Stainless vs Galvanised Fencing Clips: Which Should You Buy?

Galvanised for most inland country. Stainless if you're within cooee of the coast, in high rainfall, in the dairy, or anywhere salt or effluent gets on the wire. Galfan sits in the middle on both price and protection.

And the rule that matters more than any of it: match the clip to the mesh. If you've paid up for a better coated mesh, don't hang it on the cheapest clip in the shed, because the clip will go first and you've wasted the upgrade on the expensive bit.

Why the clip is the weak point

A clip is a small piece of wire that gets bent hard around another piece of wire. Two things happen when you close it.

The coating gets stretched and worked at the bend. Zinc is soft and it moves with the steel to a point, but a tight bend thins it out right where the ring is doing its work.

And the clip now sits in a joint. Two wires touching, with a gap between them that holds water, dust and manure. A joint like that stays wet for hours after the rest of the fence has dried off. That's where corrosion starts on any fence, every time.

So the clip cops more than the mesh does, on a smaller amount of metal. Which is why a fence built with good mesh and cheap clips fails at the clips, and the mesh sags off perfectly sound posts.

Galvanised

Zinc coating over steel wire. It's the standard and it's the cheapest.

Zinc protects two ways. It's a physical barrier, and it's sacrificial, which means when the coating gets scratched the zinc around the scratch corrodes in preference to the steel underneath. That's why a galvanised clip with a bit of surface white rust on it is usually still doing its job.

Where galvanised is the right buy. Inland, in reasonably dry country, on internal paddock fencing, on anything you'd expect to touch again within the fence's normal life. Most fencing in Australia is galvanised clips on galvanised mesh and it does the job.

Where it struggles. Salt air. High rainfall with long wet periods. Around cattle yards and dairies where effluent sits on the wire. Anywhere the fence is in shade and doesn't dry out. In those spots the zinc goes faster, and a clip has less zinc on it than the mesh does.

There's also a grade question. Not all galvanising is the same weight of zinc. A heavily galvanised clip and a lightly galvanised clip both look identical in the box and behave very differently in five years. Ask what the coating weight is if the listing doesn't say. If the supplier can't tell you, that tells you something.

Stainless

Usually 304 grade for fencing clips, sometimes 316.

Stainless doesn't rely on a coating. The chromium in the alloy forms an oxide layer on the surface that repairs itself when it gets scratched, which is exactly the problem a bent clip has. It's the same reason stainless works well on a tool that gets worked hard at one point.

304 versus 316. 316 has molybdenum in it, which makes it hold up better against chlorides, which is the technical way of saying salt. If you're right on the coast or in a salt spray zone, 316 is the one worth asking about. Inland, 304 is plenty and 316 is money you don't need to spend.

Where stainless is the right buy. Coastal and near-coastal. High rainfall. Dairy, effluent, yards. Exclusion fencing you want to forget about for a couple of decades. Anywhere the cost of going back is higher than the cost of the clips, which on a remote boundary is nearly always.

The honest downside. It costs more per box, and it's harder wire, so a worn set of pliers or a poorly adjusted gun jaw will make more of a mess of a stainless clip than a galvanised one. Set your jaw closure with the clips you're actually running. There's a note on that in C24 clips explained.

Galfan

Galfan is a zinc-aluminium coating, roughly 95% zinc and 5% aluminium with a small amount of rare earth in the mix.

The aluminium is doing something specific. It forms its own tight oxide film that keeps working as a barrier, while the zinc underneath is still there to do the sacrificial job. In salt spray testing, zinc-aluminium coatings hold up better than plain zinc of the same thickness.

Where Galfan makes sense. You're in a moderately tough environment and stainless is more than the job needs. Or, most commonly, you've bought Galfan mesh and you want the clips to match.

That second one is the real reason to buy it. Galfan mesh is popular on exclusion fencing and long-life boundary work, and it deserves a clip that keeps up.

Can you mix stainless clips with galvanised mesh?

You can, and plenty of people do. Two things to know.

Stainless and zinc are different on the galvanic scale, so in a wet joint the zinc will corrode preferentially where the two touch. That sounds bad until you look at the area ratio. The clip is tiny and the mesh wire is long, so the zinc being sacrificed is spread over a large area and the effect on any one spot is small. In practice it's a minor issue on a fence, which is why it's common.

Where it does bite is the reverse. Don't put a galvanised clip in contact with a large area of a more noble metal, and don't build something where a small zinc part is protecting a big stainless part. That's the bad direction and it eats the small part quickly.

Our position at the counter is simple. Mixing stainless clips onto galvanised mesh is fine and gives you a stronger joint than the mesh. Going the other way, cheap galvanised clips onto an expensive coated mesh, is the one that wastes your money. Match them and you never have to think about it.

The money, worked properly

People compare the box price and stop there. Do the whole sum instead.

Step 1. How many clips is the job?

Take 5km of 7/90/30 hinged joint on 4 metre pickets, every wire clipped, plus a top wire at one metre.

• Posts per km: 1000 ÷ 4 = 250
• Mesh to post: 7 x 250 = 1,750 per km
• Top wire: 1000 ÷ 1 = 1,000 per km
• Per km total: 2,750
• Over 5km: 2,750 x 5 = 13,750 clips
• Boxes of 10,000: 2 boxes

The full version of that sum, with more fence types, is in how many clips per kilometre of fence. Or use the clip calculator.

Step 2. What's the price gap?

Put your two actual box prices side by side. Say the gap between galvanised and stainless is $60 a box. Over 2 boxes that's $120 extra on the whole job.

Step 3. What does it cost to go back?

This is the number nobody writes down. If the clips fail early you're not just buying clips again. You're buying a day or two of labour, a trip out to a back paddock, and quite possibly new mesh where it's sagged and stretched. Put a figure on that for your own place. Even at a conservative $800 a kilometre to redo, 5km is $4,000.

So the question isn't whether $120 is a lot. It's whether $120 meaningfully reduces the chance of a $4,000 job. On a coastal boundary it plainly does. On a dry internal fence you'll pull down in ten years anyway, it plainly doesn't, and you should buy galvanised and spend the difference on something else.

We're not going to put a multiple on how much longer stainless lasts, because we haven't tested it and neither has anyone who quotes one at you. What we can say is where each one is the sensible buy, which is what the question actually is.

Quick pick

Your situation	What we'd sell you
Inland, dry, internal paddock fencing	Galvanised
Inland, boundary fence you want to forget	Galfan, or stainless if it's remote
Within 10km of the coast	Stainless, ask about 316
Dairy, yards, effluent, wash-down areas	Stainless
High rainfall, shaded, slow to dry	Stainless or Galfan
You've bought Galfan or stainless mesh	Match the clip to the mesh
Exclusion fence with an apron in the dirt	Stainless on the apron at minimum

That last row is worth expanding. An apron sits in or on the ground, permanently damp, in contact with soil. It's the harshest place on the whole fence. If you're going to spend the money anywhere, spend it there. More on that job in the exclusion fencing clip guide.

FAQ

Are stainless fencing clips worth the extra money?

On the coast, in the dairy, or on a fence you don't want to touch again, yes. On a dry internal fence, probably not, and we'd tell you to save the money. Do the sum above with your own numbers rather than taking a rule of thumb.

What grade stainless are C24 clips?

Usually 304. Some suppliers list 316, which handles salt better because of the molybdenum in it. If you're in a salt spray zone, ask specifically rather than assuming.

Will stainless clips rust?

They can surface stain, especially if they've picked up steel particles from a grinder or a worn tool. That's usually the contamination rusting rather than the clip. Actual corrosion of the clip itself is uncommon in fencing conditions.

Is Galfan better than galvanised?

Against corrosion, yes, and there's salt spray test data behind that for zinc-aluminium coatings generally. It costs more. Whether it's better value depends on where your fence is and how long you want it there.

Can I use different clips on the same fence?

You can, but it makes life harder later and there's no good reason to. Pick one and run it the whole way. If budget forces a split, put the better clip on the apron, the bottom wires and anywhere that stays wet.

Do stainless clips work in the same gun?

Yes. C24 is C24 regardless of the metal. Stainless is harder wire, so check your jaw closure adjustment on a scrap piece before you start the run. The cordless clip gun kit and every other C24 tool take both.

Boxes of 10,000 C24 are the standard order, and the guns that run them are in fencing clip guns. If you're not sure which coating your job wants, ring us on 0431 183 421 and tell us where the fence is. That's usually the whole answer.