Which cordless drill platform and why

[bchannell]

Just curious, I've been using Milwaukee for a long time and have had good luck, til now and I've had two failures. It's not the problem of the tools, they've been used long and hard. So I decided it was time to make some new purchases and if I'm going to change platforms, then now is the time.
I tried the new Rigid Octane.....DO NOT BUY! They are probably the most powerful and feature rich cordless tools I've ever used. Boring through concrete and hole saw use is EASY for these tools. BUT, and this is a big one, you have to retighten the chuck ever three or four times you let off the trigger. What a shame, as these are fantastic tools. But two in a row and they both throw bits out. Try using a hole saw, over your head, and have the darn thing come out because the chuck has come loose. Back they go to Home Depot.
I almost bought all new Milwaukee, but then I saw the DeWalt 796 drill and 887 impact driver. I've been using them for a few weeks and they are awesome, can't say anything bad about them. I've never really been a DW fan, but my son the builder has tons and tons of them, so they must work. I do mostly HVAC work so my biggest job would be drilling thru a sill plate or block for a lineset. For that I use a Hilti electric. Everything else is running wire or sheet metal screw driving and these DW tools are just right for that.
I have a sub compact 12v Makita brushless set for service work, and love them, but the 18V stuff was so expensive and didn't have all that great of reviews, especially the chuck coming loose and I didn't want to go that route again. One nice thing, DW makes about every tool you could ever want for this platform, so I may add the much more powerful DCD996 hammer drill if I find I need more, but I'm doubting I'll need it.

Just curious what everyone else was using and why, I know cordless drills are like oil choices, but flame away.

 

[sloinker]

I still think Milwaukee is going to be your best bet. I use them at work. At home I have some Bosch, DeWalt, Ryobi and Harbor Freight brand cordless stuff....they are all OK but not as good as the Milwaukee's at work.

 

[marine65]

My son is a master HVAC installer with 20 years experience.
He has tried every brand of cordless drill(not the real cheap ones like from Harbor freight and such)
And he swears by DeWalt.

 

[NYEngineer]

I had an 18 volt Dewalt forever. We got 18 volt Milwaukee Fuel stuff at work, like the whole catalog. Love em. I bought the drill, the hex impact driver and a 1/2 drive impact gun. I really like em all.

 

[fsdork]

Last year, I purchased a DeWalt 885 impact driver and 780 drill combo. I had never owned an impact driver before, and was really impressed with how well it drove screws while securing plywood subfloor to the floor joists before laying laminate flooring. I don't have anything to compare it to, but no complaints so far.

 

[Dinoburner]

Went from 14V Makita to 18 and like the tools but not happy with the batteries dying shortly after wty was done .

 

[UncleDave]

love my Makita 18V lithiums, and have been happy with all my makita products

UD

 

[Saul]

Since you are complaining about the chuck.
Milwaukee has the best chuck. Its all metal. My work bought all new Dewalts, granted it would be considered industrial use, but after less than a year the dewalts are all garbage, all from the chucks.

 

[BHopkins]

I have become quite the Milwaukee fan. It all started when our plant switched over all of our Dewalt tools to Milwaukee.

All of our maintenance and fabrication shop techs used to be equipped with Dewalt. When I had projects to do in the shop, I was OK with the Dewalt tools, except for the chucks on the drills. I could never get the chuck on a Dewalt drill tight enough to prevent the drill bits from spinning. So frustrating! Then the facilities manager decided to retire all the Dewalt and replace it with Milwaukee. I never understood how average the Dewalt tools were until I started using the Milwaukee. Not only are the chucks better, but the electronic brake is so much better than that on the Dewalt. Speed control is smoother. I ended up buying the same drill/impact driver set for home that the techs at work use. And I've loved it so far.

I'm thinking the next addition to my Milwaukee tool family will be the yard tools, including a lawn edger and shrub trimmer.

 

[dareo]

I use Dewalt 20v. Have used Dewalt most of my life and its been good. I'm sure Milwaukee is comparable but i'm a satisfied Dewalt customer. Dewalt just came out with a cordless palm sander. Its so good! I can just go sand anything i want anywhere i want, no cord, batteries last a long time on it too. I probably have at least 12 tools on the 20v platform now.

 

[clinebarger]

I haven't seen/used any keyless chucks that I consider fantastic, Keyed chucks should be an option in my opinion!

Nothing wrong with Dewalt, The 20v Li system is pretty good! I had the pleasure of using Dewalt, Makita, & Milwaukee during my shop build. Ran over 3,000 self tapping screws! If I was to buy a system right now.....It would be Dewalt or Makita, Dewalt is cheaper & Makita had the best batteries.

I don't do much heavy drilling, & when I do.....I have a Drill press & a Air Drill. When using good ear protection & a large compressor, An Air Drill has no rival!!

 

[UG_Passat]

I'm biased. I used to work for Black & Decker as a manufacturing engineer... so I'm biased towards DeWalt,

 

[Lyman]

We use Dewalt at work and I have Ryobi at home. I prefer the Ryobi. I have the 4ah battery and have used it to drive 4" long lag bolts. Im pretty happy with it.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

Home use Milwaukee 12v fuel is perfect

 

[A_Spruce]

20 years ago I was a Dewalt man, they were excellent tools and their focus was on making good quality tools at a reasonable price. Fast forward to today, I needed a new set of cordless tools. Two buddies have Milwaukee tools, both highly praise them, however, they were significantly more expensive than DeWalt for a similar package, so I stuck with DeWalt.

Here's my take-away. DeWalt has moved from producing a few quality tools to trying to inundate the market with multiple versions of the same thing, this drill has a light, this one doesn't, this one is variable speed, this one isn't, this one is a 3/8 chuck, this one is 1/2" . . . and on and on. How about they just cut the stupidity and offer a well featured tool for a reasonable price?

Just recently I did buy a new DeWalt set, 9 tools for around $550. I have not had the chance to put any of them through their paces yet, I'm hoping they'll be decent tools. I tried to use the angle grinder, but it didn't have the chuck tool, come to find out it's an allen wrench, not a forked spanner or hex wrench that previous incarnations have had, so I wasn't able to use the tool. I have used the reciprocating saw and not only does it not last long on the provided batteries, the batteries have temperature cut-off sensors, so after about 5 minutes the tool quits working. I've NEVER used a recip saw for less than 5 minutes, not even for fluff easy cutting. Second issue here is that this 9 piece kit came with only two batteries, and they are the lowest of the low 2 amp hour and not the more useful 4 or 5 amp hour batteries. Again, DeWalt needs to stop playing games and go back to providing excellent tools at a reasonable price point.

FWIW, I bought my firts DeWalt kit in 2000 for around $300, it saw extremely heavy use as my primary tool set as a general contractor. It was a 5-1/2" circular saw, 1/2" drill, and flashlight. A few years later I bought a new set and put the old set to my woodshop. All of these tools stayed with me until a few years ago when I "retired", and never once did any of them let me down, with the exception of the cordless reciprocating saw, garbage then, seemingly garbage now.

Another FWIW, one of my buddies that has the Milwaukee set, he loves them, not without issues, but they're good tools. He upgraded from Ryobi maybe two years ago because the Ryobi were pretty useless in a professional setting. Cheap tools are cheap for a reason. They're fine if you're not relying on them to make you money or are purchased for a specific project/reason, and nothing else. If you want them to last and perform well, stick to name brands such as Milwaukee, Makita, Skil, DeWalt, and if you're not aware, DeWalt has been owned by Black and Decker since the 60's, so B&D, while not a "professional" brand, is going to have much of the same technology as DeWalt. Little known fact, when B&D pioneered cordless tech, they couldn't sell it until the painted it black and yellow and slapped the DW name on it. Maybe DW is more like B&D than the other way around these days, who knows, but I'd still take them over Ryobi, Rigid, or Kobalt.

 

[bchannell]

A few comments after reading the posts. As I said before, if you use one of the new Rigid Octane drills, you'll be amazed. They are monstrously powerful. The kind of power that can hurt you if you don't use the side handle. Too bad they have chuck problems. I actually think it's a brake problem, stopping way too abruptly.
Second, Milwaukee does have a good metal chuck with no holding issues on the 2804 and similar series. BUT, they had their fair share of chuck problems in the past series. At least they've seemed to remedied it, cudos to them.
DeWalt does make a ton of different models. Hey, it's what it takes to market to everyone.Some homeowners want cheap drills, industrial heavy use stuff, and every kind of thing in the middle. You have to research a lot and look at their tools to get the right one that suits your needs. I must admit, the cheaper ones, do have sort of questionable chucks. The industrial DCD996, and DCD796 have very good metal chucks that hold a bit fine.
One thing is sure, I've read almost every manufacturer having problems with chucks loosening during use, Makita, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Ryobi, Rigid, you name it. You would think that by this late date it would be a solved issue, and apparently, from my limited use of Rigid it's not, but from extensive use of Milwaukee it is solved and appparently Dewalt has also solved it in their top of the line tools.This shouldn't be an issue we have to deal with, after all, holding a bit is THE SINGLE most important job a drill does. If it can't do that it's not a drill, but a paperweight. I wish everyone who needs a powerful industrial drill could use the Rigid Octane, but with it guaranteed to drop the bit on the third or fourth spin, it's a powerful paperweight.
I guess everything is a tradeoff, none are perfect, but it seems Milwaukee and Dewalt are at the top.
My son the builder has literally beaten Dewalt tools into dust and still keeps buying them, so I KNOW if he wasn't happy with them, he'd dump them and move to something else. I know for a fact he bought some Rigid stuff, but didn't continue to use them after they were trashed. I'm not suggesting he doesn't take care of them, but in construction, they get the hardest use anyone can imagine. Dropped off rooftops, thrown around in vehicles, drilling thru everything imaginable, driving literally thousands of screws, overheated, overused and generally trashed by employees who don't care, which isn't a bash, just true, and they hold up pretty well. I used one of his Dewalts for a week or so, and it looked so bad, I really didn't expect it to make it thru the week, but it worked like new. The best way to describe it, was it looked like you'd tied a string to it and drug it behind your vehicle for about a year, yet it worked fine.

 

[Trav]

Makita, Hilti or air here.

 

[UG_Passat]

Originally Posted by A_Spruce
DeWalt has been owned by Black and Decker since the 60's, so B&D, while not a "professional" brand, is going to have much of the same technology as DeWalt. Little known fact, when B&D pioneered cordless tech, they couldn't sell it until the painted it black and yellow and slapped the DW name on it. Maybe DW is more like B&D than the other way around these days, who knows, but I'd still take them over Ryobi, Rigid, or Kobalt.


They are designed by black & decker employees, but that's where the similarities stop.

B&D is targeting the home consumer market, with different design and performance goals than DeWalt. DeWalt is also more thoroughly tested than an equivalent B&D product, including more user feedback during development and testing. I could go into the internals of what makes them different, but, you can always by a B&D drill and open one up to see the guts.

I was sort of hated at B&D, because I exposed some serious flaws of DW tools to my boss, who was one of the division chiefs of the company, which one was a serious safety issue.

 

[P10crew]

Oh oh now I just watched a desalt commercial. Deeslt is unleashing their atomic compact series 20 volt.

 

[dlundblad]

My dad has always had good luck with Dewalt so that's what I went with.

No complaints. I think I've had it for 4-5 years?