I thought this was an interesting comparison. If you look at the pin slot in the Shimano link vs the above KMC, you can see that the Shimano uses a raised area on the thinnest part of the link plate to snap the narrowest part of the pin. KMC instead pinches the head of the link with metal that is the full thickness of the side plate. Which may be why they consider their R links reusable and Shimano does not. Definitely more meat on the KMC.