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Loppers: How to Choose and Use Them

Michael Kahn, Sacramento homeowner and lifelong gardener
Michael Kahn
13 min read
Homeowner pruning tree branches with long-handled loppers

Loppers are the tool that fills the gap between your hand pruners and your saw. They handle the branches that are too thick to squeeze through with one hand but too thin to bother dragging out a pruning saw for, which in most yards is the majority of the pruning you actually do. If you own a tree and one pair of pruners, a pair of loppers is the next tool you buy. This is the guide to picking the right pair and using it without wrecking the tool or the tree.

Here is the short version. Buy bypass loppers, not anvil, for anything living. Match the cut capacity to the branches you actually cut, roughly half an inch to an inch and a half. Get enough handle length for leverage without buying a pole. For the branches thinner than your thumb, our hand pruners guide covers the tool you should reach for first, and this page picks up where those leave off. If you want the whole kit laid out by job, start at the tree care tools hub.

What loppers are for

A lopper is a pair of long-handled pruning shears. Same cutting head as a hand pruner, much longer handles. Those handles do two things: they give you reach into a shrub or up into low branches, and they give you leverage, so a branch that would fold your hand pruner cuts with a firm two-armed squeeze.

Clemson Extension draws the lines by branch diameter, and it is the cleanest way to think about it. Hand pruners handle wood up to about half an inch. Loppers take over from half an inch to roughly an inch and a half. Anything thicker than that belongs to a pruning saw, and no lopper on earth changes that math. Trying to close a lopper on a two-inch limb is how you bend a blade or snap a handle.

If you are ever unsure which tool a given cut calls for, we mapped it out in which tool for each cut. But the rule of thumb holds: if you can wrap your hand around the branch and it is thicker than a pencil, that is lopper territory.

Bypass vs anvil loppers

This is the first decision, and it is not close. Buy bypass.

Bypass loppers work like scissors. A sharp curved blade passes by a second blade, slicing through the wood cleanly. Anvil loppers work differently: a single blade closes down onto a flat bar, or anvil, crushing through the branch. The University of Georgia Extension puts it plainly in its hand tools guide, calling the bypass mechanism preferred over the anvil type.

The reason is the cut itself. A bypass blade slices, leaving a clean face that the tree can seal over. An anvil blade crushes the stem as it cuts, mashing the wood fibers and leaving a wound that heals slower and invites disease. On living branches, that difference matters. Oregon State and Clemson both hammer the same point across their pruning material: clean cuts at the branch collar close fast, and crushed or torn cuts sit open as an entry for decay.

Anvil loppers have exactly one good use, and that is dead, dry wood. Deadwood is already gone, so crushing it does no harm, and the anvil design shears through brittle wood with less effort. If you have a pair of anvil loppers already, keep them in the shed for cleaning up dead branches and buy bypass for everything green. If you are buying your first pair, buy bypass and skip the anvil entirely. You will rarely miss it.

Cutting mechanisms: standard, geared, compound, ratchet

Close-up of lopper blades cutting a branch

Not all bypass loppers cut the same way. The handle-to-blade linkage changes how much force reaches the wood.

Standard loppers run a straight pivot. Your squeeze goes right to the blade, one motion, one cut. They are fast and simple, and for green wood up to about an inch they are all you need. A good high-leverage standard lopper handles the vast majority of home pruning.

Compound and geared loppers add a linkage between the handles and the blade that multiplies your force. The result is a lopper that chews through wood near the top of its range with noticeably less grunt. The tradeoff is a slightly slower cut, since the mechanism trades speed for power, and a little more weight. If you regularly cut branches over an inch, or your hands tire on a long pruning day, the gearing earns its keep.

Ratchet loppers take a different approach. Instead of one squeeze, you close the handles in stages, and a ratchet holds your progress between squeezes so the blade advances through the branch bit by bit. The University of Georgia Extension is skeptical of the ratchet mechanism, noting it adds a lot of repetitive handwork to get through a cut. For most people with normal grip strength, a ratchet is slower and more tedious than it is worth. The exception is real: if arthritis or a weak grip makes a standard lopper painful, a ratchet lets you cut wood you otherwise could not, and that is worth every bit of the extra fiddling.

My advice for a typical homeowner: a quality standard or lightly geared bypass lopper covers everything. Reach for a ratchet only if grip strength is a genuine problem.

Sizing: cut capacity and handle length

Two numbers define a lopper. Cut capacity is the thickest branch it is rated to cut. Handle length sets your leverage and reach.

On capacity, do not chase the biggest number. A lopper rated to an inch and a half, like the Felco 21 at 1.38 inches, covers the full useful range of the tool. Wood thicker than that wants a saw regardless of what the lopper claims. Buy for the branches you actually cut, which for pruning fruit trees, ornamentals, and shrubs is almost always under an inch.

On handle length, longer means more leverage and more reach, but heavier and clumsier for close work. A 20-inch pair is light and nimble, easy to swing around inside a canopy while you are pruning fruit trees, where you are making a lot of small cuts and want control. A 24 to 28-inch pair gives you the leverage to lean on tougher wood and the reach to get into the middle of a dense shrub without climbing in. Longer handles also save your back on low branches you would otherwise crouch for.

If you buy one pair, get something in the middle, around 24 inches, with about an inch and a half of capacity. That single pair handles most of what a home orchard or a yard of ornamentals throws at you. If you buy two, get one short and light for detail work in fruit trees, and one longer for reach and heavier wood.

Price tiers

You can spend 20 dollars or 90 dollars on loppers, and the difference shows up over years, not in the store.

Budget, 20 to 35 dollars. Big-box store loppers with steel handles and a stamped blade. They cut fine on day one. The blade dulls fast, you often cannot buy a replacement blade, and the pivot bolt works loose. Fine if you prune twice a year and do not mind replacing them.

Mid-range, 40 to 60 dollars. Better steel, a replaceable blade, aluminum or fiberglass handles that shed weight. This is where a homeowner should live. The tools hold an edge, take a real sharpening, and survive being left out in the rain once.

Premium, 60 to 90 dollars and up. Fully serviceable loppers where every part comes apart and every part is replaceable. Felco is the benchmark here. A Felco lopper costs more up front, but the blade, spring, grips, and bolts are all replaceable, so the tool is effectively permanent. For someone who prunes a real yard every year, buy once and be done.

The University of Georgia Extension’s line about hand pruners applies just as well to loppers: you get what you pay for. Cheap loppers are not a bargain if you buy three pairs in the time one good pair would have lasted.

How to use loppers without wrecking the tree or the tool

Cutting a branch with bypass loppers for extra leverage

Good loppers make good cuts easy, but the technique still matters.

Cut at the branch collar. When you remove a whole branch, cut just outside the swollen collar where the branch meets the trunk or the parent limb. Clemson and Oregon State both stress this: the branch collar is the tree’s natural defense zone, and a cut just outside it seals over cleanly. Do not cut flush against the trunk, which leaves a wound too big to close, and do not leave a stub, which dies back and rots. Position the loppers so the sharp bypass blade is on the side of the cut that stays on the tree, and the counter blade takes the waste side. That puts the clean slice on the part that has to heal.

Let the leverage do the work. Open the handles wide, seat the branch deep in the throat of the blades near the pivot where the leverage is strongest, and make one firm two-armed squeeze. Do not cut with the tips, where you have the least mechanical advantage and the most chance of the branch slipping out.

Do not force wood that is too thick. This is the one that kills loppers. If the branch does not want to cut with a firm squeeze, stop. Do not twist the handles to lever it apart, which springs the blade out of alignment so the two blades no longer slide tight past each other, and a misaligned bypass lopper folds green wood instead of slicing it. Do not rock it side to side. Back the tool out and get a saw. The three-cut method for anything over an inch and a half, undercut first, then top cut, then a final cut at the collar, is a saw job, and Clemson walks through it in their pruning guidance.

Prune at the right time. A clean cut with the right tool still needs the right season. Most trees prune best in dormancy, but stone fruit like plums prefer a summer cut to dodge disease, which we cover in pruning plum trees and pruning pear trees. The tool does not change the calendar.

Maintenance and sharpening

A lopper is a simple machine, and five minutes of care keeps it cutting like new for decades.

Clean it after real use. Wipe sap and grime off the blade with a rag. Sap gums up the pivot and the blade, and dried sap is a magnet for rust. The University of Minnesota Extension recommends washing tools with soap and water to clear debris, then lubricating afterward. When you have been cutting on a tree you suspect is diseased, disinfect the blade between cuts. Minnesota’s tool-care guidance lists 70 percent rubbing alcohol, a diluted bleach solution, or a Lysol-type disinfectant as good options, and warns against vinegar because it promotes rust.

Sharpen when it starts tearing. A sharp bypass lopper slices green wood with almost no effort. When it starts crushing or tearing instead, it is time. Sharpen only the beveled cutting blade, matching the factory bevel, which Minnesota’s guide puts at 10 to 20 degrees, and file in one direction rather than back and forth. Leave the flat back of the blade flat so the two blades keep sliding tight past each other. The step-by-step is in the how-to above, and our general guide to sharpening pruning tools covers pruners and saws with the same approach. A pocket carbide sharpener from Corona or a small mill file is all the hardware you need.

Oil the moving parts. A drop of light oil on the blade, the pivot bolt, and the spring after each cleaning keeps everything moving and stops rust before it starts. Store loppers dry, indoors, not leaning in a puddle in the corner of the shed.

Keep the pivot bolt snug. A loose pivot lets the blades drift apart, and a bypass lopper with a sloppy pivot chews wood instead of cutting it. If your cuts start folding over, check the bolt before you blame the blade. On a serviceable lopper you can tighten it, and if the blade is truly worn, replace it rather than the whole tool.

Safety

Loppers are less dramatic than a chainsaw, but they still put a sharp blade and a lot of stored force in your hands.

Wear eye protection. Branches under tension snap back, and green wood throws chips. Wear gloves for grip and to save your palms on a long day of squeezing handles. Watch where the cut branch is going to fall, especially overhead, and never stand directly under the limb you are cutting.

Keep your body out of the closing path of the handles. The leverage that cuts a branch will pinch a finger just as hard. And do not use loppers up on a ladder if you can avoid it. Two-handed cutting means no hand on the ladder, which is exactly how people fall. For branches you cannot reach standing flat on the ground, a pole pruner is the safer tool. If you are working around a whole yard through the seasons, mklibrary.com has a good seasonal yard maintenance guide that puts pruning in the wider context of keeping a property in shape.

Two pairs cover almost every homeowner, and I would buy Felco for both because the tools are fully serviceable and effectively permanent.

For heavier wood and reach, the Felco 21 bypass loppers are the pair I hand people first. They are 24.8 inches long, cut to 1.38 inches, and run about two and a half pounds, with forged aluminum handles, built-in shock absorbers to save your elbows, and an adjustable cutting head. Every part is replaceable and the handles carry a lifetime warranty. This is the buy-once lopper for the bulk of your pruning.

For lighter, nimbler work inside a canopy, the Felco 211-50 loppers are the pair I reach for in fruit trees. At 19.69 inches and 1.76 pounds, they are light enough to swing around one-handed while you position with the other, with the same 1.38-inch capacity and a curved head that pulls the branch in and slices as it closes. If you make a lot of small shaping cuts, the shorter Felco is less tiring than muscling a long lopper around.

Buy the longer pair if you buy one. Add the short pair if you prune fruit trees seriously. Keep both sharp and oiled, and they will outlast the trees you bought them for.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between bypass and anvil loppers? Bypass loppers cut like scissors, sliding a sharp blade past a second blade to slice cleanly through living wood. Anvil loppers close a single blade onto a flat bar, crushing the branch as they cut. For live branches, use bypass every time, because the clean cut heals faster and resists disease. Keep anvil loppers, if you own them, for dead dry wood only.

What is the biggest branch loppers can cut? Roughly half an inch up to an inch and a half. Clemson Extension puts loppers in the half-inch to one-and-a-half-inch range, and quality loppers like the Felco 21 are rated to 1.38 inches. Past an inch and a half, switch to a pruning saw rather than forcing the lopper and springing the blade.

Are geared or compound loppers worth it? Yes, if you regularly cut wood near the top of the tool’s range. The gearing multiplies your force so thicker branches cut with less effort, at the cost of a slightly slower cut and a little more weight. For thin green growth, a standard high-leverage lopper is faster.

How do you sharpen loppers? Clean the blade, then file only the beveled cutting blade of a bypass lopper, matching the factory bevel of 10 to 20 degrees, moving the file in one direction from pivot to tip. Lightly remove the burr from the flat back without angling it, then oil the blade, pivot, and spring. Minnesota Extension recommends keeping the natural bevel and always filing in one direction.

Are ratchet loppers worth buying? For most people with normal grip strength, no. The University of Georgia Extension notes that ratchet mechanisms add a lot of repetitive handwork. But if arthritis or a weak grip makes a standard lopper painful, a ratchet lets you cut wood you otherwise could not, which makes it worth the extra squeezing.

How long should lopper handles be? Longer handles give more leverage and reach but get heavy for detail work. A 20-inch pair is light and nimble for canopy work, while a 24 to 28-inch pair gives you leverage for tougher wood and reach into dense shrubs. If you buy one pair, get the mid-length. If you buy two, get one short and one long.

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