GEARWRENCH 6" PITBULL Auto-Bite Tongue & Groove Dual Material Pliers - 82590C

Let me start by saying, that I've only had these for 2 days at this point, but wanted to share my initial impressions, as there are no other reviews, and there are some points I'd like other shoppers to know about when considering these pliers.I'll start with the good; the finish, and machining work on these are absolutely top notch, for the price they are a beautiful tool.I can already tell the steel quality/hardening and heat treatment on these pliers, specifically the gripping teeth is, dare I say close... If not the same durability as knipex. I work with a lot of hardened high grade industrial fasteners, I can tell a good pair of pliers from a bad pair realitively quick. On a bad pair the pliers teeth will immediately deform upon trying to bite into, and turn a hardened fastener, on a good pair, like these gearwrench pliers, or knipex cobras, they will bite into, and deform the fastener, and the pliers teeth will remain in shape, and sharp. The teeth on the gearwrench pliers are holding up awesome after testing them and pushing past their reasonable limit, showing little to no wear, this is why they earned a 5 start raining from me, I have ruined so many pliers by destroying the teeth In quick order, and before I found these, only channel lock and knipex could handle the abuse, from my experience.The grips on these are great if you prefer comfort grips like me, just the right softness to grip your hand, but ridgid enough to last.The "bad"So.. take this how you will but in my opinion, at least on the pair I recieved the auto bite feature is flawed. I have discovered that when using the auto bite, the locking mechanism inside the pliers will not engage to lock the pliers in place. This may be by design, or, my pair could possibly be defective. This means when using auto bite the pliers will slip on fasteners, and cannot nearly put out the same torque vs when you turn the autobite off. I don't think it's completely unless or anything, but I do feel that it would only be good in low torque situations, or repetitive gripping/holding operations.It's no big deal to me, I keep the autobite disengaged and operate the pliers without, and they work great and can still quickly be adjusted. But if you are buying these for the sole reason that they have the autobite feature, I would look elsewhere.All in all, I am happy with them, and glad to add them a long side of my many pairs of channel lock and knipex pliers. Also to note, the 6 inch fit perfectly and comfortably in my pocket, for quick fixes.

I got this for under $5! I love it! Will buy again

Well made!

Liked one hand feature and sturdiness. Wider opening than my older and longer wrench.

Seem to work but the design isn’t the best, they won’t last long

Work great turn auto bite on or off. Fits in hand perfectly. Small but great for a number of uses.

Best gripping channel locks out! Recommended 5☆

Muy buena cálida y calidad en el servicio

Another reviewer stated that a Knipex Cobra was not much more than this; well, right now that's twice the price of this. At this price point, I would give the GearWrench a 4.5 out of 5. If they were to make a minor adjustment (see below), it could deserve a 6 out of 5. Then I would buy it again even at a higher cost.General observations: It is said to be a 6-inch pair of pliers. From tip to tip, it measures 6.9 inches; some people/companies give the handle length as the plier size, and the handles on these are 6 inches. The jaw capacity is at least 1.25 inches, though depending on the shape of a workpiece, it could hold up to 1.5 inches or so (see the picture). There are 12 or 13 jaw depth stops, so the user can really get a close fit on the material they're working on. All water pump pliers that I know of have some side-to-side play; these have about 1mm left or right. There is a little notch by the tip of the jaw that lets it hold small rods or dowels, or wire, securely. It can easily hold flat, square, hex, and round workpieces quite securely in its V-shaped jaws. The handles are quite comfortable, and strong. An excellent non-marring set of "jaws" are built into the inside of the plastic handles, for holding and twisting items that one does not want metal jaw teeth to dig into. These do not affect the comfort of the handles. The tool operates and adjusts smoothly, easily, and securely. The two holes at the bottom of the handles, for lanyards or pegboard mounting, are a nice touch.The auto-bite feature: These pliers, I think just like the Crescent auto-bite, have a lever near the top of the outside handle that can be employed or tucked away easily with the flick of one's thumb. When this lever is not folded up into the handle, one can open the pliers' jaws wider than a workpiece, and just squeeze the handles to automatically adjust the jaw depth to fit and clamp securely onto it, quickly and easily. It's a brilliant idea. I found that I could get a more perfect fit without it (see photos) for situations where I want to be picky about a perfect fit (e.g., compression fittings, whose tightness I want to feel and control perfectly). But the auto-fit is more than secure enough for most purposes. Some reviewers have complained that the auto-bite lever has snapped on them, so I wouldn't use it where high torque is needed. The lever is 1/8 of an inch thick, and 1/4 inch wide. It's a shame that it would be so easy for Gear Wrench to make it 50% thicker, and thereby stronger, which would widen the metal part of the top of the handles by 1/16 of an inch. I'm sure the engineer designers must have wanted that (how could they not?), but marketers and/or cost savers probably wanted a sleeker looking tool, and they prevailed. I think an updated version of the tool should be made that makes this lever, let's say 75% thicker, 3.5/16 of an inch, and the rest of the upper handle very slightly thicker also. If the extra metal for that would expensive, they could take it from the extra length of the handles. The upper handles where the lever pushes against would also well be thickened to match, and no one would notice a difference.Creative problem-solving: I really needed a pair of water-pump style pliers whose handles were less than 5 inches, but did not cost what a Knipex mini Cobra would cost. So I bought this, used an angle grinder to cut the handles to fit my needs, added heat shrink tube on the ends, and I couldn't be happier. I suppose this could become an "EDC" (every-day carry) tool. I'm sure I lost the lifetime warranty by chopping off half the handles, but I'm sure I wouldn't have needed to use the warranty anyway.In summary, this is a stronger than average pair of pliers at a good price with extra features that make it almost perfect. If GearWrench or Crescent were to beef it up a little more with (I think) no extra material cost, and add a 4 inch or 5 inch versions to their line-up (so guys like me wouldn't have to chop the handles), I think the tool would get the favorable attention from influential reviewers that its versatility and ingeniousness deserve.

As I had stated, naming this item pitbull isn't necessarily appropriate because very few pitbulls deserve the inherited reputation that they have but if you want to make a comparison to something then I would call them "killer shark grippers".Very pleased with this purchase.

I honestly don't get all the love this thing is getting in the reviews. Yes, the metallurgy seems (SEEMS!) robust... Yes, the whole thing seems put together well, and seems like it will last a long time. The (big) problem is that silly "auto-bite" design, and the lack of a position release button (found in many competing products).Whenever the jaws are set in the 1.6 to 2 inch (closed) range, the "auto-bite" bar lies more or less perpendicular with the handle and jams the whole works while you're trying to clamp down, thus defeating the point of this tool (for the whole "auto-bite" thing to work properly the bar needs to be at an angle well off perpendicular, and this is impossible to achieve at certain jaw settings). And because there's no position release button, you have to fully open the jaws to slide them apart again, just like a regular ol' tongue-and-groove. Ridiculous!I get that sometimes companies want to innovate, but this design should never have made it to market. Gearwrench should've stuck with the competition's well-proven recipe. (It's a shame, because GW is generally a well-reputed mid-budget brand; I own one of their torque wrenches and it is very good.)My advice: Steer well clear of this thing and get an Irwin "GrooveLock" instead, or the even better Knipex "Cobra" (which won't cost you that much more).

Purchased these pliers on the recommendation of a co-worker.They are good quality pliers and I would recommend them.

Works great. Does exactly what I expected it to do.