I attended the HOS pruning class last month and one of the instructors gave some recommendations for what loppers to use, but I wasn't in a position to write anything down at the time. I do have a pair of ratchet loppers but my regular (non-ratchet) loppers have wandered off. Any experienced recommendations for regular pruning loppers or for telescoping loppers?
BTW, the pruning class at the HOS arboretum was fabulous. We had been planning to hire a tree person to do it for the first time, but after attending the HOS class we pruned all 12 of our own young fruit trees with confidence and enthusiasm, and then went after the ancient, neglected grape arbor, removing massive tangles of mossy old growth. More next year. Thank you, HOS!
Good question: I wasn’t that instructor… but I did show off two sets of my Corona Loppers while leading a pruning seminar for the Yamhill Co. Master Gardeners...
These look great to me: 
I’ve a half a dozen pair of Corona Loppers around, of varying designs, and they’ve been through …Hell. Their parts are interchangeable and most of the local Wilco Farm Stores carry them. Wood handles are less conductive, but metal alloy are often lighter weight. Definitely get those with rubber replaceable bumpers below bypass blades.
Don’t waste money on “anvil types†-- you can’t get in as close as sometimes necessary, and they’re near impossible to sharpen well.
But Corona hand pruners are …poorly designed -- and there are far better ones out there. But a good pair of Corona Loppers should last a lifetime!
* Amendment: the Corona BP 4250 Hand Pruners look pretty good, though I’ve never held any. …I’m glad to see Corona’s finally brought their hand pruner design into the Twenty-first Century; their loppers have been cutting edge for years.
I don’t have any telescoping or ratchet loppers. Telescoping appears a weaker system, and likely heaver …and I can’t think of any applications. I’ve several standard loppers of slightly different sizes, but for ‘close in’ work I’d use a pruning saw; further out I’d use the torque of standard loppers.
I’ve played around with ratchet loppers and find they must ‘open,’ or have their handles spread apart so much further than ‘standard’ types (to make their mouths open wide) that the effort isn’t worth it. If you must ‘ratchet’ your way through a limb – you’re likely using the wrong tool. I will 'bounce' my loppers together at the same spot occasionally, to work them through a slightly larger limb, but beyond that a pruning saw becomes my choice.
Hand pruners; loppers; pruning saw and chainsaw (small to large) – that’s my order of magnitude 
…watch out for gimmicks, they'll end up rusting in a corner 
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