Originally Posted by
BluesDawg
Good point. I currently have a wheel out of service waiting for me to deal with a six-bolt hub with one of the bolts having a completely boogered up torx head. Damned cheap soft metal bolts!
The issue isn't just hardness of metal....
There are lots of cheap junk fasteners and cheap junk drivers out there..."cheap" not just meaning metallurgy, but accurate and precise machining of the fastener head. Torx and Hex in particular are prone to having ill-fitting drivers/fasteners on cheaper parts or tools--and when things don't fit perfectly they booger one or the other or both up. Quick. Particularly where torque is needed.
Funny side story...I recently had a piece of hardware cross my desk--where the supplier warned in no uncertain terms to only use the supplied hex-key or an identical English hex wrench for a set screw ("DO NOT USE METRIC SIZE WRENCHES, you will strip the screw.")....noticed right away lots of slop in the interface of wrench and hex head. Pulled out my electronics tools that I knew were sized right and were labeled, and tried fitting bits. Sure enough. The set screw was an M2.0 hex head--fit perfectly.