Best Bolt Cutters

[mattgood65]

Good Morning All:
I'm sure this topic has been discussed, although I search and didn't find anything. Best bolt cutter recommendations? Looking for 36" or so Im a Snap-on nut, but thinking theirs is made by somebody.

 

[shawhite]

What are you looking to cut and how often do you plan on using them?

 

[Carquest]

I have a set of 30" Knipex that I am real happy with. Not something I use very often though.....

 

[gdocktor3]

The big bolt cutters we have are HKP while the smaller are Ridgid as are all the pipe wrenches.

 

[Scotts1200]

Arent Bolt Cutters like Dinosaurs?
Today we use Plasma Cutters much faster and a lot less work....

Sent from my LG-K540 using Tapatalk

 

[Carquest]

When you live on a farm, you can't always get the plasma cutter where you need it lol

 

[mattgood65]

I use them infrequently, I cut up to 1/2 grade 8 bolts. I'm leaning toward the ridged I guess

 

[tool_scrounge]

Hk porter. Made in the USA and really nice quality. The older ones have really cool decorative "scroll work" in the castings. I have even seen an end cutting nipper version vs. the usual side cutting version. They have a lot of different types available.

Catalog link:
http://www.metrohydraulic.com/pdf/HK-Porter-Catalog.pdf

 

[bob15]

HK Porter.

 

[FigureItOut]

I have 36" HK Porter's also, they've eaten up everything I've thrown at them. When I was shopping, I believe I remember finding that the Rockwell hardness rating matched that of the Knipex, Ridgid and Klein models that I also was considering. They were the most affordable of the non-asian cutters that I found, and there's a good chance they were made just a few miles from my house.

Edit to add: the replacement cutter heads are readily available on Amazon also, I don't know if that's the case with the others.

 

[General Geoff]

Krenn.

Made in Deutschland, they also have replaceable 3-sided blade inserts that effectively give triple the life of standard bolt cutter blades.

 

[Dave455]

Best bolt cutters, or bolt croppers, are the old British made (pre Irwin) Record!

They made many different lengths and styles, including high tensile!

Availability of the old ones is good in the U.K. but I'm not sure about the U.S.

All the H.K. Porter that I've seen have tubular steel handles and they're not in the same league!

I have a big pair of 42 inch, together with some little 18 inch that I use a lot! Great tools!

 

[Empty Pockets]

I have a pair of rigid 30" th as t I bought years ago for cutting rail bolts off trailers at the railroad. They have done the job for years

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[rlitman]

Arent Bolt Cutters like Dinosaurs?
Today we use Plasma Cutters much faster and a lot less work....

Less work, yes. Faster, no. Cheaper, no way.

A couple of years ago I made a series of tomato cages out of rebar. It required nearly a thousand cuts, and it turned out to be cheaper to buy HF's longest bolt cutter (the 42" version) and modify it into a rebar cutter (with a depth stop) than to buy the portaband blades I'd need for that many cuts. Plasma cutter consumables would have been even more expensive. At the end of the job, the jaws still look like new.

Granted, I haven't used the bolt cutter since, and I'd probably reach for the plasma cutter or just about anything else for a one-off cut, assuming I had the air and power convenient. But manual tools still do have their places.

 

[Monte]

VBW, Knipex, Krenn, Orbis, Baudat.....

 

[kctyphoon]

HK Porter, Ridgid, or an M18 fuel grinder.. Knipex I'd imagine are very good as well..

Honestly, 36" bolt cutter are pretty big and hard to use unless you can get one handle on the ground for big stuff. if u don't need to use them a lot I'd just get a set from HF if it were me, but for home use I'd just get a cordless grinder.. our smaller ones are 18" or 24" I think, and they can do padlocks just fine. The corded HF grinder I have at work cuts through grade 80 3/8" chain very easily...

If this helps -

 

[shawhite]

We have several types at work but the cutters that get used more than any other are the huskie hydraulic cutters.

http://www.huskietools.com/products/s-240cc-handheld-hydraulic-cutter/

The second best are the ratcheting hk porters model 8690CK. We have the 36in standard bolt cutters but they never come off the truck.

 

[johninct]

Arent Bolt Cutters like Dinosaurs?
Today we use Plasma Cutters much faster and a lot less work....

Sent from my LG-K540 using Tapatalk

Not at all. When I re-plumbed my house using pex, I cut the old copper out using bolt cutters in just a few minutes . Would have been a lot harder and longer using a pipe cutter or a sawzall. Also, they are good for "Midnight Shopping..."