What is the best tool to cut wires?

After getting our hands on 13 pairs of wire cutters and spending three days relentlessly snipping wire ties, finish nails, hardware cloth, welded wire fencing, and thick electrical wire, the first tool we’d recommend is Channellock E337CB Diagonal Cutting Plier .

The Bahco pair had the best handles and most precise jaws. You can also spring-load the handles if needed, but they don’t have the cutting strength of the Channellock pair.

The Irwin pliers represent a great combination of cutting ability, comfort, and cost. While they’re not as powerful as our main pick, they do cut as well as others that cost twice as much.

Channellock’s E337CB cut far better than its competitors during our tests, managing tough jobs that the other wire cutters struggled with. The wide, padded handles—a surprisingly rare feature among wire cutters—eased hand strain during difficult repetitive cutting. The durability is outstanding as well. After making at least 200 cuts through a wide range of materials, the jaws showed no signs of wear and still had edges that were sharp enough to cut a piece of paper. This pair of Channellock pliers costs toward the higher end of the scale, but it’s worth the money if you want to be secure that your wire cutters have the strength to handle the toughest jobs.

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If the Channellock pliers aren’t available, or if you want to make a smaller investment into a quality tool, consider the Irwin Vise-Grip 2078306 7-Inch Diagonal Cutting Pliers. These were among the least expensive models we tested, but they still have padded handles and cut just as well as their peers—except for the superior Channellock pliers. Irwin's offering will be able to deal with common tasks like cutting electrical wire and hardware cloth, but because these pliers have less strength, they’ll struggle during hard jobs like cutting nails. For repetitive work, like snipping fencing, your hands will get tired faster than if you were using our top pick.

If you'll be using your wire cutters for a lot of repetitive cutting, like through hardware cloth, and if you're willing to sacrifice the overwhelming strength of the Channellock pair, we like the Bahco 2101G-160 Ergo Cutting Pliers. They're a little smaller than our other recommendations, but offer the unique ability to toggle in and out of a spring-loaded handle setting, which opens the handles for you after each cut—ideal for continuous cutting and for cutting in tight spots. Of the cutters we tested, the Bahco pair also has the most comfortable padded handles and the smallest, most precise cutting nose with the most agile jaws, making it a nice choice for small jewelry or toy repairs. The downside is that it just doesn’t have the cutting strength of the Channellock pair, so it’ll struggle through thicker-gauge wire. So even though we like everything about this tool, we think most people would prefer the higher strength of the Channellock pair.

For the specific needs of the AV hobbyist—which include as much stripping as cutting, and the precision to snip, grip, and bend speaker wire—we recommend the Klein 11055 Wire Stripper-Cutter. We didn’t do comparative testing of this model, but it's comfortable grips, large cutting jaws, clearly marked stripping holes, spring-loaded handles, and the overall quality associated with the Klein name made it the one that numerous Wirecutter staffers have purchased on their own both for electrical and audio work.