NOTHING beats having the right tool for the job (Well, almost anyway--you can always have somebody else do it for you...). The 63711 cuts 3/0 and 600 MCM Cu wire like a knife through warm butter with minimal effort. This is important in tight spaces, or if you have a lot of wire to cut, or if you do not have a vice like grip, etc. I believe these could be used by motivated people in the 120 lbs range. To accomplish the obviously large mechanical advantage, the ratchet step size is small so these do not cut as fast as the big battery powered units. However, you can easily hand squeeze the blades down to the the surface of the wire so the only slow part is the actual cut. Depending on your size and speed, this is only a few seconds. Took me about 8-10 sec to cut Cu 3/0 wire. The only mark on the blades after several cuts, under a magnifying glass, is a very thin and small smear of copper on the blade surface from the material being cut.Note: For those who might confuse me with someone who does this professionally, I don't. I like engineering/science things (Really am an MIT graduate.) and so I had occasion to watch some professionals using this tool and the battery powered cutters while building a large data center class facility. Having wired up large industrial equipment and VERY high voltage high power gear as a graduate student...I have a lot of respect for the guys who do this for a living--the good ones move fast and get it right the first time. Cutting heavy wire with the wrong/too small of tools is both overly time consuming and can lead to poor wire terminations--which can in some cases be dangerous. So, for reworking a massively insufficient home grounding line, and two breaker panels that had insufficient service entrance wiring (SER), I bought this tool to do the work myself. So, I cannot direly speak to long term durability, except to say that it is very solid, and clearly can cut 600 MCM without stressing the tool. Great!