Fabio put an order together for all of us from RescueDirect for trauma shears. It was pretty difficult finding decent quality shears locally, perhaps from not looking in the right place, or not having access to the wholesale medical supply companies’ inventories. Most of the stuff I found wasn’t even PRC quality – heck, the ones McBike had were made in Pakistan or Afghanistan or something! I saw that Todd the tennis racquet stringer had a pair of nice shears that said “Acme” and “Titanium” on them. He had gotten them next door at Long’s on closeout after CVS took them over, but that was months before, so there were none left to be had. A quick search online identified the product, and a cursory investigation of the various online retailers’ shipping policy regarding The 50th State selected a dealer. The word went out, and soon we were rolling in trauma shears (it was more like a couple of months, but Fabio was busy).
Build quality and material quality are very good for trauma shears. The finish is very nice. I am not sure about the whole “Titanium Bonded” thing – I’m guessing it is just stainless with some kind of titanium nitride coating. They cut fine and appear to hold an edge okay – I don’t want to prematurely wear mine out and not be able to cut when a real emergency strikes, so I didn’t go running around cutting chicken bones as if they were fingers, or cutting pennies in half. If nothing else, Todd’s shears are still cutting well after about half-a-year of daily use. He said the pivot is getting a little loose, but that can be compensated for by changing the direction your hand squeezes the handles.
The handles are the nicest and most comfortable I’ve felt on trauma shears. They are molded from two different kinds of polymer. The main handle molding is a semi-flexible grey plastic, and the insides of the handles where your fingers contact are a soft, grippy rubbery material. Most importantly, the edges are nicely radiused. If you’ve ever used cheap shears with hard, blocky plastic handles with sharp mold marks, you’ll know why I really like these. They don’t have the little plastic bead on the tip like some of the other professional-use trauma shears I’ve seen, but I don’t foresee an issue without it. They fit nicely down three rows of MOLLE/PALS webbing with a Fastex Web Dominator in the next higher adjacent channel to keep them in place. This is shown on an empty grid here, but this can be done in an empty row behind a mounted pouch. I covered the tip with a vinyl cap to protect the webbing and keep the blades closed.
Made in The PRC
About $10 USD
Recommended
Three-and-a-half crazed trauma-shear-wielding monkeys
can’t wait till Xmas to cut! cut! cut!