Heavy Duty (100% Solid Metal Front & Back) Retractable Reel Key-ID-Badge-Belt Clip & Chain Pull Sold Individually

I bought this Jan 28th 2011. It broke last night, March 29th 2012, but only after I dropped my keys 20 feet onto a concrete step. So it lasted 14 months. I knew it would break one day, so I bought a replacement about 6 months ago. I grabbed the replacement and switched it out. Since I am changing careers next Feb I shan't be buying another replacement as I fully expect it to last that long. I can't recommend this product enough. And to address someone else's review - both of mine are metal, not plastic! UPDATE: OK, my latest one did not last anywhere near as long sadly. March 29th 2012 thru Jan 15 2013. Still, that's not too bad.

I am using this with a swipe ID badge for school and it works very well. The chain is smooth to extend and retract and the belt clips holds on securely. A minor criticism is the black coating scrapes off easily and now looks a little beat up. The key ring is very sturdy and certainly is built to handle a number of keys if needed. For what I need it for, it serves its purpose perfectly. UPDATE - After 8 months of use, this still works perfectly. The black coating has scraped off a little bit...but is still in good shape overall. Definitely worth the purchase. UPDATE - 2/17 As many others have said, this has changed. Mine new one lasted only two months, while the first one last for a few years of daily use. It is not 100% metal or a chain. Rather, plastic covering the assembly and a thin cable. STAY AWAY!!!

And I'd probably pay a little more if the price went up! Just purchased my second one of these very tough belt clip chains as my first one finally bit the dust after 14 months. I work in a resort and have to constantly use my access key to enter guest rooms and storage areas. If I had to guess, I probably easily average 50 pulls on this chain each day. It operates very smoothly considering the toughness of the chain, and I never had any issue with it getting stuck or tangled. Also, the chain always retracts fully (you don't have to deal with it starting to sag like some other products out there). One downside to this is that, when it does die, you won't know until that last pull as it maintains its durability until the very end. Note: the clip is very strong on this product, and could be problematic if you wear a really thick belt as it can be tough to slide on and may wear down that area of your belt over time. Fortunately, this means the clip isn't going anywhere so you won't have to worry about it accidentally falling off. Just make sure you don't wear an expensive belt as the clip may wear it down over time (that did happen to my first belt). However, I really can't blame the clip as it's serving its purpose. So, if you need a solid and reliable belt clip with retractable chain that can handle thousands of pulls, this one is a hands down sure thing.

I purchased it for the "heavy duty" aspect. The clip itself (to the belt) is pretty heavy duty. The build is very solid and clip strength is tight and seems like won't break anytime in the near future. However the retractor and the chain are not (which are normally the parts that break) heavy duty. The chain is literally bits and pieces of metal linked together. While it looks cool, the application of it is similar to having paper clips linked together. It looks cool, but is it really sturdy? It sure doesn't feel like it. Additionally, the retractor has issues retracting the full length of wire frequently. This is likely because of the chain and how it snags on to the corner sometimes. It is inconvenient, and will likely break with heavy use. I wouldn't recommend it if you are going to be actually retracting very often and putting it through "heavy" use. The wire/chain is also very short (approximately 1.5 feet), but that is stated in the description. Overall, the outside has very sturdy build. However the internal mechanisms feel iffy and not something I would trust to last very long under heavy use.

I recently used up the one of these I bought. It lasted me 2 or 3 years I believe and I liked having it but the chain (metal) on it was very very short. I just bought a new one that reaches out long enough that I can have my key in the ignition and still attached to my waist while I drive around. Couldn't do that with this one. The key ring is kind of delicate, don't pull it out and let it back in really fast repetitively or you may break it. I had to open up the case (one screw, really easy) twice to reset things in their tracks. It is all metal and works nice. the mechanism part is actually really small and it just disappears beneath your clothes which is nice. Doesn't hold weight very well! I had 6 keys on the chain and it made it hang a few chain links down, plus when I ran or jumped it would extend an additional few chain links each time!!! There is no locking mechanism so this is only good for one or 2 keys and someone who doesn't jump around all the time.

I use this to hold my "Black 2 Sided Rigid Multi Card Holder by Specialist ID, Sold Individually" and I am swiping my card fairly frequently. I took the key ring off and with a pair of needle-nosed pliers, opened and closed the link at the bottom. I've only been using this for a couple of weeks and, thus far, have had no issues. I like this because it is light and only about 2 inches in diameter (I'm just estimating this). The body seems to be made of a light grade of metal or aluminum; however, it seems sturdy enough. Now, what I found that was interesting was that mine did not come with a chain but a thin length of metal cable. The cable itself has a sleeve of plastic around it to prolong its life span (I'm assuming). Overall, I'm very pleased with the setup. I've been through a slew of these sort of things over the years that would break quite easily (those were the type that were plastic and had a retractable string that would break quite easily - I think I found those in a 4-pack at Office Max and I do not recommend those at all). The old one I found at Walmart and it had had a long length of chain and was extremely heavy with a much larger diameter and it seemed to get in the way a great deal on my belt. Plus I think it was made for someone carrying a slew of keys. This one is light and fairly comfortable. Because the weight is so light, I could conceivably see someone wearing this on his/her neck lanyard without any difficulty.

I have to give this product two stars because the description is very deceptive. Before I go into detail as to why, I'll explain why this product does not get 1 star, and give the "pros". It looks nice, it's not terribly large and the matte black finish on the outside is subtle. The retaining clip (which I would clip to a belt loop) is sturdy and keeps the item from slipping off (though it can be a pain to put it on in the first place, it's pretty tight). The chain retracts quite well and very rarely snags while retracting. Overall, it works well. However, this is one glaring flaw and it's bad enough that I don't recommend that anyone purchase this product. The chain is most certainly not heavy duty. It's one of the flimsiest metal chains I've ever seen. I'm not exaggerating. Most of the time you think of a chain, you think of solid rings of metal interconnected. The chain in this reel, however, is composed of pairs of extremely flat, paper-thin metal. Imagine the aluminum of a soda can, but even thinner than that. This item did reasonably well for a couple of months. I was actually putting it to light duty. The only thing connected to it is a key card in a plastic holder, I'm not carrying around a big ring of keys or anything. It's just a key card I pull out to open doors, then I let it retract. One day I reached down to pull out the key card and I'd gashed my finger! When I looked down to see what had cut me, I saw that the link nearest the key ring had broken. I bound up my finger (it was a pretty nasty gash) and took the reel off of my belt loop. Not wanting the chain to slice up my hand any further, I tried to figure out how to remove the broken link. It turned out to be ridiculously easy, as it cut with a regular pair of scissors about as easily as paper. That isn't an exaggeration. Since each link of the chain is a pair of these rings, the chain as a whole was still intact even with the broken part removed, but considering how flimsy the chain is with the links in pairs I hastily replaced this reel with a much stronger one that won't break. In any case, do not buy this. I imagine that a reel using a nylon string will hold up longer than this "heavy duty" chain.

I've been using this key chain for a little over a year. The product is pretty self explanatory, so I will not make this an exponentially large review. After heavy use for pretty much the entire year, the paint is starting to come off and a little rust is showing up in it's place, and the spring inside which retracts the chain is starting to wear, and the chain occasionally hangs about 1" lower than normal, but all in all I am very pleased with this purchase due to the matter of how much wear and tear it has been through. I highly recommend this product.