What do you pull out with your hand winch?

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6 i agree with you totally. When i am pushing it, i am always with other people. The hand winch is for hunting, camping, riding around in the woods etc.
 
I have the larger black rat (7700#?), and it mostly sits in my garage. I have used it once to pull my truck a few feet forward to get it through a patch of ice/snow. by no means a heavy, long, dangerous pull.

the black rat is a really nice concept: continuous feed of wire rope, either in or out.

In practice, my model is very heavy. It's a pain to move in and out of the truck. Also, you are standing right on top of the wire rope so if something breaks and there is any whip lash, good luck...

Once I got my electric winch, that partnered with a high lift, the black rat stays in the garage now.
 
The hand winch can pull from any angle on the vehicle and is a great in recovery work. I brought a Toyota PTO for a front winch on my HJ45 but I will always carry the tirfor hand winch when going serious off-road.
 
The hand winch can pull from any angle on the vehicle and is a great tool in recovery work. I brought a Toyota PTO for a front winch on my HJ45 but I will always carry the tirfor hand winch when going serious off-road.
 
I have the larger black rat (7700#?), and it mostly sits in my garage. I have used it once to pull my truck a few feet forward to get it through a patch of ice/snow. by no means a heavy, long, dangerous pull.

the black rat is a really nice concept: continuous feed of wire rope, either in or out.

In practice, my model is very heavy. It's a pain to move in and out of the truck. Also, you are standing right on top of the wire rope so if something breaks and there is any whip lash, good luck...

Once I got my electric winch, that partnered with a high lift, the black rat stays in the garage now.

I'm picking the bolded section out above to do some head scratching. Wouldn't the hand winch itself act as a GIANT damper, at least sparing the operator standing directly over it from rope backlash?
 
This would not be my only piece of extrication equipment. I have a hi lift, snatch strap, tow strap, shackles, 2 shovels ( to put the wife to work!! haha) and gloves. I dont think anyone is arguing which is more convienent, but with that being said there are many bonus' to having a hand winch. Approach angles, expensive bumpers, cutting stock bumpers, mounting plates, weight, drain on electrical, etc... Thanks for the info on what you were stuck in and what you got out with



You already have a hand winch why do you need two?

 
1- i agree with 2 up on the damper.

2- the pp is much easier than the highlift to use as a winch, and does 15 foot pulls instead of 48 or 60 inches.
 
Thanks for the info everyone! While I do love the hand winches and will probably end up with one in the future, I just picked up a superwinch 8500 for 270 shipped!! Thanks for the replys though and keep them coming. There are a lot of people in this situation that would appreciate some more first hand info.
 
I'm picking the bolded section out above to do some head scratching. Wouldn't the hand winch itself act as a GIANT damper, at least sparing the operator standing directly over it from rope backlash?

The tremendous amount of energy stored in a stretching, straining cable immediately before it snaps would accelerate the winch rather handily, and because the winch is a dense object it would obliterate anything that gets in its path, flesh or otherwise.
 
I'm picking the bolded section out above to do some head scratching. Wouldn't the hand winch itself act as a GIANT damper, at least sparing the operator standing directly over it from rope backlash?

Dampers work in 2 ways. One is they provide wind resistance and the second is they provide weight on the line to weigh the broken and recoiling cable or line to the ground. You want a damper with some decent surface area to act as wind resistance (think about a sail) and you want weight but that weight shouldn't be too much nor should it be in a very small package which could act as a demolition ball. So, a metal hand winch would not work as a proper damper and would be dangerous in a broken metal cable scenario.
 
i always carried a big come along .used it for years even pulled stuff out when all the electric winches were dead.i still have one as backup and i still get calls to rescue the electric winch guys.thats when the pto winches on the 6x6s come out to play.i think people forget we didnt always have cheap winches and tow straps .its like being married sometimes you gotta do it by hand.
 

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