As a graduate student doing research for my thesis, I have a lot of paper to punch and put in binders. I bought this punch mostly because it was inexpensive and fit in my desk drawer. While it isn't totally useless, it is flimsy and prone to jams. It will routinely take only about four or five pages at a time without jamming (it depends on paper thickness), and once jammed it is sometimes hard to get the paper out of the punch without ripping. A second problem is that of chads. Until the 2000 election, I didn't know what the little partially detached pieces of paper not cut by the punch were called, but now I am unhappy to report that, thanks to this punch, I too have problems with hanging chads!
Swingline makes a lot of great office products, but if I had to do it over again, I would buy a better grade of punch. Unless you only have one page to punch here and there, this punch is not really up to the job. Swingline Light Duty 8 Sheet Capacity Paper Punch (A7074114K)
I have three of these hole punchers (long story, but has to do with misplacing the *&^% things). The Swingline is, as the other reviewer stated, not the best one of the bunch. The hole-cutters aren't sharp and it takes an unreasonable amount of effort to punch holes in bundles of five pages or more.
The other problem I've had is that the punched-hole-catcher (that plastic base that holds all the cut holes) has a nasty habit of falling off the bottom and then you have the tedious chore of picking up 5,391 tiny dots of white paper from the floor.
Another small note: It wasn't until I'd owned this puncher for some time that I inadvertantly discovered that the three cutters have a thumbscrew on their underside, to hold them in place. When these cutters wiggle loose, you have to stop and tighten those thumbscrews. I nearly threw the thing out one day after a paper jam, when I noticed that one of the three cutters was wobbly and loose (and hence, no longer working correctly). Once it was tightened up, it worked much better.
Like the other reviewer said, Swingline has many good products but this isn't one of their best. I also have the Office Depot version of this product (which is cheaper) and in my opinion, better.
Since Swingline 8 Sheet Capacity Paper Punch (A7074114K)is for light duty, it fits my purposes perfectly. I bought this product over three years ago on Amazon and it does the work well enough and is easy on the hands. - Summer - Paper Punch'
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