2021 test16 productsHand Tools
Which Adjustable Wrench Brand Wins?
We compared 16 adjustable wrench options head to head. Craftsman (USA-made, vintage/discontinued) came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Winner
Craftsman (USA-made, vintage/discontinued)
Check price on Amazon
Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Budget pick
Crescent
Price shown in test: $16
Check price on Amazon
Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Scroll sideways to see all measurements. Products are listed in the order they finished.
| Product | Weight | No Load Jaw Slop | Vibration Backoff | Max Torque Before 3_4 Inch Nut Slips | Under Load 200lb Jaw Gap | Failure Load Flat Stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1Craftsman USA-made vintage (discontinued) | 413 grams (lightest of the group at time stated) | 0.64 mm up/down, 0.18 mm side to side (far less than every other brand) | 0.35 mm jaw opening (by far the best of all brands, later restated in the top-5 recap at the same value) | 184.4 ft-lb (the half-inch grade-8 bolt itself snapped before the wrench slipped; best of all 16 products, though some nut damage occurred) | 0.55 mm (best of all brands, moved into 1st ahead of Crescent) | 634 lb (short jaws were a leverage disadvantage, still a solid result) |
| 2Bahco$53 | 643 grams (by far the heaviest of all 16 brands) | 0.62 mm up/down, 0.25 mm side to side | 0.3 mm jaw opening (2nd best, moved into 2nd place) | 132.9 ft-lb (about the same as Milwaukee and Gedore) | 0.58 mm (longest jaws in the field helped here; tied Crescent for 2nd/3rd best) | 1,334 lb (best of all brands, had a 7 mm jaw-length advantage over every other product) |
| 3Milwaukee$33 | 491 grams | 0.71 mm up/down, 0.13 mm side to side (six-thread knurl) | 0.27 mm jaw opening (best of all 16 brands, moved into 1st place; confirmed in the recap: 'the milwaukee came out on top only giving up 0.27 millimeters') | 134.3 ft-lb (transcript attributes this reading to 'the rinse performed slightly better than average', immediately after describing the Milwaukee's own worm gear and jaw stretch in the same sentence; resolved as Milwaukee's own value since Milwaukee is not otherwise given a torque figure and no other brand named 'Reed' fits this sentence position, and Reed already has a separate confirmed value of 123.5 ft-lb elsewhere) | 0.75 mm (no-load gap was 0.35 mm, doubled under load; described as very close to average) | 907 lb (per the closing recap list) |
| 4Crescent$16 | 491 grams | 1.17 mm up/down, 0.3 mm side to side | 1.02 mm jaw opening (about the same as Kobalt) | 149.9 ft-lb (moved into 1st place at the time it was tested; finished 3rd overall per the closing recap, behind Craftsman USA and the smaller Wera Joker) | 0.58 mm (smallest gap recorded up to that point; tied with Bahco for 2nd/3rd best in the final recap) | 775 lb |
| 5Klein Tools$33 | 433 grams | 1.16 mm up/down, 0.1 mm side to side | 1.2 mm jaw opening | 147.1 ft-lb (4th overall in the closing recap) | 0.65 mm (2nd smallest at the time; 4th in the final recap) | 731 lb (above average despite shorter than average jaws) |
| 6Irwin$16 | 447 grams | 1.27 mm up/down, 0.18 mm side to side | 1.44 mm jaw opening (did not perform as well as the USA Craftsman) | 103.5 ft-lb (weak result attributed to significant visible jaw stretching) | 0.75 mm (struggled in this test as well) | 1,179 lb (2nd best of all brands, benefited from the 2nd-longest jaws in the lineup) |
| 7Tekton$14 | 416 grams (lightest at the time stated) | 0.93 mm up/down, 0.25 mm side to side (least up/down travel at the time) | 0.65 mm jaw opening (moved into the lead at the time) | 146.2 ft-lb (5th overall per the closing recap) | 0.76 mm (no-load gap 0.25 mm, tripled under load; smallest gap at the time, took the lead from Kobalt) | 581 lb (short jaws were a big disadvantage) |
| 8Wera Joker$200 for a 4-piece set ($50 each) | 379 grams | not tested | not tested | Larger wrench (16-19mm size) failed the tester and flew off before the torque reading saved, appeared to peak near 167 ft-lb per the on-screen glimpse (unconfirmed, data lost). The smaller wrench (which also fits a 3/4 inch nut) reached 163.7 ft-lb before losing grip, and is the figure used in the closing recap as 2nd place overall behind Craftsman USA. | not tested | not tested |
| 9Gedore$38 | 510 grams (heaviest at the time stated) | 1.16 mm up/down, 0.2 mm side to side | 0.69 mm jaw opening | 131.6 ft-lb (about the same as Milwaukee) | 0.7 mm (no-load gap was 0.25 mm, about tripled under load) | 961 lb (3rd best per the closing recap; the mid-narrative sentence giving this brand's own failure-load number is missing the actual figure entirely, recovered only from the closing recap list) |
| 10Hazet$58 | 438 grams | 0.98 mm up/down, 0.15 mm side to side | 0.38 mm jaw opening (4th best, behind the USA Craftsman) | 125.2 ft-lb | 0.6 mm (no-load gap was 0.17 mm; 4th best in the closing recap) | 861 lb (above average despite slightly shorter than average jaws) |
| 11Kobalt$9 each ($27 for a 3-pack) | 500 grams (heaviest at the time stated) | 1.85 mm up/down, 0.3 mm side to side | 0.97 mm jaw opening (much better than Navegando and Pittsburgh) | 113.3 ft-lb (2nd place at the time it was tested) | 0.88 mm (no-load gap was 0.33 mm, more than doubled under load) | 940 lb (4th best per the closing recap) |
| 12Reed$24 | 370 grams (very light) | 0.8 mm up/down, 0.6 mm side to side (good fit and finish) | 0.71 mm jaw opening | 123.5 ft-lb | 0.7 mm (short jaws were a leverage disadvantage but still performed as well as longer-jawed competitors) | 687 lb |
| 13Craftsman China-made$16 | 508 grams (heaviest at the time stated) | 1.11 mm up/down, 0.18 mm side to side | 1.16 mm jaw opening (about the same as Crescent per the narrator, though the two values differ by 0.14 mm) | 136.2 ft-lb (3rd place at the time it was tested, behind Crescent and Tekton) | 0.7 mm (not quite as good as Crescent) | 656 lb (about 120 lb less than Crescent) |
| 14Channellock$21 | 411 grams (lightest at the time stated) | 0.88 mm up/down, 0.6 mm side to side; later in the flat-stock no-load gap test, this brand's own no-load gap is separately given as 0.07 mm ('grew 10-fold from 0.07 to 0.7 millimeters') | 0.51 mm jaw opening (nearly the same as the vintage Craftsman; 5th in the closing recap) | 105.8 ft-lb (weak, with visible jaw stretching) | 0.7 mm (no-load gap 0.07 mm grew tenfold under load) | 646 lb (10 lb less than the China-made Craftsman) |
| 15Pittsburgh$6 | 422 grams | 2.1 mm up/down, 0.66 mm side to side (more slop than Navegando) | 1.57 mm jaw opening | 105.2 ft-lb (15 ft-lb less than Navegando) | 1.1 mm (no separate no-load figure given for this brand in the flat-stock test; the earlier no-load gap comparison stated only that it was 'even larger' than Navegando's 0.5 mm) | approximately 600 lb ('made it to around 600 pounds before giving up', an approximate figure per the narrator's own wording) |
| 16Navegando$5 | 426 grams | 1.63 mm up/down, 0.053 mm side to side | 8.5 mm jaw opening (by far the worst of all 16 brands) | 120.8 ft-lb ('off to a pretty good start') | gap doubled from a stated no-load value to just over 1 mm under load; the no-load value is given as two conflicting figures at different points in the transcript, 0.045 mm in the flat-stock parallelism section and 0.45 mm in the 200 lb load section (a full decimal-place discrepancy, recorded as a flagged conflict rather than resolved) | 750 lb (jaw broke off; leverage advantage from longer-than-average jaws) |
How it was tested
- weight measurement (grams)
- no-load jaw slop measurement, up-and-down and side-to-side (mm)
- resistance to self-adjusting/backing off under vibration from an impact wrench (jaw opening, mm)
- max torque before losing grip on a 3/4 inch nut (ft-lb), benchmarked against a 129.6 in-lb reading from a standard non-adjustable 3/4 inch box wrench
- jaw parallelism/no-load gap against flat aluminum stock (mm)
- jaw gap against a steel plate under a 200 lb hydraulic press load (mm)
- failure load applied via leverage against flat/square stock until the adjustable jaw breaks (lb)
“the wrench that performed by far the best in this showdown is definitely the vintage craftsman made in USA”
Data notes and caveats
16 distinct products tested (description's '15 brands' title undercounts because Craftsman is tested as two separate products, USA-made vintage vs China-made current). Overall verdict is three-tiered: the vintage USA-made Craftsman is named outright as the single best performer but is flagged as no longer sold; the narrator then gives two actionable buying picks for currently available wrenches, Crescent for a budget under $20 and Klein Tools if willing to spend more. Product rank order above is an aggregate judgment across four separate numeric sub-tests (vibration backoff, torque, under-load gap, failure load) since the narrator never gives one combined score; Craftsman-USA and Bahco are the clearest top performers, Navegando and Pittsburgh the clearest bottom performers. Two unresolved data-quality flags: the Navegando no-load gap is stated as both 0.045 mm and 0.45 mm at different points, and the Channellock/Klein Tools '0.8 mm' no-load gap reading conflicts with a later-stated 0.07 mm value for Channellock (likely a garbled decimal, not silently corrected).