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Imitation Halligans…A Setup For Failure.

12/05/2011

This is a problem, a big problem. We have been spreading the word for quite a while now, about the downfalls of the different types of Halligans. The picture above happened yesterday, adding more credibility to the argument. This is not the first one on my FD that has broken, but it is the first one I have been around. These imitation tools breaking is not that rare of an event. My email has been filling up with guys from all over the country sending me pictures and stories regarding these tools breaking in similar fashions.

Here was the situation, the squad guys from my firehouse responded to an alarm and found that they needed to force entry into a house to access the person inside. They decided the need to get in did not require conventional forcible entry right away, so they went with the Rex Tool and did a great job going through-the-lock on both a key in the knob and a typical deadbolt. Their technique was great and was low impact enough that both locks were manipulated, but were still in working condition. This is a common practice for us to gain entry on medical or service call type situation on houses or apartments, most of the time we can lock everything back up (along with the homeowners keys still working) and you can barely tell we were inside.

The problem came after both locks had been tripped, the door still had resistance.  After recognizing that the door had a secondary device they moved to conventional Irons work and discovered that they had a 2×4 drop bar with fairly weak steel mounts on the backside of the inward swinging door. Not a big deal for them to overcome, but one of the variables that you don’t find on most single family homes. As they drove the tool in trying to set the forks to the proper depth, one of the axe blows broke the entire adze end of the tool off. They now had a little more challenging situation, they were still going to get the job done with what they had, this required them to strike the now exposed shaft of the tool to drive the bar rest of the way in. That takes a lot more trust of your striking guy when he’s swinging at a 1 inch piece of steel rod that you are holding! They overcame and forced the door with little difficulty after that.  Well done fellas.

Where the real problem lies is that a hand tool, made for the fire service, could be constructed and accepted at this level of quality. These bars are made of three different pieces, attached with a pin on each end to hold the working heads on or in the picture above circular welds all the way around the bar. It is a widespread problem across the country that these types of Halligans are put on front line rigs. What is the worst part? Its not for financial reasons, it usually a lack of attention to detail when ordering tools. You can buy a high quality bar that is made out of ONE PIECE FORGED STEEL for basically the same price as these imitations.  This is the meat and potatoes of our tool compliments, they should be made to work, work hard, and work with a very small likelihood of failure. They are pry bars!!! Who designs a pry bar that has the working end made out of separate pieces? The exact spot on the tool that has hundreds of pounds of leverage being applied to it!! It shouldn’t take a mechanical engineer to figure that one out.

The fire service is full of gimmicks, go to any fire equipment related web sites and you will see that a good portion of the tools and equipment that are marketed to us these days are only made to make money. Trust me, they would not continue to make all of these gimmicks if they were not being purchased by a large majority of us across the nation. You have to evaluate every tool and ask yourself “Is it a gimmick or not”? Most hand tools that come with 14 features and can turn off gas, turn on O2 bottles, pull a nail, cut drywall, then open sheet metal like a can opener, all while being a rope anchor should raise some red flags to us. I am not for one-second trying to say there has not been some amazing developments in our hand tools over the years, I am saying that the tools that have been around before all the gimmicks are still doing the job better than any multi-tool.  Axes, Halligans, Hooks, Hose, Rope and Wooden Chocks, it is hard to put something up against those time tested tools.

I use Pro-Bar Halligans plain and simple. Are they the only good bar out there? I highly doubt it, in fact I know of a couple others that I would love to test out and some guys would vouch for 100% (Aazel Tool Co. is one of the good Halligans in particular that I think would compete). That’s not what my experience has been with, so I will not speak to those. 30 inchPro Bars have superior construction, have a great amount of thought into the thicknesses, curves and designs of its working ends and have been proven on the fire ground for many years. I have already wrote an entire article on the differences of the Halligans found on the market. Please take a look at it here, it gives you all the information you need to compare the 3 Piece Bars v.s One Piece Pro Bars.  Here is the article Halligan Bars, They Are Not The Same

We have made the change in my FD and are now purchasing 30″ Pro Bar Halligans, it is encouraging progress and they have successfully been phasing out these other bars. Our work does not end there, we have to spread the knowledge and information about the differences in these tools, its the only way to make an impact. The proper information has to reach enough people on your own departments to create awareness on this topic. I do not represent Pro Bar or Fire Hooks Unlimited in any way, I will not make any money off of this next part, nor am I trying to pull some type of stunt to get more web traffic to our site. I am simply asking you, whoever is reading this today, to pass this on and let others see the differences in these tools. Last night when I posted that picture it went to over 5000 people in a matter of an hour or two. That didn’t happen because of my post, that happened because many of you thought it was worth talking about. It is the only way we will ever make a difference with what we will accept as properly made tools. Most of the comments reflected on how widespread this problem is. I am asking those guys out there that read this website and have very large blogs, websites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc, to please give me a hand on this one.  You are the ones that can make a difference, not me on this small website in my own little corner of the Fire Service world. So if you believe in the message of this post, and want to help spread this information please share it with others.

Categories: 1. Forcible Entry
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Comments: 11 Comments

Halligan bars….they are not the same.

12/28/2009

The Halligan Bar

By Ryan Royal

In any profession, how well you know your tools directly reflects in the way you use them. A well made tool has obvious design and durability advantages in comparison to the cheaply made imitations. This is true with anything from channel locks to Halligan bars.  A well made tool is typically easy to identify if you pay attention to the details. Sometimes the fire service will sacrifice quality for price. This seems insignificant at the time, until we call upon the tool to perform.  Very rarely will a good mechanic settle for a cheap set of sockets, or a seasoned electrician use a set of discount lineman pliers. It is our responsibility as the grunts, the ones who will have the most hands on time with the tools to educate ourselves in the quality that they are made. If we are carrying sub standard forcible entry tools, the only way we can effect change is to be educated in their differences.

What we call the “Halligan Bar” has transformed through the years into many different variations. The original tool was made by Hugh Halligan in the 1940’s. This tool was an in-house invention and maybe the most widely used tool in the fire service. Hugh Halligan also invented the Halligan hook (also commonly known as the roof hook). The whole history of these tools can be an entire article in itself, but a major point to take from this is two of the most durable and useful tools still used today were developed by some creative firehouse ingenuity. Developed by problems that were identified on the fireground, taken back to the firehouse, and solved by a man who designed every specification for a reason. The problem with many of today’s different types of bars is they have varied from the specs of the original design in a negative way.

The tool that has stayed most true to the original specs and has actually improved on them is the Pro Bar. The Pro Bar has numerous advantages over its competition which are poor imitations of a Halligan. We will discuss some of the key points that make the Pro Bar superior as they relate with the following pictures.

The picture above shows you an overview of three types of “Halligans”. The Pro Bar (the upper most) is one piece drop forged steel, no parts to fail and at 30 inches is the perfect length. The other two are longer and are made by three pieces attached together. The details can be seen better in these close-ups. Many people buy a 36″ bar because they want extra leverage, however the 30 ” bar has plenty of leverage to defeat very fortified doors but will also fit inside of most standard door frames, something that the 36″ bar may not be able to do, but instead will hit the wall when you apply the leverage.

                                                                                                                                                                                           PICTURE 1 – (The Pro Bar fork is on the right)

(PICTURE 1)  This picture of the forks shows you the big differences between the fork end of the bar. You can see the one piece construction of the Pro Bar on the right and the two imitations on the left.  As you can see, the three piece bars have been attached by a pin, and/or a weld. You can also see the tapered V shape of the space in between the forks of the Pro Bar. This angle of the fork gives you a good design to slide over hinges and take a solid bite to keep the bar in place.

                                                                                                                                                                             PICTURE 2 – (Pro Bar fork is on the right)

(PICTURE 2)  The side view of the forks shows one of the most critical differences in the bars,  the difference that makes the Pro Bar the well designed tool. You can see the Pro Bar has a nice gradual curve of the forks to give you the leverage you need once the tool is set. The key advantage is how much thinner the forks are, this allows you to set the tool on those tight inward swinging doors/jambs. The other two bars have an obvious thickness to them that adds to the problem of what we are trying to defeat. Why would we want our tool to work against us? If the door we are trying to defeat is worth its weight, then we are going to want the thinnest possible fork to drive in between the door and the jamb. The well designed curve is what gives us the leverage not the thickness of the fork. If the fork is too thick we will not be able to set the tool deep enough to even apply the leverage.

                                                                                                                                                                                PICTURE 3 – ( Pro Bar adze on the Left )

(PICTURE 3)  The last picture shows you the adze end of the tool. The adze end could be the most useful part of the tool, especially if you are using one-man techniques. The Pro Bar adze is longer than the imitation bars and has a gradual curve to it. The curve gives us a high point on the adze that creates more leverage then its flat competitors. The length of the adze also gives you an added reach when you begin to pass it by the jamb of outward swinging doors.

The other part of the adze end of the tool is the pike. The pike is difficult to see in this picture but the differences are obvious if you have a chance to look at them in your own firehouse. The pike of the Pro Bar has a gradual curve to it, and is also much thinner then the imitation bars. The thickness of the other pikes is a disadvantage because of the resistance they cause when you need to drive them into material. The Pro Bars thin pike makes easy work of driving it through a metal door. This becomes very important if you are attempting to defeat carriage bolt heads with your irons. The less resistance the better and that is what the Pro Bar provides.

Nothing in this is new, like many things in the fire service, it is tried and true knowledge that has been passed down to us. It is important that this information is passed along so you can develop your own opinions, with that said this is an easy and obvious opinion to form for anyone that has been using Pro Bar Halligans.

Check out these old pictures from the original Halligan ads.

EDIT:   Right after posting this I was talking to Andrew Brassard from Brotherhood instructors. He also just wrote an informative article on this topic. We must have been thinking the same thing for a holiday article, both of these echo each other. Please take a look at his to reinforce what was said in this article. They also have a great picture of a three piece bar that has failed.Here is the link……Thanks Andrew for the heads up.

Next Up:  Modifications and Alternate uses of the Halligan

Categories: 1. Forcible Entry
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 17 Comments

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