Within this round the pick for best performance is the Matco. It posted the
best working arc swing of any ratchet here, needing 17.6 back-and-forth passes
for a full rotation against 22 for the Snap-On Gearless and 24.5 for the
120-tooth Craftsman, and it had the shallowest head in the group at 12.2 mm.
It held 280 ft-lb before the drive broke, with no visible damage to the drive
gear teeth or the pawl afterwards. Its directional switch takes 371 grams,
slightly more effort than most, and that is the one place it gives ground. The
Stahlwille is the alternative at a similar price: 20 passes on arc swing, 283
grams of back drag and 271 grams to reverse, though its drive gear broke
earlier at 254.3 ft-lb.
The value pick is the Crescent at $14. It matched or beat ratchets ten times
its price on nearly everything except arc swing — 293 grams of back drag, 217
grams to reverse direction (third-lightest in the lineup), a 12.54 mm head
second only to the Matco, and 262.2 ft-lb before the drive broke, more than
the Nepros, the Proto or the Stahlwille withstood. Its 72-tooth mechanism
needs 24 passes for a full rotation, well behind the leaders, and that is the
trade. Taking both rounds of ratchet testing together, the $34 GearWrench 90
remains the pick overall on the strength of its Round 1 result and its price.
Several expensive ratchets disappointed on the very thing they are sold for.
The GearWrench XP120's dual-pawl design gives 120 contact points on a 60-tooth
gear, but slop between the pawls left it at 22.6 passes, behind the cheaper
90-tooth GearWrench 90 from the previous round, and it had the third-worst
back drag at 515 grams. The Snap-On Gearless is rated at zero degrees of arc
swing yet needed 22 passes, and its lever takes 1,356 grams to reverse, about
three pounds — though it did take more torque than anything else, 310.8 ft-lb,
and the lightest back drag at 89 grams. The Gedore is a different tool in
practice: reversing it means pushing the square coupler through the head, some
4,000 grams of force, and its soft square drive twisted and gave way at 208.7
ft-lb. The Capri Tools costs more than the Crescent and finished behind it on
every measurement, with heavy rotation visible in the mechanism under
magnification and 35.7 passes for a full rotation. The Asahi is the lightest
ratchet here at 176.9 grams and second only to the Snap-On on back drag, but
one of its two pawls lost all its teeth at 186.6 ft-lb, so it is a finesse
tool rather than a breaker bar.