Milwaukee Drill Power Tool Review

We reviewed the Milwaukee 1/2″ corded drill model number 0302-20.  If you are looking for a power house drill, take a look at this Milwaukee drill

Specifications – Milwaukee 1/2″ Corded Drill Model – 0302-20

Ever power tool owner needs to own a corded drill.  It’s not one of the main tools in a handy mans arsenal, but when you need power, its a must.  For most applications, you can get away with a cordless drill system, especially with today’s quick charge packages.  But even with all the advancements, the battery power drill still can not compete with the over all power and continuous work load of a corded drill.  So we wanted to test a corded drill and decided on the Milwaukee Corded 1/2″ drill.

We went with the 1/2″ because of its chuck size, they also offer a smaller version in the 1/4″ and 3/8″.  The first item we noticed, Milwaukee doesn’t offer to many cases for their drills, which is always nice to have, but not a necessity.  After we unwrapped the drill and put it in our hands, we made one unfair judgment , and that was with regards the balance of the Milwaukee drill.  The weight is towards the front, so if you are a one handed power tool user, while keeping your other hand free, you arm will get very tired.  Now that we made that unfair judgment, lets get back to reality.  First, this type of drill is made to use with two hands and secondly, for most applications the drill will be pointed towards the floor, so balance on this drill is not a huge issue.

We ran the Milwaukee Drill through a bunch of tests for durability, heat output, power output and the longevity of the Milwaukee Corded drill.  Because we don’t want to get into a long winded review, we will focus on two of the corded drill power tool tests we performed.

The first test was for a practical application, mixing stuff.  When you mix a heavy material, only a corded drill will work and even this can put some strain on a drill.  In fact for mixing you should be using a bigger drill such as the Milwaukee Super Hole Shooter, otherwise you can burn a drill out in no time. Because this is more than a corded drill should do, we thought we would mix up a batch of Ardex.  Ardex is a self leveling concrete and patch mix.  We grabbed our 30 Gallon barrel and dumped two bags in and threw some water on top, enough to make the mix stay fairly dry and hard to turn.  We wanted to see how much heat we could build up on the drill and see if we could pop a 15 amp circuit. We started out slow and then turned it up.  After getting the mixture as a hard paste, the drill kept on turning like it was just playing with us. In fact, the mixer bit stuck in the mix and all we ended up doing was spinning the 30 gallon drum filled with two heavy bags of Ardex and the water.  I think it was harder on us then the drill. We had two hold onto the drill tight.  Even the big guy had a hard time holding the drill. Well, we finally stopped and added more water to keep the drill moving and it mixed it great.  We ended up not popping any breakers, and the drill got a little warm, but not extremely hot.  We were going to measure the torque, but when we got the torque meter out of the truck we realized it was broken. Maybe next time!

The second test we ran was using a 3/4″ drill bit (shank size was 1/2″) to drill holes into a 4×4 with a clay ground underneath.  This test would let us get a good handle on starting and stopping the drill in a quick fashion, plus making the Milwaukee drill do some heavy work with the bit and hitting the clay.  One of the major things we learned about this drill is you better use two hands.  One of the guys wasn’t paying attention and the drill bit on something, let me tell you this bad boy has some serious power. Anyway, we drilled about 60 holes through 3 stacked 4x4s and then hitting about an inch of clay.  Again this drill did the work without stalling or getting to hot.

Over all, our power tool review of the Milwaukee Corded Drill is EXCELLENT. Light in weight, with the Quick Lok feature, the bit will not come out of the chuck and best of all, lots of power.  If you are looking for a corded drill, go with this Milwaukee Drill as you will not be disappointed.  If you don’t need the 1/2″ go with a nice 3/8″.  

Pro’s – Excellent Power, Chuck hold bit in place, Light weight, Power Cord Quick Lok

Con’s – Doesn’t come with a case

Professional Power Tool Guide Rating
Value

There is no questioning of value here. You get a lot more tool and power than we expected for the price.

Performance

The Milwaukee drill performed well above our expectations. We thought we could get it to heat up easy, but we failed. Ran cool and performed awesome.

Ease of Use

Its a drill, how much easier does it get. Put the bit in and hold on to this drill.

Feel

This is a drill you can pick up and right away feel good craftsmanship in the product. When you run the Milwaukee drill, you can feel the power.

Overall

This is a must own power tool if you are looking for a corded drill for heavy duty use. We love the power it produced, we just wish it had a case, but again Milwaukee makes some very nice tool bags that this would fit in. The 360 degree rotation handle is extremely nice because it allows the user to operate the drill at any angle and still be able to use two hands. Over all the Milwaukee drill is a great drill.