I have tried different types of hackle pliers and have settled on these. I love the soft feel and the ability to simply wind your finger around the hook to wrap your hackle or other material. I like that you can control the orientation of the feather with how you position it in the grip. These also fit perfectly in the first slot of the Stonfo base on Elite and Transformer models. The only downsides are minor: I get occasional misalignment with the grip portion so the jaws don't fully overlap laterally, but it's easy to move them back closer together. They don't provide the death grip that the spring loop hackle pliers do, but I have yet to have a hackle slip out. Love these hackle pliers.
