Buying Pin Gauge set plus or minus?

Wanting to buy some pin gage sets but not sure whether to buy the plus or minus sets. I'm sure this question has been asked before but my searching of the threads hasn't revealed any hits. So, does either the plus or minus set have more utility or is it a wash so long as you know what you have?

Maybe I could also use some help in how to form a query for the search tool. My search on pin gage sets plus or minus even brought up a thread on artificial sweeteners. I don't like to waste the forum members time asking questions that have already been answered many times. So if anyone has good advice on how to use the search function to avoid getting tons of non-pertinent hits, I'm ready for it.

I dunno about search, I'm pretty hit or miss with finding results I want, even if I remember the thread I'm looking for.

However, plus/minus pin gage sets each have their utility, I think it's probably a wash. Possibly the minus set is a little more useful.

FWIW, the minus sets are more common and slightly less expensive, in general.

If you're looking for a cheap, passing grade quality set, try Enco. Enco has free shipping promotions regularly. Pin sets can be pretty heavy. Let me know if you need the promotion code.

Also the price of their gage pins is about the cheapest I've ever noticed, and the quality is good (but they're not crystalline hard either, they will bend.)

They also have a light amount of chamfer, at least the ones I got did. I like a small chamfer on gage pins, especially for checking depths.

Having both the plus and minus sets of gage pins is incredibly useful. First of all, Go/No Go gaging is properly set up with + and - size pins. Second of all, they're pretty consistently .0002" over or under. Add a half thou set and you've practically got a pin for every .0003" in range.

Thanks apestate

I was about to delete this thread as a "nevermind". Was just looking at the Enco web site and they are cheaper on SPI gage sets than MSC and have free shipping as you stated. Did a google on pin gages and found a number of discussions on using pin gages and tolerances. Some went round and round and seemed to be "what the meaning of is is" type discussions. What I think I've gotten out of this is that if I want a gage set that I use as a "go" than I would use minus sets ? Hopefully someone will confirm that before I order.

Pretty much my experience is that it depends on your application. If you have a hole with a - 0 +.0002 then I imagine plus guages would be best and the opposite if you had a tolerance of +0 -.0002 otherwise for a general if you get a complete set of minus or plus in .0005 increments then you'll be fine. Think about it minus would be (theoretically) .0993 then .0998 then .1003 and so on where plus would be .0997 then .1002 so by choosing only one you lose that in between .0001 (theoretically) so as long as you aren't doing holes that have to be to the bazzilions then I would go with the cheapest.