Threaded Cartridge Grease Guns

[JWR]

If you search using Google or in Amazon for 'Lube Shuttle grease guns' or for 'Air-Tec' there is quite a bit of info on these wonderful sounding German made tools. But only one company and that in Europe. There are 2 or 3 You Tube videos on the advantages and convenience of these guns. Most of the buzz regarding this "new" product seems to have been early 2018 here in the US. Might have been on before that (?) It is an extremely attractive tool bypassing the mess we all are used to with grease guns filling, leaking, wasting grease, etc. Using a screw-in plastic cartridge, zero mess, no plunger to pull, even talk about refilling the cartridges... I thought this product would take the market by storm in the US and soon make all those grungy old grease guns obsolete. A cordless electric version exists for volume users.

Yet in over a year since first seeing the You Tube demos and finding them on Amazon for sale the following seems true:

• There are no sources showing up in the US
• No competing brands of the devices have shown up
• Tractor dealers never heard of them
• Shipping ranges to around $20 or more from Europe
• Cartridges are over $8 each even when you buy 10 of them. No place local to buy cartridges.
• A gun, 10 cartridges and shipping running $130 or so -- pricing themselves out of the market with only one source.

This (lack of market uptake and action on what looks like a breakthrough) amazes me. I expected an explosion and have seen no action at all.

Anyone out there seen more than one supplier? Stores carrying them in the states ? Marketing news ?

 

[mikester]

Sign me up for small proprietary, likely over priced, hard to find, more disposable plastic waste, screw in grease cartridges!

Sorry, not going to happen when I can buy bulk grease in 20L pails with a drop in pneumatic grease pump.

Sounds like a product Apple should start selling.

 

[LouNY]

We switched over to the grease "tubes" well over 25 years ago from the bulk buckets.
Much easier to keep clean, easy to refill grease gun out in the field.
A large variety of grease available.
Always have 2-3 lever type manual grease guns around, plus the Lincoln Pneumatic,
I keep looking at the cordless electrics.

 

[WranglerX]

Small tractor user and various "things" around home does not make big time, expensive grease gun practical, have 25+ year old cartridge gun that I get refills at local O'Rilleys AP (only one within 25 miles).... Maybe takes me 10 minutes longer to squirt excessive amount of grease all over everything and same 30 minutes to clean up.... Maybe use 1-3 tubes a year.... Why do I need better (more expensive) system... If I was running a service shop or truck, YEAH, would be big volume barrels and pneumatic's sure.... Not sure where high cost small production, poorly supported product fits in...

Biggest thing on my maintenance list would be ...

LockNLube(R) Grease Coupler | LockNLube(R) - LOCKNLUBE

Dale

 

[schoolsout]

I love my Milwaukee M18 grease guns!

 

[Industrial Toys]

My Dad met some guy on an airplane to Germany that sells those. Anyway, they sent me samples. I likes the tubes but not the gun. Reminds me of a cork screw with those two wings, only bigger. A regular grease gun you could lay down and pump if need be. this thing you need two hands for. I'm sure there are other guns, that's just what I got.

Now I have used up the grease and was thinking of scrapping the gun.

 

[JWR]

We switched over to the grease "tubes" well over 25 years ago from the bulk buckets.
Much easier to keep clean, easy to refill grease gun out in the field.
A large variety of grease available.
Always have 2-3 lever type manual grease guns around, plus the Lincoln Pneumatic,
I keep looking at the cordless electrics.

Lou, I think you missed what this gadget is --- sure we all use the ordinary tubes of grease that you buy at any hardware store or tractor supply place. This German designed grease gun uses cartridges which look similar BUT they simply screw in -- zero mess, no plunger, no seeping all over the place where ever you hang it.

 

[JWR]

My Dad met some guy on an airplane to Germany that sells those. Anyway, they sent me samples. I likes the tubes but not the gun. Reminds me of a cork screw with those two wings, only bigger. A regular grease gun you could lay down and pump if need be. this thing you need two hands for. I'm sure there are other guns, that's just what I got.

Now I have used up the grease and was thinking of scrapping the gun.

That is very strange. Probably in Europe they have a lot of gun designs that we would never see. "A cork screw with wings" is hard to picture. If you look at the existing products from Air-Tec they have a couple of designs that look exactly like the plain old $15 guns we have all used for years -- one model with squeeze handles and the other with a long lever. The whole point here is the grease cartridge, the handling, the ease of changing and the total lack of a mess.

 

[JWR]

Sign me up for small proprietary, likely over priced, hard to find, more disposable plastic waste, screw in grease cartridges!

Sorry, not going to happen when I can buy bulk grease in 20L pails with a drop in pneumatic grease pump.

Sounds like a product Apple should start selling.

I would guess that 80% of us delivering web opinions here on TBN use plain old simple grease guns, never bought a 20 liter pail of grease in our life, and do not want an air hose required to where we want to grease something.

Yes, right now the things are very overpriced, they are proprietary (or at least not yet multi-sourced), and so far hard to find in the US ... but the plastic waste point is grasping for very obscure straws.

Unlike your opinion, I predict the screw in cartridge designs will take over 90% of the market for hand-held grease guns. It is simply a question of when.

The very minute that someone (like Tractor Supply or 1 or 2 of the big name tractor mfrs) start selling the things and stocking the cartridges the market will explode over night.

[By the way, for bulk grease users there exists a rig for sale in Europe that facilitates you reloading the screw-in cartridges from a drum of grease...]

 

[Industrial Toys]

I throw my old cardboard cartridge in the wood stove. The German ones are a heavy plastic. Curious, what them being so eco friendly do with them.

 

[Motorboatin]

I have the battery powered Lube shuttle. Someone should have thought of screw on grease tubes YEARS ago

It will catch on but they are not marketing to a guy in his garage that goes through a few tubes a year....yet

 

[jkh62]

I got a Harbor Freight pneumatic grease gun a few years ago because I needed one in a pinch and its actually been pretty **** good , especially for the $25 cost.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

If you search using Google or in Amazon for 'Lube Shuttle grease guns' or for 'Air-Tec' there is quite a bit of info on these wonderful sounding German made tools. But only one company and that in Europe. There are 2 or 3 You Tube videos on the advantages and convenience of these guns. Most of the buzz regarding this "new" product seems to have been early 2018 here in the US. Might have been on before that (?) It is an extremely attractive tool bypassing the mess we all are used to with grease guns filling, leaking, wasting grease, etc. Using a screw-in plastic cartridge, zero mess, no plunger to pull, even talk about refilling the cartridges... I thought this product would take the market by storm in the US and soon make all those grungy old grease guns obsolete. A cordless electric version exists for volume users.

Yet in over a year since first seeing the You Tube demos and finding them on Amazon for sale the following seems true:

• There are no sources showing up in the US
• No competing brands of the devices have shown up
• Tractor dealers never heard of them
• Shipping ranges to around $20 or more from Europe
• Cartridges are over $8 each even when you buy 10 of them. No place local to buy cartridges.
• A gun, 10 cartridges and shipping running $130 or so -- pricing themselves out of the market with only one source.

This (lack of market uptake and action on what looks like a breakthrough) amazes me. I expected an explosion and have seen no action at all.

Anyone out there seen more than one supplier? Stores carrying them in the states ? Marketing news ?

I hate cartridges. I purchased a G-Gun.

 

[ruffdog]

I have quality lever guns and I don't mind cartridges. A foot pump would not work for me as many of my zerks are low or under the equipment. I only want to bend over once vs climbing out to pump the foot peddle.

 

[snymat68]

I have the pistol grip lube shuttle, with an adapter and a lock-n-lube. It's a nice setup, but it seems like I have trouble getting the gun to stay primed.

 

[JWR]

I have the pistol grip lube shuttle, with an adapter and a lock-n-lube. It's a nice setup, but it seems like I have trouble getting the gun to stay primed.

Good input. I assume you are doing the "push some of the grease upward" move just before you screw in the cartridge ?

 

[snymat68]

Yeah. that helps, but I think once there's air in the system it must take a while to work through. I've found if I actively push up on the plunger in the tube with a screwdriver while pumping, it helps to get things primed.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Greasing is a job I sincerely hate so any trouble with the greasing equipment is just icing on the cake. I have had all kinds of trouble with air in grease guns.

I bought two bulk air operated grease pumps, to which I was going to put a long hose onto, but I had trouble with the first sucking air and lost interest, going to a battery operated unit. Great, when you aren't fighting with an air lock but the cartridges just are empty too soon. I bought a bulk filling thing on clearance from TSC but never even tried it.

Did I mention I hate greasing, and apparently anything related to it.

 

[canoworms]

Hi guys, I run a pneumatic grease gun on a 25lt grease bucket in the workshop. We also have hand guns that I have removed the air bleed screw and fitted a grease nipple.
Super easy to refill the hand guns by using the air gun to fill them. No mess and quick.

Cheers

 

[3Lfarms]

Hi guys, I run a pneumatic grease gun on a 25lt grease bucket in the workshop. We also have hand guns that I have removed the air bleed screw and fitted a grease nipple.
Super easy to refill the hand guns by using the air gun to fill them. No mess and quick.

Cheers

Yep. Buy grease in 5 gallon pail. Put pail on wheels. Install 30 ft hose on the pneumatic pump and grease zerks in the head of all the manual guns. Then never have to buy another tube of grease. Every couple of years you get another empty 5 gallon bucket. Zero waste.