Unpopular opinion: a $40 set of cannon plug pliers beats any fancy extraction tool I've tried
Everyone at my shop swears by the $300+ pin pusher kits, but I picked up a plain set of cannon plug pliers for about $40 at a tool swap in Wichita last spring and it has saved me more time on tight connectors than anything else in my box. The trick is they let me break a stuck shell loose without chewing up the knurl, which the fancy stuff never seemed to help with. Curious if anyone here has gone back to basic hand tools after dropping big money on the specialized kits.