Snap Ring Pliers for ratchets

[shakenfake]

I have no idea what you mean by any of that. I use those pliers constantly to take apart my army of crappy ratchets. I find them neither too big nor too stiff.

I do however have a different set of tips than what came with them I think. I remember breaking a couple (I abuse stuff) and dumping the rest of the tips in a bag with another set of tips I bought.

 

[Ohio Andy]

I have no idea what you mean by any of that. I use those pliers constantly to take apart my army of crappy ratchets. I find them neither too big nor too stiff.

I do however have a different set of tips than what came with them I think. I remember breaking a couple (I abuse stuff) and dumping the rest of the tips in a bag with another set of tips I bought.

You mean specifically the The CHANNELLOCK 927 8" Retaining Ring Pliers and a Craftsman 1/4" 44809?

Also, it did not help that the pair I purchased had a manufacturing defect. On one side you could fully seat one of the pins, but I think that would have helped in this case ... if you could seat the pins the same depth. I mean I did, but it took some concentration.

 

[shakenfake]

Check your P/N there. 44809 is a 1/2” drive ratchet.
But yes

 

[AEAdam]

I think we have probably all gone down the replaceable tip snap ring plier path. It’s a tool that CAN work, but for a far more limited range of snap rings than the number of tips suggests. In the end, they are just a waste of money.

 

[Ohio Andy]

Check your P/N there. 44809 is a 1/2” drive ratchet.
But yes

Yeah you're right, I looked at the wrong number before I wrote it down.

I think it is fair to say that your ability to do that with the smaller ratchet demonstrates what experience and aptitude allows. And it's one of the reasons why I'm glad that people like you are on here so that you can help people like me with much less experience with such things.

 

[Chrome Vanadium Cody]

I have two pairs of Channellock/Lang (another rebrand of the same tool), one 6 inch and one 8 inch. They were all I used for years and between them they could handle all my ratchets. The 6” is better for 1/4” drive, 8” is better for 1/2” drive, 3/8” drive can kind of go either way.

That said they do have some functional/qc issues like the OP said. One of mine also has the problem where the tips won’t go in to an equal depth so you have to manually align them.

Recently I upgraded to Facom rebranded as SK for interchangeable snap ring pliers. These are better but more expensive. Epstein’s sells the external ones cheap: https://www.harryepstein.com/products/sk-suregrip-external-convertible-retaining-ring-pliers and I got the internal ones for a good deal at a local store but they are harder to find a deal on online. Then have just bought individual forged ones in other sizes as needed.