Swingline Heavy Duty Stapler

If you haven’t seen or heard of the name Swingline, you’ve probably never been to school as a child. Just about everybody has used a Swingline to staple a few pages of paper together or to attach a sheet of paper to a cork board. But, would if you need something that will handle more than a few pages at a time? You need a heavy duty stapler that is more of a home appliance. Various crafts and professional jobs require stapling of 10, 50, 100 or more pages at a time. If you’re writing a thesis or at a job where you’re producing several multipage reports a day, you don’t have the time for the hole-punch and folder routine each and every time. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Heavy Duty Stapler that will put those pages together neatly and easily? A Heavy Duty Stapler is made precisely for those kinds of jobs and more. I’ve always considered Swingline Staplers to be heavy-duty, well constructed products and the Swingline Heavy Duty Stapler is no exception. Because I am familiar and comfortable with the brand , I wasn’t surprised to find that the Swingline seemed to topple other brands for satisfaction. You would expect such a heavy-duty stapler to be rather expensive, but they are surprisingly affordable. The price ranges from $39.95 to $49.95.

In my research for a heavy duty stapler, The Swingline 160-Sheet Capacity Stapler seemed to be the most popular. I scanned through about 25 User Reviews on the Swingline 160-Sheet Capacity Stapler through various retailers and came up with an average rating of about 3 out of 5 stars. 3 out of 5 does not seem like a very impressive rating until you read the reviews on competing heavy duty staplers. You would think stapler construction and operation is a pretty straightforward technology, but this is obviously not the case. Other, higher capacity models of the Swingline brand line-up simply did not fare as well as the 160 Sheet Capacity flavor. Most of the complaints with the stapler had to do with difficulty loading staples, confusion over staple sizes; frequent jams and or failure to bind all of the pages together successfully. Poor documentation on the 160-Sheet version of the Swingline stapler was the number one complaint against it. Users appeared to be very satisfied with its operation and success in getting 100 page or more documents easily bonded together. I noticed that some office users complained that their Swingline wasn’t well suited for thick packages and other materials they attempted to staple together at the office. So, if you’re needing to do something other than straight-ahead paper-stapling, you might want to look at a different product; maybe a long-arm stapler, or even higher-capacity, more expensive heavy-duty stapler. Those who use the Swingline for stapling only sheets of paper rarely had any complaints with its performance. The biggest endorsements of the heavy-duty model is it’s solid construction and durability. The Swingline only gets an average score for it’s versatility and flexibility, but some of the reason for that appears to be based on some confusion over staple sizes. I’ll see if I can help with that.

Swingline Staple Sizes

The Swingline heavy-duty model uses 3 Staple Sizes: 3/8″, 1/2″ and 3/4″. It is important to choose the right staple size for the number of pages in your document to be stapled. For instance, if you use a 3/4″ staple for a 100 page or less document, you will end up with barbed wired spikes sticking out of your pages. On the contrary, a 3/8″ staple won’t be sufficiently large enough to bind 60 or more pages of paper. Users complained that there was not sufficient documentation explaining which size staples to use. Let’s see if this helps. With some simple math, I’ve come up with my own recommended staple sizes for the 160-capacity model.

• 3/8″ Staple: 10-53 Pages
• 1/2″ Staple: 44-107 Pages
• 3/4″ Staple: 108-160 Pages

DISCLAIMER: I claim not accuracy for the stapler capacities listed above, so use these as a ballpark estimate, only.

Where to Buy?

Just about any office store carries this version of the Swingline Heavy Duty Stapler. As mentioned, the 160-sheet capacity model is the most popular one.
You should be able to find it at your local Staples, Office Depot, Office Max stores right along other competing brands such as Stanley and Staple’s own store brands. As usual, online shopping, gives you the opportunity to save a little more money on a Swingline heavy-duty model. There are some great deals out there.