Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My first usage was with insulted connectors and they were a little loose. After some inspection I realized there is a front/back, correct/incorrect way to crimp these insulated connectors with the Astro 9477. My old crimpers there was no right/wrong way, just put them in and squeeze. On each half of the 9477 die set there is a split front to back where one half crimps tighter on the copper wire itself and the other half crimps looser over the insulated wire. Inserting the connector the wrong way results in a loose crimp around the copper wire which is where you want the tightest crimp. My old crimpers applied the same crimp on both the wire and insulation so I never gave it a second thought these new 9477 crimpers were different. THEY ARE so pay attention. The side of the dies with the painted dots is the side with the looser crimp for the insulation half, so put the connector all the way through from this side. Basically they are making 2 crimps at once. The open barrel/D-sub and open barrel terminal also have dies which exhibit this split, dual crimping capability so pay attention when inserting the connectors for those as well. For someone who does allot of crimping with these dual crimp connectors the 9477 could be a real time saver. Please excuse my naivety if this split die scenario was obvious to others, but from comments that I read, I wasn't alone in initially using the dies in reverse fashion and getting loose crimps. Again, please ignore if you have already been using them correctly. Nothing much else to say other than when used correctly there is no way any connector is coming loose. kd