Marla Davis Photography

In the trucking industry, the most popular chains are binder chains and snow chains, and chains as products have much more than just those tie down chains, such as machines chains, coil chains, passing link chains etc., in the tow and recovery industry,  you can’t skip the tow chains, simply put, these chains are mostly made from steel.

In most cases tie down chains equal to grade 70 chains , we usually say binder chains, there are two different standard bodies governing these chains, ASTM and NACM. ASTM standard indicates the chains are short link ones, regular link chains are made to NACM standard. People use short link chains when they need more flexibility, for instance the short links can wrap around the corner easily, regular link chains probably will not fit. The tie down chains are mostly used in transportation, for the purpose of cargo securement, you definitely can put these chains to some other way of uses, as long as it’s safe.

Tire chains and snow chains are the same thing under most circumstances, then we know that snow chains are tire chains, but tire chains are not equal to snow chains, because you will use tire chains when its ice covered. Most of the time the tire chains are in pairs on the shelf, because you can’t just chain up one tire, and you can replace just one piece of chain at one time. Due to the use condition, all tire chains are made from steel. You will have to buy the matching size of tire chains for your vehicle, if you have a passenger car you will be looking for car tire chain, and if you drive a 18 wheeler, you’re going to need truck tire chains.

And the hardware chains are a big category, you’re going to see all kinds of chains in this family of product. For example, there are machine chains , twisted or straight link, and twisted and straight link coil chains, sash chains , hot dip galvanized chains and electro-galvanized chains, and steel decoration chains, there are more to it, this is a huge product family. Hardware chains have specific features and applications, grade 30 chain is the most popular general purpose chain, as an example, grade 30 steel chains can be used to build oil capture net.

When it comes to towing chains , there is only 5/16” in size available, the WLL of tow chain is 4700 lbs, because most of vehicles being towed will be put on flat bed, the WLL is good for at least 9400LBS load, and there are only a few varieties available, such as 5/16”x6′ and 5/16”x10′, long shank J hook and sports T & J hook, I believe that due to well built standard tow trucks,  you don’t need too many different version of the tow chains, both towing industry and chain vendors can benefit from this standardization.