Freight handling gear
Comparisons built from the specifications each manufacturer publishes. Nothing here has been tested, and nothing here claims it has: these are datasheet figures put side by side, with what each one means when you are the one deciding.
How these comparisons are made
The figures come from each manufacturer's own published datasheet, and each one is attributed. Where a manufacturer does not publish something, the cell says no rather than being filled with a guess: a missing number is information too, and sometimes it is the most useful thing in the table.
We do not test the products. There are no scores out of ten, no “best pick”, no opinions dressed up as findings. There is one datasheet next to another, and an explanation of what each figure means when you are the one deciding.
Where it can be done, the number that actually decides is worked out by one of the calculators on this site, using the formula from the relevant standard. That way you can redo the arithmetic with your own figures, which is the only thing that makes a comparison worth reading.
The number that decides, by category
If you read nothing else, read this. In every category there is a number the advert shouts and a quieter one that actually decides whether the kit is any use to you:
| Gear | What is advertised | What decides |
|---|---|---|
| Ratchet straps | break strength, or a WLL | tension — what the ratchet actually pulls down. Not published on this side of the Atlantic. |
| Pallet jacks | capacity, 4,500 to 5,500 lb | lowered fork height: if it will not go under your pallet, what it lifts is irrelevant. |
Reading a datasheet when nobody hands you one
That pattern is not a quirk of these two categories. The advertised number is the one that flatters — usually what the thing holds or lifts. The number that decides is the one describing how the kit fits YOUR building, and it gets published less because it does not sell.
Three habits that carry across any purchase of this kind:
- Measure your own case before you open a catalogue. Your pallet entry height, your narrowest aisle, your floor, the feet an operator covers in a shift. Without those, every datasheet looks good.
- A missing figure is a figure. When a serious manufacturer publishes capacity and fork length but not lowered height, that is not an oversight — that number does not flatter the machine. Ask for it in writing before you buy.
- Distrust the biggest number. A strap with twice the rated capacity can pull down half as hard. A truck that lifts 5,500 lb may not fit where one rated 4,000 fits. Biggest and most useful are rarely the same column.
What you will not find here is which one to buy. That depends on your floor, your pallets and your budget, and anyone who answers without asking about all three is selling you something.