Crimping devices including a pistol-grip air hammer and a crimp socket with a sloped key

1. A crimping device comprising:

a hammer; and

a crimp socket that includes an aperture, a socket face defined by a sidewall and a sloped key that projects radially inward from the sidewall beyond the socket face and extends at least a portion of a depth of the aperture, wherein the height of the sloped key increases along the depth of the aperture.

2. The crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the hammer is pressure activated at a triggering pressure.

3. The crimping device of claim 2 , wherein the triggering pressure is adjustable.

4. The crimping device of claim 3 , wherein the crimp socket is detachable from the hammer.

5. The crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the hammer is a pistol-grip air hammer.

6. The crimping device of claim 1 , wherein:

the crimp socket is sized to extend over an axle comprising a slot and an axle nut;

the sloped key is sized to be received by the slot; and

the sloped key is sized to crimp down on a crimped portion of the axle nut as the crimp socket moves in an axial direction.

7. The crimping device of claim 1 , wherein the crimp socket has a crimping portion and an alignment portion and a magnitude of a slope of the crimping portion is greater than a magnitude of a slope of the alignment portion along the depth of the aperture.

8. A method of crimping an axle nut to an axle, the method comprising:

positioning a crimp socket including an aperture, a socket face, and a sloped key that projects radially into the crimp socket and that extends at least a portion of a depth of the aperture over the axle, and

moving the crimp socket in an axial direction to crimp down on a crimped portion of the axle nut to crimp the crimped portion into a slot of the axle.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the crimp socket is moved in the axial direction by a pistol-grip air hammer.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the pistol-grip air hammer triggers at a triggering pressure.