Comment by bluGill
3 years ago
While the bolts at home depot are made of some form of iron they often are not graded at all. There is a reason: they wouldn't pass any quality tests. The graded ones are probably okay, I'm not sure as I wouldn't attempt to use anything they have in something important as I have no way of knowing something didn't get put in the wrong bin by mistake.
Home Depot's private label brand (Everbilt) are absolutely graded. An SAE grade 1 or 2 is unmarked but if you look at their metric bolts you'll see the 8.8 grade mark.
I don't know where I got them, but I have used graded bolts in the past that broke under much less torque than they should. I am now more careful about getting bolts from a source I know I can trust.