let's we have a chat about the wheeler firearms aquirizing torque wrench also
known as the fat wrench on some websites now if you've been doing some research
on this product I can say this episode will all likelihood save you a lot of
time I've already done the research for you and what follows is in effect a sum
of all the reviews so the concept here is quite straightforward if you're
investing money into quality firearms quality scope mounts and quality scopes
then it's worthwhile investing some additional money to make sure you're
getting the ideal torque level when you're mounting your optics etc now the product
can be used for other purposes as well and there's plenty of reviewers who used
it for other purposes but this is the underlying promise or not promise
purpose of the product and is what this particular product is promising to
deliver so the question here is how well does it do now going by the positive
reviews it does pretty well it has 94% four or five star reviews on Amazon so
that's pretty impressive so what we're going to do now is we'll run through the
things people most of all liked about it and then we'll talk about considerations
and what it gets criticized for and then you can make your judgment call from
there number one people love it because of just the whole day and night
difference between knowing versus guessing your torque level people saying
it works perfectly for the intended purpose
they love the fact that they can get exactly the torque that they want some
people saying they used to massively over tighten things conversely some
people were saying they realize that they used to massively under the tighten
things or would strip out screws when they've sort of got a gorilla grip
happening and overdid it with too much enthusiasm so yeah just the knowledge
that you've got the right torque this is the number one thing that people love
about it and you know this makes sense that's the primary purpose of the tool
number two people just reporting that it's works and it's simple to operate
and that they consider it a worthwhile investment number
three it is praised for being useful for a lot of other applications which I sort
of touched on in the introduction a lot of home handyman reviewers were on there
talking about using it for electrical work and various other handyman type
applications so it's quite broad in its scope as to what you can use it for
number four it's value versus price it's described pretty much as been a good
tool for the value great set for the prices another quote a worthwhile
investment you get the idea and number five people appreciate the fact that it
comes with the factory test results or test certifications to give you some
confidence about how accurate it is okay so those are the primary reasons that
people praise it in the positive reviews and as noted positive reviews
made up about 94% of the reviews so what some things to consider now things to
consider it's kind of my neutral category as per the name things you want
to consider you make the judgment call as to whether the positive or a negative
for you first up the socket size a lot of people
ask this question because it doesn't seem to be broadcast so clearly in the
advertisement it does use quarter inch socket sizes so you want to you know
keep that in mind if you're gonna be buying additional bits to use with it
now the increment size it's you can adjust it in five pound increments some
reviewers found that this is a little bit too crude for fine work to quote one
gentleman who said it really should be in one-pound increments so it really
just depends on what you're intending to use this for I think for the majority of
people five pound increments is probably fine but you know just take that in
consideration have a think about whether you want that extra level of precision
one gentleman talking about a particular scope needed had the specification of 18
pounds inch yeah and with us with this tool you're kind of selecting 15
20 pounds so take that into consideration
next up accuracy considerations now this fat wrench which is the the name it's
known as is specified as being accurate to plus or minus two pounds
under thirty and plus or minus five above thirty so keep that in mind and
that the accuracy level is different depending on what torque level you're
taking it up to now the other consideration as we said the name is the
fat wrench it is pointed out by some reviewers that it does have a fat body
combined with the short neck making it impossible to use in tight places so
once again just consider how you're going to be using this tool critical
reviews now critical reviews make up about four percent of the reviews and
these are the things that it is criticized for there is sort of mid C
one two three yeah there's my three main criticisms plus a couple of
miscellaneous ones which I'll run through first up it is criticized pretty
consistently in the critical reviews even some of the positive reviews
they're having a poor bit assortment so a lot of people just saying they wish it
came with more bits advertised as working on scope mounts and does not even have
the needed bits to attach for attaching scopes these sorts of comments coming up
so it's got some of the bits you need that perhaps not all of the bits you
need so you may want to check out the list on Amazon it does actually have a
list now off to the right specifying all the bits that come with
it otherwise you need to plan or budget for buying additional bits if you don't
have them already quarter inch as mentioned before the second thing it
gets criticized for is the quality of the bits it's gets talked about quite
frequently that the bits are made of low quality with a lot of them let's say
wheres the specific wording I'm looking for basically when people were using
higher torque levels they're actually saying that
couldn't stand it and it would either snap off the tips or twist the included
bits now this coming came up enough that I think it's probably reasonably
accurate or fair to say that these bits are not of the the highest quality and
you may want to budget in for getting some higher-quality bits to go with it
which is also going to sort out you could kill two birds with one stone the
fact that you don't get enough bits you know if you go and buy some additional
bits you're going to get rid of the second criticism about the quality of
the bits at the same time of course it's going to cost you some extra money
number three over torquing now this was a something that came up frequently in the
critical reviews but I do need to emphasize critical reviews made up about
4% of the reviews it seems some people were having issues with it over torquing
to the point where the the tips would break as mentioned before now there was
quite a few people describing how they had massively over tightened the screw
that they had real issues trying to get out now these criticisms tended to be
when they were cranking it up to the higher torque levels like you know 36 55
60 and some of the ones quoted even some people saying that they stripped out a
couple of screws now I'm not sure whether this is them just getting lemons
and they're the product not working properly or whether it's across the
board at higher torque levels perhaps a lot of
people only use this tool at lower torque levels but it's something just to
be aware of that some people have experienced this issue at the higher
torque levels I mean one gentleman and his opinion said it's great for low
tension tightening but broke when I used it for one of the max tension settings
so to summarize all that I think the takeaway point here is be careful when
using it at the higher end torque settings okay next up it was criticized
for some for not being able to be calibrated because some of them felt
that the calibration was actually as accurate as per the
specification it was criticized for the hex bit holder not being magnetic
it's described as using a spring to hold the bits however this particular
gentleman said that the bits are hard to get into the holder and then they just
fall out and he wished it was magnetic so something else to take into
consideration it was also criticized in the critical reviews repeatedly for
being made in China and these were usually from the people who had bad
experiences with it over talking or with the bits breaking as noted in the
earlier criticisms okay so that's it all the links are in the description
below so that you can check out the pricing from the major retailers I've
also listed the most popular alternatives in case one of these
criticisms or considerations has put you off the product or if you want to just
look a little bit further at the alternatives and how they stack up with
this particular product I hope this has been helpful and we'll see you next time
thank you
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