I'd rather spend a lot now and know I have a good gun then buy a cheap piece of junk and it break and have to buy the good then. Like I said earlier I think the average homeowner can buy with a quality 3/8 gun today. Customers are always commenting how fast it is.
you can of course do whatever you want to do with your $.. but consider this concept.
gun a, brand name, suposed good quality due to name recognition, 500$
gun b, knock off brand, presumed less quality, 100$
situation 1, light homeowner use:
Under light use, both a/b may last a 'lifetime' spinning a couple bolts out a year.
end result.. one gun cost you 400$
situation 2, heavier use
both guns used much more frequently, after 2 years gun b needs replacing, gun a, starting to wear, but still going very well... 2 more years, gun b needs replacing, gun a very much worn. 2 more years, gun a dead, gun b also dead... replace.
where are you at? you have spent 400$ on gun b. every 2 years it's a new gun, thus new performance. You spent 500% on guna, and it steadly wore down to needing replacing. at half time of this event, gun b was brand new. gun a was half way thru usefull life. net result.. you are ahead by 100$
I've done this comparison on MANY types of tools used in a industrial / construction environment.
brush hogs for example. we USED to buy the expensive brand name models that cost 1200$ vs a 550$ king kutter or howse.
what did we find? A car rim on the side of the road, after you hit them a couple times.. don't really care of it is destroying a 1100$ 'bush hog' or a 550$ king kutter. after nearly 2 decades of research.. we ende dup saving money using lower priced hogs. death rate was very similar on machines up to 2x$ price range.
smaller tools? chainsaws? weed whackers? hand tools?
hand tools. a theif can steel a 3$ 1/4" drive ratchet set from harbor freight.. or he can steal a 50$ craftsman one... same amount of time... both have lifetime warranty
1 costs my company more to replace. ( i've also found the theifs don't like to steal the 3$ chinese sockets either.. not something they can go pawn... ).. We've had thefts where the criminal went thru.. left low priced tools and took high priced ones. places that only had low cost tools were not touched.
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when out on a job and I find no other way around welding a 2" socket to the and of a pipe to get down in a hole... i'd rather do so with a socket I can replace for 5$ than one that I have to replace for 35$.
when I need to torch a 1.25" wrench into a stubby to get to a bolt to hold it. or put an S bend in a 1" wrench.. I'd rather do it to one I can repalce for 5$ vs one for 35$
a 175$ poulan chainsaw looks about the same as a 350$ huskie AFTER it has fallen off a tailgate driving down the side of a road doing ROW maintenance... OR after dropping a tree across it. one just eats less of a hole in the job profits.
when they are both running with rent-a-drunks . both have the same approximate lifespans in number of hours used. weed eaters work out the same...
ps.. none of this is made up. This is just looking thru my tool file I've maintained over the past years here at work at a GC....
expensive is nce.
expensive doe not always mean quality.. but generally used to anyway.. expensive does always equal expensive however.
economy does not always equal cheap..
here's another way of looking at it.
If I as a contractor have to put a 2500$ tool set in each one of my service trucks, to set out on the MSTU road job i'm building outside your house... or I can put in 700$ worth of tools... what do you think that does tot he price of that road. which in turn.. what happens to the price of your special assessment tax on your property taxes? I save money.. you save money... there ain't no free lunch.
with todays tool manufactring tech.. many tools pour out of china anyway.. reguardless of who's name is stamped on them. if I can pay 1/4 and get a working tool and save everybody money down the line.... why not ??
btdt, got the greasy sweaty tshirt...
PS.. this isn't 1980 when a cheap pakistan or tiwanese socket set was 10$ and a craftsman was 30-50, and there was a HUGE difference in quality.
this is 2012, and a craftsman wrench for 30$ laying next to a HF wrench for 5$ both have hece en chine engraved on them and both ahve a warranty.. and may have come from the same factory.. and are quite possibly the same level of quality.
different ballgame. maechanics from the earlier part of the last century had a legitimate argument vs against owning a cheap tool.
playing field went thru a major leveling with rise of industrial technology overseas, and us farming out as many jobs as possible. you CAN get a high quality, CHEAPER tool nowadays....
