What's the Difference Between Bushing & Bearing Style Swivel? | Grade 100 Crosby Shur-Loc Hook

Описание: At first glance, these hooks seem identical. However, they have an important feature difference: the style of swivel.

Maybe we're a bit nerdy for being so excited about this, but when it comes to self-closing swivel hooks, the swivel mechanism is an important distinction. When shopping for swivel hooks, you primarily get to choose between two types: bushing or bearing.

[Side Note: Although many will point out that a bushing technically is a kind of bearing (as opposed to ball bearings, for example), we're using these terms because of their widespread adoption across the cranes and rigging industries. If you would like a post discussing the technical attributes of different bearing types, let us know in the comments below, and we'll take the challenge!]

A "bushing" is a simple swivel mechanism that uses a metal sleeve and grease to allow rotation. It's not the smoothest option, but it works fine if you just need to position the hook for the pick. It's also the most affordable kind of swivel.

If your job requires being able to reposition the load mid-lift, you wouldn't want to use a bushing-style swivel hook — trying to rotate a bushing swivel hook while under load can cause binding, extra heat, damage the swivel mechanism, or worse. Instead, use a bearing swivel hook.

Bearing-style swivel hooks have an anti-friction bearing design that allows the hook to rotate freely, even when under load. This can be highly convenient for a number of scenarios where you'd need to reposition the load mid-lift.

Pictured here are two Grade 100, alloy steel, trigger-lock, self-closing, swivel-type Shur-Loc Hooks from Crosby USA. We built them into basic single-leg slings with oblong master links at the top for this demonstration. What's the difference between them? One is a bushing style and one is a bearing style. We loaded them up to test the difference in performance when using the swivel feature:
The bushing style swivel hook rotates when we're positioning the hook for the pick. However, if we rotate the bushing-style hook while under load, you can see the wire sling holding the barrel starts to twist, then the chain above the hook starts to twist, and the swivel on the hook refuses to rotate.
In contrast, the bearing-style swivel hook spins freely for positioning the pick as well as under load. (Like a good tire swing.)

Make sure you understand all the features of your chain sling hooks before finalizing your purchase. If you ever have questions about what matters or why a price is very different from a similar piece of hardware, give us a call or send us a message on our website. We'll be happy to walk you through the options to find the best solution for your lifting job!

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