got a longer pipe, which we slid over the first pipe. Now with about 5ft of leverage, and the now well rounded nut clamped in the end of vise jaws we were tightening it with all we had. On the first try with the pipe wrench it started to move in the vise, so we went back to make it tighter. This time I was hammering on the short pipe with a 5lb maul while my buddy, who as a few years older than me, was hanging on the end of the pipe like an ape off the end of the bench. It was then it gave way, in a loud pop, followed by a few choice words from my buddy who hit the floor suddenly, the entire front jaw of the vise gave way. The pulley was on the floor, and the vise jaw was now angled back about 1/2" or so. The iron had cracked down low near the screw after bending first. The jaw was bent, and leaning back with a crack across the narrowest part of the casting. Not mention the handle was bent like an S as well.
The funny thing was I wasn't worried about breaking the vise, I was more worried about toppling the bench or pulling the bolts out of the floor that held it in place.
Like any 8 year old would do, I knew then we weren't getting it apart so I tossed it in the basket of my newspaper route bike and went down to the corner gas station. After showing it to the guy there he grabbed an impact gun and socket, and while holding the thing in one hand, a few cracks of the gun and the nut spun right off.
We both went back to my house, hurriedly put the new shaft on the go cart, and took off to try the thing out. Partly because I knew pop was going to blow his stack when he saw the busted up vise.
In the end I fixed the go cart, but I wasn't allowed to use it or the tools in the basement for a year.
The next Christmas though, I got my own vise and Grandpop built me my own work bench down there with my own tools. Pop kept his locked up after that. I did find him a new vise, but not a Wilton, an older super sized vise without a swivel or removable jaws. An old farmer on my paper route gave it to me for free. It was so big I could barely get it home by myself. I bent up the basket on my bike trying to carry it home that way.
Years later I did buy pop a new Craftsman's Best' vise after I got tired of him complaining that the used vise didn't have a swivel. My pop is long gone, but that Craftsman vise is still on his bench downstairs. I'm not sure what ever happened to the broken Wilton but I know the wouldn't warranty it with the bent handle.
Having broken that one vise back then made me stay away from Wilton over the years. Even though I know better, breaking that one tainted my impression of the brand and i never owned one as my own vise. I've bought and flipped a few here and there but i never kept one. My go to vise now is an 6" jaw Columbian and a massive no name, probably Chinese vise with 8" jaws which I use when I'm doing something that's likely to damage the vise. I've never broken another vise though.
