Garden Guru Lawn & Garden Tools and Indestructible All Steel Clippers - GR8-Cut Professional Bypass Pruner

At the price I paid ($8.89) these pruners are a good deal. There are a few small annoyances: the closing latch occasionally close when you are clipping. The spring also occasionally (rarely) comes off, but it is easily put back in place. Otherwise, no complaints - they do the job.Updating my review after about a month of use: I really wanted to like these pruners in view of the seller's earnest customer support. But there are several annoyances which really do impede use of this pruner. As I mentioned, the closing latch often closes while you are trying to cut, necessitating re-opening the pruner frequently while cutting. A new annoyance which I only recently discovered is that the nut which screws on to the bolt which holds the pruner together sometimes loosens. I find t hat I can tighten it back with my finger, but still it is an annoyance. And lastly, as I noted earlier, the spring comes off from time to time. It can easily be put back on, but still.....The blade seems sharp and the pruner otherwise works alright, but in all honesty I can only give the pruner 3 stars in view of these problems.A further update: After reading more reviews as well as the answers to questions I was disturbed by what I consider misleading reviews. I have to be frank: I would be disappointed if I paid the current price for these pruners ($14). I paid about $8 when I bought them. I found these pruning shears deficient in many respects. I suspect that customer service is so good that buyers want to leave them a good review. But in the end, if you want good pruners at or below the current selling price of these, you'll find many options.

UPDATE: Customer Service contacted me right away to offer a replacement with their lifetime guarantee. I appreciate the offer, but rather than go through the hassle of shipping it back to get a new one, I'll just keep this one and watch the bolt closely to see if it comes loose.This arrived and look very good, strong construction. However, on the first day of using it - it fell apart after about 30 minutes of routine pruning. Luckily I was working near the ground, so the parts didn't fly into my face and I was able to find the nut and bolt that had come apart. I had noticed that the excellent cuts that it had been making at first started getting very ragged just before it flew apart.I was using for general pruning - nothing extreme - some palms, some passion fruit vines and some shrubs.The good news is that I found the nut and bolt and it was easily put back together - but this should not happen on first use!I don't know if it is a product design problem or a quality control problem - but the manufacturer should look into this immediately - since if someone is working at eye-level or above when it comes apart it could be a major problem!Other than that -its fine.I keep checking the bolt and keep using a wrench to tighten it - and its OK.If the manufacturer solves this problem - there is one other design issue that is annoying. The 'lock' is located at the top of the handle, so that depending on your pruning style - it often 'locks itself' - which stops all work and you have to unlock.In the future, I'll make sure to look for a lock at the bottom of the handle where this problem is less likely to happen.If they fix the 'flying-apart-pruner' issue and change the position of the lock - this would be a five star pruner - especially considering the price.But for now - be aware of the limitations.

The house I live in has a ridiculous amount of greenery (apparently someone that used to live here was *really* into gardening) and it requires maintanence. If I let things go for too long without trimming, the outside of our house starts to look like we have been playing Jumanji in here. Ive learned quite a lot about gardening in the years since we moved in and many tools have been sacrificed in the process. I'm a cheapskate but I hate replacing tools and after burning through 3 or 4 sets of pruning shears in the first year I decided to try these and I am soooo glad that I did! These shears are durable! The dozens of rose bushes that line the fence around my yard are no match for these shears! I don't even really take care of these as much as I should but they still show no signs of rust, the open and close smooth and easy like they should, and the blade sharpens up like a dream and stays sharp for quite a bit of snipping. It makes clean cuts and even allows me to cut through some pretty sizeable woody rose branches without much effort.These are very good quality shears at a great price. They have served me well for a couple of years now. I highly recommend this pruner!

This is an OK pruner. Nowhere near as good as a Felco, but very serviceable. I gave it a really good workout earlier today on a huge pile of brush that needed to be bagged. Results are: 1. 1/2" is about the max this thing will cut easily. If I had bigger hands I could have taken better advantage of the mechanical advantage gained by opening the shears all the way, but even with my average adult man's hands, I couldn't open it all the way. You may have better luck if you have bigger hands. 2. Doesn't do well on thin stuff ... I was cutting a lot of wisteria and wispy stuff along with the thick stuff and there's a small space between the jaws of the pruner and the thin stuff just gets mashed in between. 3. The blade is very sharp which helped, but don't try cutting thicker than 1/2". 4. The clasp that holds the jaws shut for storage and safety does get in the way sometimes, but tucking it into the spring works fine. A word about customer service .... the seller is absolutely great! There was a small manufacturing defect in mine (the clasp was badly bent); the seller responded very quickly (on a Sunday) and shipped out another pair really fast. Excellent customer service.

Why two medley stars? I had a pair of these (purchased over ten years ago) but lost them in the yard. I was happy to see them still available BUT1. after using a short while, the grips began sliding off. I’d push them back up the handles and recently “shoo-gooed” them on. That worked better. Well, today one grip came off and is lost.2. The little latch loop and rivet thingie to keep them closed was weak and fell off last week. (Much flimsier than my old pair)Neither of these problems ever happened with my originals. I have no way of knowing if these were knock-offs or made by the same factory as my original ones were but I guess that’s how it goes these days- stuff just keeps getting made more poorly.We’ll see if the blades make it through the season.