Grade 80 and Grade 100 Chain Are Not Two Rungs of the Same Ladder

An enquiry that says "Grade 100 chain sling to EN 818-2" looks precise. It is not. The grade, the product standard and the document that will be supplied at delivery are three separate decisions, and the first line already blends two of them.

1. The line that starts the argument

A buyer asks for a chain sling and names a grade, a diameter and a standard. The offer comes back with a different grade marked "equivalent, higher capacity". Both parties believe they are discussing the same product. What they are actually discussing is two different description systems: one is a grade designation, the other is the published scope of a European product standard. Those systems overlap for one grade and do not overlap for the other.

This matters because a standard's scope is not a quality ladder. It is a bounded description of a class of objects. Something outside the class is not a lower scorer on the same scale; it is simply not the thing the standard describes. The same distinction came up with forged and welded shackles under EN 13889, and it comes up again here, less visibly, because both grades look like the same product in a catalogue photograph.

2. What EN 818-2 actually covers

The published catalogue entries of CEN and of national standards bodies give the title of EN 818-2:1996+A1:2008 as Short link chain for lifting purposes — Safety — Part 2: Medium tolerance chain for chain slings — Grade 8. The scope text reproduced by those bodies is consistent and narrow. It covers electrically welded round steel short link chain, heat treated and tested, of medium tolerance, in Grade 8, for use in chain slings according to EN 818-4 and for general lifting purposes. It refers to the general conditions of acceptance in EN 818-1, names a defined nominal size range, and points to its annexes for the basis on which tabulated dimensions, working load limits and mechanical properties are calculated.

Three words do most of the work: Grade 8. That is the grade described in this part of the EN 818 series. The grades people write as G80 and Grade 8 belong to this family. The grade people write as G100, Grade 10 or Grade 100 does not appear in the title or in that scope statement. This is a fact about the published scope of one part of a standard series, not a claim about what any manufacturer can or cannot make.

3. Where Grade 100 sits

Grade 100 chain is widely sold, and it is not an undocumented product. The public abstract of ASTM A973/A973M, for example, describes a specification covering Grade 100 heat-treated alloy steel chain for slings, lifting assemblies and load binding, with requirements around steel manufacture, heat treatment, proof testing and heat and product analysis. Trade literature also refers to PAS 1061 and to individual makers' specifications for Grade 10 chain, and sometimes describes a Grade 100 product as corresponding dimensionally to EN 818-2 while carrying a higher rated load.

That last phrasing is the one to read carefully. "Corresponds with EN 818-2" can mean dimensional interchangeability, a shared test regime, a claim of conformity to the whole standard, or simply a marketing comparison. Those are four different statements. If a certificate or an offer uses that phrase, the useful question is not "is it true" but "which of the four do you mean, and against which edition". Nothing in this article resolves that for a specific batch; only the supplier's own documentation and the order can.

4. A grade is not a document

Confusion deepens when the grade is treated as though it also described the paperwork. It does not. The grade names a mechanical classification of the chain. The document supplied with the delivery is a separate matter, governed in European practice by EN 10204 inspection document types, which distinguishes a declaration of compliance, a test report based on non-specific inspection, and an inspection certificate based on specific inspection of the delivered batch. A high-grade chain delivered with a low-specificity document is still a high-grade chain, but the buyer has no batch-level measured evidence for it.

So an enquiry has to specify both: which grade and which product standard with edition, and which inspection document type with edition. Leaving the second half out is why two suppliers can quote apparently the same item and deliver documents of completely different evidentiary weight.

5. The marking is a system, not a stamp

Grade identification on lifting chain is normally carried by permanent marking on the links and by the tag fitted to the assembled sling. The chain, the connecting components and the terminal fittings of a sling are expected to be of a matching grade, and the tag is expected to state the working load limit for the assembly as configured, not merely the theoretical capacity of the chain stock. Assembling components of different grades into one rated sling is not a harmless substitution: it changes what the assembly is, and therefore what its tag may say.

At goods-in, the practical checks are undramatic. Is the grade marking legible and consistent along the length? Do the components carry a matching grade identification? Does the tag describe the assembly in front of you, including the number of legs and the mode of use? Can the tag and the accompanying documents be reconciled with the same batch or lot identifier? None of these requires a laboratory, and all of them are more informative than a discussion about which grade is "better".

6. What heat treatment does and does not tell you

Both families are described in public sources as quenched-and-tempered alloy steel chain. The purpose of that two-stage treatment is to obtain strength without leaving the steel too brittle to tolerate shock loading and bending. It is a real and important part of how a lifting chain gets its properties. But the words "quenched and tempered" are a process description, not a result. They do not tell you the chemistry of a particular heat, the outcome of a particular proof test, or the remaining service life of a particular sling.

Fatigue behaviour is the point where brochure language most often outruns evidence. It depends on the load spectrum, the duty cycle, bending over small radii, wear between links, corrosion loss of section, and the presence of nicks or local deformation. None of those can be inferred from a grade number alone. When a buyer needs a defensible statement about a batch, the defensible sources are the applicable product standard, the inspection document agreed at the time of order, and the manufacturer's records — not a comparison table in an article, and not this one.

7. Field conditions worth asking about

Without quoting any withdrawal threshold, it is still useful to name the categories of damage that a competent person looks for, because they determine what questions to put to a supplier before an order is placed. Wear between mating links reduces section. Local elongation or distortion points to overload. Nicks, gouges and weld spatter create stress raisers. Corrosion removes load-bearing metal and can hide further damage. Illegible or missing grade marking breaks traceability. Heat damage changes the condition the heat treatment was intended to produce.

Each of these is a reason to consult the applicable standard, the site's own inspection regime and the manufacturer's documentation, in that order, and to have the item examined by a competent person. The inspection guidance on this site sets out the general vocabulary; the numerical criteria and the decision to withdraw an item belong to the governing documents for that equipment, not to a supplier's blog.

8. What to put in the enquiry

Most of the ambiguity described above is created before the first reply. A workable enquiry names the following, in writing, at the time of order:

1. The grade designation, and the product standard with its edition that the certificate must reference — for Grade 8 chain that means stating EN 818-2 explicitly, and for Grade 100 chain it means naming the standard or specification that actually applies, rather than assuming EN 818-2 covers it;
2. Whether the order is for chain stock or for a complete assembled sling, and in the latter case the sling standard and the number and configuration of legs;
3. The grade of every component in the assembly, and confirmation that they are matched;
4. The marking expected on links and components, and the information required on the tag;
5. The EN 10204 inspection document type, and whether batch-level test results are required at delivery;
6. How the lot or heat number on the documents will be reconciled with the delivered goods.

That list does not make a Grade 100 chain "compliant" or a Grade 8 chain "inferior". It does something more useful: it makes the offer, the certificate and the physical goods describe the same object.

9. The short version

Grade 8 chain sits inside the published scope of EN 818-2. Grade 100 chain is generally described under other standards or manufacturers' specifications, and any reference it makes to EN 818-2 needs to be qualified. Neither statement is a quality verdict. The question worth asking a supplier is not which grade is better, but which standard and edition the certificate will name, which document type will accompany the batch, and whether the markings on the goods will match both. When those three answers line up, the grade discussion usually settles itself.

Sources: published catalogue scope entries for EN 818-2:1996+A1:2008 (CEN and national standards bodies including ISS, BDS, DPS and ISME); the public abstract of ASTM A973/A973M; the standards overview and glossary on this site. Readers should consult the standards themselves, the product certificate, the sling tag and the approved lifting plan. No working load limit tables, design factors, alloy chemistry figures, heat-treatment parameters or test values are asserted in this article, and no claim of conformity is made for any product.