Worst impact sockets?

[tyyost]

I have bought some rough ones over the years. Heck, my metric deeps were Stanley from Walmart for years. I have never broken one. I have a few that are so peened in the drive that they fall off the anvil of my impact but have not cracked yet. My Pittsburgh ones probably are the worst for finish, but get the job done.

 

[Hootbro]

I have a older 3/8" drive shallow Craftsman set marked "Taiwan" that is Cr-V and I would say they are nothing to brag about. What little home use I have used of them shows them starting to round out the anvil side of the socket pretty bad.

 

[Schurkey]

I find that the square drive on impact sockets wears out first. Pretty soon they are falling off your impact.

Replace the O-ring and spring-ring on the anvil. Most older impacts I've seen have spring-rings that are totally beat.



I bought the "shop" impact socket set when I was working there, late 1980s. The owner/operator got a wild hair and decided to put price-tags on most of the shop equipment. I bought the Allen distributor machine, the Robinair wall-display of A/C tools, and a full set of Wright 1/2 shallow impact sockets that were old when I got there.

The Wright impact sockets are now 40--50 years old. The black-oxide coating looks terrible. I replaced two worn-out sockets; a 9/16 and a 5/8. There's some others that have some wear, but not enough to bother me.

Similarly, my deep impacts were purchased (new) in the late '80s or early '90s sometime. Used professionally for about fifteen years, and hobby-use after that. I figure that 30+ years on impact sockets is "getting my money's worth", but not unreasonably so.

I don't know how you guys can break a non-swivel impact socket. Wear 'em out...sure. Break them? They would HAVE to be defective. You better buy your tools somewhere else, 'cause you're buying garbage.

As far as wear on the drive end; I see less of that now than I did decades ago. Instead of rattling away on a seized fastener which beats hell out of the square, today's impacts rattle twice and the fastener breaks free, or breaks off. Better to have two seconds of hard-hitting impacting than two minutes of weak impacting. A "good" 3/8 drive impact has more power than the 1/2 drive impacts of my youth. IR231s and CP734s were "industry standards" and reliable as a stone...because they didn't make enough power to hurt themselves.

 

[colintrax]

Yes, I know because we made 'em
When i started we carried these deep 1/2" impact sockets. I was reviewing inventory and noticed we sold a lot of parts/replacements for how many sets we sold. So I went over them and the broach was not concentric, one wall would be thinner than the opposing side.
And they were rock hard. Like way too hard to be impact sockets. 57 or 59! Hrc, like a good hunting knife or something.
So thin in places.... way too hard... recipe for disaster. I was probably weeks into my position, not even a month, went into the CEO's office and said "we shouldn't be selling these, the quality is poor and probably dangerous"
"Okay, have Jason quarantine them, tell Gary to get them back from our customers and update the system as discontinued and we'll cancel PO's"

It was a sub 1 minute conversation. I knew I was working in the right place after that.

OT here, but where does Astro post open positions? I recently checked but couldn't find a careers page on the website and LinkedIn looks neglected.

 

[WWheeler]

I'm still using 24 year old craftsman impact sockets.

I'm still using my USA craftsman impacts too. I don't recall who made them back then, Armstrong maybe? But they are tough.

FWIW I also have a set of made in China Craftsman impact sockets and no complaints with them either, though they don't see as much (ab)use. I still have what's left of the Matco ADV set I was using before them. Those are some seriously soft sockets that just aint made for a heavy duty impact. Whatever chinesium Sears Craftsman was using is a LOT more durable than they are.

 

[anndel]

About 10 years ago, I was helping my cousin part out an old sugarcane hauling truck that was rusted beyond hand tools. He brought a generator driven air compressor and air impact but forgot the sockets. I ran to Sears who were out of impacts and only had chrome sockets so I bought the chinese 1/2" Craftsman sockets. We hammered on the impact and got the nuts/bolts loose without issues on the sockets. I still use them today.

 

[carmantl]

Shattered a 1 & 1/4 shallow Mac today, peeled one of the six sides right off. But this socket has survived on my ironworking crew for 10 years and has tightened MANY thousands of 3/4 structural steel bolts, if not maybe over a million? Ain't even gonna request a replacement I will just buy another when I can run the truck down. Don't want to do online I want the truck driver that I bought the first one from to get the sale. And yes the square drive was showing considerable wear but still had retention.

 

[Steve_P]

SI set of impact sockets from Buffalo Tools and SAE set of impact sockets from Harbor Freight purchased in the early 1980s. The markings are identical. Chrome vanadium steel for both of them. They lasted without failure. Although, Proto SI and SAE impact sockets sets have been acquired recently as an upgrade.

Yes, these are old posts. Some goofballs like to complain that it's an old thread while others complain that a search should've been done on the subject before starting a new thread. Either way here's some additional information.

The picture in this post made me smile as I still have the same ancient HF impact sockets in that metal case from the mid-1980s. I used the hell out of them for decades and they do show wear, but this was also before they had off-corner engagement. I have newer replacement impact sockets, so now I use the HF ones for press duty. The only HF impact socket I broke was on a Honda crankshaft bolt while using the starter, and a fixed breaker bar to loosen it; both the breaker bar and the socket simultaneously broke LOL. And yes, this was before today's super strong impacts, so they might not last as long today when going up against seized fasteners. But I got my $9.99 out of them and more

 

[Etchase]

About 10 years ago, I was helping my cousin part out an old sugarcane hauling truck that was rusted beyond hand tools. He brought a generator driven air compressor and air impact but forgot the sockets. I ran to Sears who were out of impacts and only had chrome sockets so I bought the chinese 1/2" Craftsman sockets. We hammered on the impact and got the nuts/bolts loose without issues on the sockets. I still use them today.

The exported the good Chinese sockets to Maui. I miss watching the cane equipment. Not the black snow though.

 

[Ole Slewfoot]

Too brittle I think is the problem, not too soft. I broke some from HF right away once,...they used to have two different set of deep metric, one was good, that one I couldn't find in the store that day, bought the other, broke two the first time I used them, took them back, got the right ones, now years later, never a problem.

I had that set, shattered the 1st 3 sockets I tried with a 200 ft.lb impact