Cannon PowerWorks

Cannon PowerWorks (CPW) is a grip equipment retailer and maker in Maple Grove, Minnesota, founded in 2012. It is best known for its independent gripper ratings: it measures individual hand grippers of every major brand and publishes the results by model. It also sells pre-rated grippers and casts replica York blobs.

Gripper ratings

Cannon rates a gripper by hanging weight from its handles until the handles touch, and records the load in whole pounds. Its public ratings chart uses only brand-new, unfiled grippers, and for each model it shows:

• the average rating and how many grippers hit it;
• the mode, the rating seen most often, and how many hit it;
• the minimum and maximum seen;
• the share of grippers within 2 percent of the average;
• the total number rated for that model.

Cannon acknowledges that no rating is perfectly exact. The condition and placement of the strap, the state of the spring and the judgement of when the handles have closed all introduce error, which is why it reports whole pounds rather than decimals. Its method also gives different figures from manufacturers' own ratings. Heavy Grips grippers sold as HG 100 to HG 350, for example, average about 45 lb and about 180 lb respectively on Cannon's rig. Because one method is applied to every brand, the data is widely used to compare grippers across makers. See Gripper Ratings and Hand Grippers: Types, Brands and What to Buy.

Customers can have a gripper rated when they buy it. The service includes oiling and cleaning the spring, more than 30 full closes, and an anodised aluminium colour tag stamped with the measured rating.

Grippers sold

Cannon sells grippers from IronMind (Captains of Crush), Robert Baraban, Grip Genie, Heavy Grips and others, many of them available pre-rated, along with used grippers. It and Grip Genie made a co-branded limited edition gripper, the CPW/GG4.

Standard grippers

Cannon's own gripper line, the Standard grippers, went on sale in 2021 and is still in production. The twelve levels are named after metals in order of hardness, and each is stamped with the element's symbol: Tin (Sn), Zinc (Zn), Silver (Ag), Gold (Au), Copper (Cu), Platinum (Pt), Iron (Fe), Nickel (Ni), Cobalt (Co), Titanium (Ti), Tungsten (W) and Chromium (Cr). Cannon's measured averages run from 51 lb for Tin to 236 lb for Chromium. The grippers are made in the USA by small businesses, with pinned, knurled aluminium handles and oil-tempered springs, and their ratings are tightly grouped compared with most brands. See Hand Grippers for the full ladder.

Blobs

Cannon casts its own replica blobs in ductile iron in Minnesota:

• BLOB50: guaranteed to weigh at least 50 lb (22.7 kg). It replicates the second-generation ("next-gen") York 100 lb dumbbell head. The pattern was made by GripBoard member GordonV, and Cannon later acquired it.
• FATMAN: at least 52 lb, based on the thicker first-generation York "Fatman" blob, and much harder to lift than the BLOB50.
• FAT40: at least 41.5 lb.

As foundry castings, each piece varies a little in colour and finish. For the history of the York blob, see Pinch Implements: Blobs, Blocks and Pinch Blocks.

Cannon also sells an 11-inch aluminium loading pin made for it by Barrel Strength Systems.

See also

• Gripper Ratings
• Hand Grippers: Types, Brands and What to Buy
• Pinch Implements: Blobs, Blocks and Pinch Blocks
• Grip Equipment Makers

Sources

• Cannon PowerWorks, grip strength ratings data: https://cannonpowerworks.com/pages/grip-strength-ratings-data
• Cannon PowerWorks, about the ratings: https://cannonpowerworks.com/pages/ratings
• Cannon PowerWorks, Standard grippers: https://cannonpowerworks.com/collections/standard-grippers
• Cannon PowerWorks, BLOB50: https://cannonpowerworks.com/products/blob50