Knipex Flat Nose Gripping Pliers

Our friends over at KC Tool sent us a bunch of hand tools to review, as part of a 1-month long partnership that included an ad that ran earlier in the month and a giveaway that ends on 6/26/15. You entered the giveaway already, right?

Included in the bundle of samples were these Knipex 20 01 200 pliers, similar to the slightly smaller pliers pictured above. It seems that the 200 mm (8″) pliers are a new size. They are also available in a couple of other length and in your choice of plastic-dipped or cushion grip handles.

I’ve used duckbill-style pliers before, these are similar, but with wider jaws. The width of the jaws is maintained along the length of the tool, from the handle to the very tip, making these very beefy pliers.

About 60% of the pliers’ jaws have shallow horizontal grooves, for greater gripping strength, with the remainder being flat-ground. The jaws connect at the very tip, for about 1/4″, and spread ever so slightly beyond that to create a tin gap as you get closer to the pivot.

These are a tricky sort of pliers to get used to. They arrived somewhat unexpectedly, but their benefits become clearer and clearer the more I use them. The jaws are about as wide as lineman’s pliers, but with a longer gripping area. The jaws are slightly wider, much longer, and overall narrower than most of the combination pliers I compared them to. Only one brand (NWS) matched their width.

You wouldn’t use these as general purpose pliers, although maybe you could. The pliers’ jaw style has really been growing on me. Reach into your toolbox and take out your favorite long nose pliers. Now imagine that the jaws were 4x wider. That’s what you get with these.

I’ll report back once I have used the pliers a lot more. Until then, I’m pretty confident in recommending them – if you can anticipate a use for them.

Price: $32.62 (as of the time of this posting), for the 200 mm size I’ve been testing.

Update: The 8″ doesn’t seem to be available anymore, but the 7″ might be a suitable replacement.

Buy Now(via KC Tool)
More Info(via Knipex)

And if you’re eager to try these out yourself, you know what to ask for as part of our “choose your prize” KC Tool Giveaway that ends tomorrow!

Thank you to KC Tool for providing the review sample unconditionally.