Cable Pullers

Cable Pullers & Grips Buying Guide

Cable puller or wire grip: same job, different tool. The two designs on this page pull a cable but reach the work differently. A wire grip is a jaw that clamps onto a conductor or wire rope at any point and holds it while something else, a hoist, a winch, or a second grip, takes the tension. It moves the line only as far as the jaw travels, so it suits tensioning, splicing, and dead-ending an existing run. The Vestil long-reach cable puller is a self-contained ratchet tool with 60 feet of its own wire rope, built to pull that whole length in one pass without the unhook-and-reset cycle a lever hoist forces on you. Reach for a grip when you need to grab and hold a line already in place, and the Vestil when the job is continuous horizontal travel over distance. Neither belongs under a suspended load; when the load hangs, the work moves to the rated machines in winches.

Bulldog jaw or parallel jaw. Bulldog-jaw grips are the small, light end of the range. Modeled on the classic Haven-style grip, they take a wide span of wire sizes in one tool, which means fewer grips in the truck, and they suit work where marking or deforming the wire is not a concern. Little Mule builds them at 1,000 lb from about $223 and 2,000 lb from about $290, both with aggressive teeth and a spring-loaded gate. Parallel-jaw grips are the heavier, more careful design: the jaws stay parallel and spread their grip along a length of conductor, which distributes pressure and holds larger cable at higher tension with less point damage. Little Mule parallel-jaw grips run from 5,000 lb near $321 up to 20,000 lb near $1,745. Match the jaw to the wire diameter and the tension the job actually pulls, not to the biggest number on the shelf.

Standard or hotline. The hotline models exist for one reason: putting a grip on a live conductor with no hand near it. A hotline grip carries a spring-loaded gate, a notched handle, and on some models a stick plate, so a lineworker can set it and release it with an insulated hot stick, the shotgun-style clampstick used for energized work. The gate latches closed on its own once the stick pulls away, which guards against the grip walking off the wire. Standard grips skip that hardware and cost less, and they are the right pick for de-energized lines and general mechanical pulling. Energized-line work falls under OSHA 1910.269, and the grip itself is a bare-conductor tool, not an insulated one, so the conductor gets grounded, isolated, or covered and the insulated stick does the reaching. Buy hotline only when the work is actually done hot.

Fine teeth or aggressive teeth. Every parallel-jaw grip ships with a tooth profile, and the choice trades bite against conductor damage. Aggressive teeth drive more points into the wire and hold hardest, which is what you want when the cable is scrap, will be cut off, or when deformation simply does not matter. Fine teeth grip more gently and leave less of a mark, which is the safer call on a bare conductor that stays in service and has to keep its surface intact. Little Mule offers both profiles across the 5,000 to 12,000 lb range, often with a spring-loaded gate or a notched handle as added options, so a crew can spec the exact grip for the exact wire. When in doubt on a conductor you plan to re-energize, fine teeth protect the strand.

Rate the pull, and keep it horizontal. A wire grip's rating is a pulling number, not a lifting one. The Little Mule line spans 1,000 to 20,000 lb of pull, and the Vestil long-reach puller is offered at 1,500 and 3,000 lb, each with 60 feet of wire rope. Size the tool above the tension the line will see, and remember the conductor has its own limit: a bare cable can only take so much strain before it yields, so the grip is often not the weakest link in the pull. Vestil states plainly that the long-reach puller is for horizontal pulling and not for vertical lifting, and the same holds for every grip here. When the load hangs, the job moves to a rated machine: hand winches for occasional pulls, industrial electric winches for repeated ones, and air tugger winches for shift-long duty.

Inspection and the jaws. A grip holds only as well as its jaws bite, so the discipline is simple and constant. Clean the jaw area before every use, because grease, mud, or a glazed conductor is what makes a grip slip, and inspect the teeth, the gate, and the handle for wear or a bent frame before you load it. Forged steel construction is why the Little Mule grips take the abuse of field work, but a cracked or spread jaw comes out of service, not back in the truck. On energized work, OSHA 1910.269 sets a formal rhythm for the insulated live-line tools that carry the grip, removed from service and tested on a schedule, and the grip rides that same standard of care. The wire itself has its own home: rated assemblies live in winch ropes, and when a pull has to change direction, wire rope pulleys turn it without grinding it over structure.