Price £9.95
Price from www.cromwell.co.uk
Web www.cromwell.co.uk
Capacity 100ml
The most obvious innovation in Kennedy's 'Pom Pom' gun is the plastic body. The packaging claims this is oil and acid resistant but doesn't mention the effects of long-term grease exposure. The gun works differently to how you'd expect. The small nozzle and feed tube retract into the body, so you pump grease by pressing on the end of the tool itself. With the sprung action, this makes for fast greasing, but the lack of leverage means tight components soon become hard going.
Verdict Clever idea, but can be hard work.

Rating

Price £15
Price from www.pvrdirect.co.uk
Web www.sealey.co.uk
Capacity 500ml
This gun's bulky size means lots of usage between fill ups. You can fill the gun using standard 400g grease cartridges, as well as the usual bulk and suction filling, so loading it can be less messy. Should the grease supply be affected by an air bubble, there's a bleed screw built in. The handle and sprung lever arrangement allows effortless one-handed operation, and the combination of lever length, and stroke, are a perfect trade off between fast filling and enough leverage for dealing with stiff joints.
Verdict A traditional gun, aside from the pistol grip arrangement.

Rating

Price £11
Price from www.machinemart.co.uk
Web www.clarkeinternational.com
Capacity 120ml
This gun's compact size allows it to access all those awkward places where full-sized guns just won't fit. For added versatility, it comes with a flexible feed hose as well as the solid tube and an extension piece. The sprung lever is balanced between giving enough leverage and allowing fast pumping. In fact, the grease reservoir's limited size is our only gripe. But filling is made easier by the gun's ability to use 85g/3oz mini cartridges.
Verdict It's easy to fill, easy to use and it's cheap.

Rating

Price £11
Price from www.pvrdirect.co.uk
Web www.drapertools.com
Capacity 130ml
Here's a gun that will make you curse and swear. And, chances are, too, that you'll emerge covered in grease every time you try and fill it. The reservoir's body is fractionally too thin to allow mini cartridges to be used, which just leaves bulk or suction filling. In theory, either are easy. You simply pull the filling rod back to expose a completely empty reservoir, fill it up with grease, and then re-attach the reservoir to the gun's head. But, unlike any other product here, there's no way of retaining the fully drawn back rod in place. So you have to try and hold it back – against spring pressure – while filling the reservoir and screwing that back onto the rest of the tool. Let go by accident, and you'll be pelted with grease.
Verdict Probably the hardest-to-fill grease gun you can buy. Avoid.

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Price £31 Price from www.cromwell.co.uk
Web www.cromwell.co.uk
Capacity 500ml
While this may look a conventional full-sized grease gun, there is an element of innovation. And, this time, it's all in the handle/trigger arrangement. Like us, you'd probably think the trigger moves, and the handle stays put against the palm of your hand. But you'd be wrong. The trigger stays put and the handle moves instead. It's only when you come across a really tight joint, though, that you realise how beneficial this is. On a conventional trigger, your pumping force is governed by the strength in your fingers. With this arrangement, you can use arm and shoulder muscles, and body weight if neccesary, to squeeze that last bit of grease in.
Verdict Innovative in the way the handle and the pistol grip work. But what a price!

Rating

Price £25
Price from www.pvrdirect.co.uk
Web www.drapertools.com
Capacity 500ml
This gun is well designed, easy to use, and keenly priced compared to similar rivals. Filling up is a doddle: the fill rod locks in place when you withdraw it. Once the gun's re-assembled, you release it by pressing a button. There's an automatic air bleed valve built in. And it has the same lever/handle pumping arrangement as Kennedy's KEN-540-0320K. It's big but the supplied flexible filling tube reaches those tricky spots.
Verdict Despite a better performance it's cheaper than Kennedy's KEN-540-0320K.

Rating

Price £4.69
Price from www.machinemart.co.uk
Web www.clarkeinternational.com
Capacity 125ml
Surely a grease gun for less than a fiver can't be any good, can it? Well, this very nearly received the Budget Choice. It's small and uses the same pumping idea as Kennedy's 'Pom Pom' gun – you pump the gun's body and the filling tube retracts in and out. Filling up is by bulk or suction and, surprisingly for such a cheap tool, you can use 85g/3oz cartridges in it. Unfortunately, all these good points are let down by its basic coupling, which doesn't feature the four-jaw grip that other tools here have. More than once during testing, grease escaped rather than going into the screw.
Verdict A great budget buy if it just had a better coupling fitted.

Rating

Price £11
Price from www.pvrdirect.co.uk
Web www.sealey.co.uk
Capacity 500ml
Great long levers, like this one has, require the tool to be held while the lever's worked. And that means a two-handed operation. The beauty of a large lever is that more grease can be shifted, per stroke, because the extra stiffness this causes is overcome by the amount of leverage at hand, making greasing quicker and easier. Filling up is by bulk or suction, or by using 400g cartridges. The filling rod automatically locks open until the gun is re-assembled.
Verdict Well priced for a full size gun. The long lever has as many pros as cons.

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