Lang Tools (3495) 12-Piece Fixed Tip Combination Internal/External Snap Ring Pliers Set

This set of snap ring pliers provides a wide selection of the most common pin sizes and nose angles and the build quality is excellent. While changing from inside to outside operation is a little more time consuming than the "cam action" pliers offered elsewhere, it only takes about 30 seconds to remove the handle pivot screw and then replace the screw in an alternate location to reverse the action, which I find perfectly acceptable for something that doesn't require changing very often. Also the simplicity and precision of the pivot screw design compared to the "cam" design provides a smoother movement with better pin alignment than my old cam action pliers (which are rather sloppy and make it more difficult to hold the snap ring). Some reviewers have complained that the pins on the Lang Tools snap ring pliers are not perfectly straight, and this is true, but this is what you want and is NOT a design or quality defect. Pliers with perfectly straight pins make it more difficult to hold the compressed or expanded "opened" snap ring because the snap ring tends to slide off the pins. By setting the pins on the pliers at a slight angle, the angle of the pins captures the snap ring against the nose of the pliers and keeps the opened snap ring from flying off the pliers. This same angled pin design works for both inside and outside snap rings because the angle effectively reverses when the pliers are reset for inside or outside action -- a very clever and useful design. Due to this feature and due to the tight tolerance and wide selection of pliers in the set, I have found that it is actually much easier to remove snap rings that are in difficult to access locations. With this Lang set usually I can remove the snap ring on my first try, whereas with my old cam action pliers with changeable pins, it took me many tries and fiddling with the pin setting in the pliers before I could get the snap ring off. Thus for me, the Lang set is a time saver -- and is certainly a frustration saver -- I really hated fiddling with the replaceable pins on my old "all in one" cam action pliers. I am so pleased with this Lang Tools snap ring plier set that my old pliers are now in the trash.

Let me start by letting you know that I'm a mechanical engineer with 12 years of hands on experience designing, building, repairing, improving, and maintaining manufacturing equipment and I have significant amount of time in race car development and auto racing (and general auto repair for that matter) - not to toot my own horn but its fair to say, I can quite accurately make assessments of hand tools used in these fields. For the price, these pliers are no doubt a five-star product. Add the ability to change from internal to external in a quicker fashion and they would be worthy of another 30 bucks tacked onto their price tag. Many reviewers say that the points are all bent and it made me concerned that the ones I got would be bent too. To my disappointment (and ultimately to my delight) all of my points are bent. But here is the trick - all the points are bent in the direction you would want them to be bent in order to help prevent the snap ring from popping off. This is the case regardless of which way you are using them, i.e. external or internal rings. I don't know if the manufacture intended this to happen or if its just a consequence of the manufacturing process but I'm glad they did it cause its brilliant. Now I've only used a couple of these pliers on a few tasks so far but they do work and they work very effectively. They do what they are supposed to do and nothing more. The big pillow handle grips are mostly a gimmick but it does add to the comfort somewhat. Fair to say that you don't get anything else with the tools costing three times the price. That said, I wouldn't dare go any cheaper then these. If you do, you may find very poor quality tools at anything below this price point. These are 100% better than anything your going to find at harbor freight and pretty much just as good as you're going to get on the tool trucks. Oh and by the way, the storage case is actually really nice. The case holds the pliers well and it isn't one of those cases that is much larger than it should be. I was going to take each plier out and put them in an Ernst plier rack but since the case is so good and small enough not take up an excessive amount of space, the pliers will be staying in the case.

Seem to be well made the case is very nice I would buy again.

I have been using this set for 3 months now and they work great. I have used them for several different applications and have not had any issues. Highly recommend.

I work as a Forklift Technician for Associated Material Handling in Columbia SC. I have wanted a good set of snap ring pliers for a while. I had a set of Blue Points since 1987, however, most have been lost. That set was identical (minus the handles) to this one. They never bent or broke, so I wanted an equivalent set. I found these after a bit of research and pulled the trigger. They seem extremely well made. I could knock them down to a 3 or 4 star rating because I had to tap 3 out of the 24 holes to convert them from external to internal. This was not a big deal to me however, because now they are great. Also in the process I found them to be made of very hard steel, they were not easy on my tap. So far I recommend these to anyone needing a good set.