Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Harbor Freight

What do you guys like to buy there? I go through a lot of their Hardy Nitrile gloves. Those hand tools any good?
Smallfry

well their impact sockets have been tougher than the price reflex for me..

For my professional tools I'll buy Milwaukee, my brother started with Dewalt, either or one of the other top brands.

For house tools that see sporadic use I'll buy the cheaper brands, HF or Ace hardware. Also tarps and nick nack drawer tools the wife can lose just taking them out.

Kent

We're headed there this afternoon to buy a couple tarps.

Bought two needle scalers a few weeks ago. One doesn’t work, gotta take it back.

Tarps, gloves, angle grinders and any one-offs

I buy a lot of items from Harbor Freight. If I was working with tools for a living which I did at one time. Ya go with higher quality. But weekend stuff harbor freight is plenty good, wrenches and sockets hold up good. Gloves, tarps etc are a good deal too.

I steer clear of their power tools which are not much less than the some of the name brands. One of my buddies that’s a contractor told me the upper end HF cordless where pretty good, but also said where a little pricey. He said for what HF cordless cost better to buy Milwaukee.

Let's see, what have I bought there ?
Furniture dollies - casters are not great, but they'll get you by.
Moving blankets - HF is good for these
Welding blankets - OK in a pinch
Tarps - I like Walmart heavy duty better, but HF is OK for standard duty
Breaker bar - Seems OK
Impact sockets - Have been OK

Zip ties….. waaaay cheaper…. Also things like a 36” crescent wrench which was only needed a couple times…. Think it cost like 40 bucks lol.

Furniture dollies are cheaper than you can make them. Their lifting straps aren't bad.

I have purchased a lot of stuff from Harbor Freight over the years
I have a 1/2" horizontal band saw made in Taiwan not China or India
a 3/4" horizontal band saw made in Taiwan not China or India
there Bench Mill made in Taiwan not China or India.
There hand grinders for me are crap.I went threw a half dozen before I went back to the higher priced Dewalt.
(4) 3/4" drive socket sets They are great for cutting up and adding pipe to make the deep sockets.
I cracked one of them years back and the Manager replaced the entire set.(uncut sockets) she told me they sale them by the set not the socket.
(2) 1" drive socket sets
Putty knifes
Weld blankets
Painters tarps
their 150 amp weld stingers are great for 3/32" welding rod where as the big name company's make stinger grooves to large for the smaller rods. At $10 on sale I have (3) of them (2) back ups that I have never needed yet.
Lots and Lots of their air tools and quick connects.

If I need tools for hard work I pay up.
If I need a tool occasionally I will buy their stuff.

Their torque wrenches are cheap. Not sure how accurate they are but they seem to work ok as little as I need to use one.

0/2 sensor socket $6-8... snappy wanted $60-70 for theirs... done 3 sensors so far, works fine...

I use them for tools I don't use often. Bought a LED Light Bar for the 4-wheeler called Road Shock and it's better than some of the ones Amazon sells.

I read a article recently that tested various torque wrenches and HF beat the big names and came out on top.

Been wanting one those tool chest tops and bottom.

Virtually everything you buy with the expensive names on them are made in China too. At least Harbor Freight doesn't try to make you think it isn't. I've found their cordless tools to be better than anything else I've used. I put one of their 2500 lb winches on an ATV to replace the Smittybilt that crapped out after only a couple of uses. Lots of guys locally use their full-size winches on farm trucks and claim they are better than Warn winches costing less than $1000.

I purchased one of their 3/4" drive Torque Wrenches many years ago.
Testing it on a Skidmore it was all over the place.
I took it back for a refund and as I was waiting for the funds I watched the manager take it from his office and put it back on the shelf for the next guy to buy even after he was told that it was a bad wrench.

I never wanted to purchase another Torque Wench from any of their stores after that.

I have a bag of HF tools in my UTV. They aren't used much but I've never had one fail.

I use their paint guns, they are great for projects like cabinet doors, interior doors, when using stains, clear coats and oil based paints.

Used them for some hard to clean-up spray adhesive jobs too.
At $15 to $25 each I don't even bother with cleaning them, just toss them in the trash when I'm done with the particular project.