this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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As long as you limit the calipers you buy to well-known brands, you should be fine. Mitutoyo and Starrett are the best, but even Fowler should be fine. Also, best case scenario with calipers is +/-.0005".
slaps harbor freight calipers on table
Check these puppies out.
All depends on the use-case and having a calibrated standard to verify.
I'd never use them for truly close tolerances, but they're great for day-to-day stuff, especially since at that price, I can have them in every tool box
Depends on where you buy them. There are a lot of fake Mitutoyo calipers on e. g. eBay, and not everyone might be aware of that.
And let's face it, 5 tenths is way beyond what people need at home, 95% of people don't have any equipment that would even allow them to control any process to that degree of accuracy.
Also, shout out for Shars as another budget option.
.0005" is best case, with the best calipers. If you have spectacularly shitty ones, your accuracy might be more like +/- .005", or ten thou.
I use calipers for reloading; rifle cases need to be trimmed because brass flows under pressure, and you def. have a minimum and a maximum tolerance.
Plus handling errors, of course.
But yeah, a $170 Mitutoyo caliper will also not display anything beyond five tenths, so that's definitely a hard limit.