Metric?

[QuattroCalum]

How come a metric socket set has 1/4, 3/8 or 1/2 inch drive ratchets?

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[Scotty75]

It's a fair point but the metric aspect refers to the socket measurements. The drive measurements you quoted are Industry standard for rachets

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[QuattroCalum]

It's a fair point but the metric aspect refers to the socket measurements. The drive measurements you quoted are Industry standard for rachets

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It was just for a little laugh, the emojis never showed up on the post
It's quite annoying though most socket sets have a whole host of Imperial sockets that will never be used. I have one of the large Halfords sets and there's lots of Imperial sockets in it, pointless. It has 16mm and 18mm in 3/8 drive but not in 1/2 inch drive?
My 3/8 ratchet bit the dust undoing the 18mm lower control arm bolts so that'll be going back for replacement, lifetime warranty

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[Invicta]

The sockets used to be imperial as well until nuts and bolts were more widely standardised and began being manufactured in metric. This is why you get metric sockets and imperial rachets, because the sockets had to adapt to the changing nuts and bolts sizes whereas the rachets had no reason to. The new metric sockets were just made to fit on the already-widely-used imperial rachets, so there was no bother to change them to metric as well I guess. I've been an engineer for just over a year now and I've only just come across imperial bolts that I had to get a 9/16's spanner on!

 

[RAF_S7]

You need imperial if your going to work on a car earlier than say mid 70s, and even then some cars had a mix of imperial and metric fixings, so a mixed socket set does make sense, to a degree.