XKMT 30" Heavy Duty Hand Swager Tool for Wire Rope - Crimps 5/32" 1/4" 5/16" Cable - Professional Swaging Kit for Marine, Rigging & Construction (P/N: ET-TOOL030-30-RED)

I've been using it to crimp 5/16 and 1/4 inch cables and it does so well. It is not easy to crimp those cables, so all the people who complained about being unable to or impossible for them to crimp what they have simply reflects that. A manual crimp takes physical force and no, my wife would not be able to use this tool, nor would my 11 year old boy. I have been in maintenance for over 20 years and it is no problem for me. If you don't have high physical arm strength, you would want a crimping tool that mostly does all the high strength by itself so go get a hydraulic unit or hire someone to do the job. If you're familiar with crimping steel wire rope and have what it takes to muscle through the task, this is an inexpensive option that works. Yes, it will rust up quickly if it is left in a humid place, so keep it oiled.Works for what I needBought specifically for 5/16” wire winch cable using standard 5/16” aluminum hourglass sleeves. In order to even get a 1” width aluminum sleeve in the tool you need to force the handles open as far as they possibly will go and even then the sleeve only fits in the jaws by about 1/16”. As you can see from the pictures with the sleeve in the jaws, the handles are about are about 40” apart. Now you need to pull the handles together with about 100+ pounds of force. I’m a mechanic and can dead lift about 200lbs, and I couldn’t hardly put a dent in the aluminum. I even had a friend come over, we both pulled on the handles and even place one handle on the concrete and put full body weight of about 350 pounds on the other handle and it wouldn’t budge.So needless to say it’s going back to Amazon. The main purpose of the cables are on a 12,000lb winch, and needless to say without a proper crimp someone could get killed if the crimp failed!! Just lay on your back, put your arm out to your side and try to lift a 50lb weight and you will see why this tool doesn’t work.If it were a single sleeve (5/16”) and not an hourglass sleeve (2) 5/16” cables the handles might be closed enough to crimp, but the description specifically stated it would work for hourglass sleeves which is a lie!Nice product.Works well.Like my description says, you need to be stronger then a freaking ox to complete the close and clamp, cycle of this swager. Ohh my gawd this is the hardest tool to close and complete I’ve ever used. At 63 and former Merchant Marine, Heavy Equipment Operator and thinking I’ve worked some durn hard arsed jobs! Good Luck ??