Milwaukee M18 Impact Wrench – One Tough Nut

You have a tough nut or bolt you need to break free, what do you do?  Easy, break out your Milwaukee M18 High Torque Impact Wrench.  Most manufacturers make an impact wrench, but I don’t think any are as well built as this Milwaukee.  Milwaukee hit this one dead on.  Two important items they hit dead on are the torque and the balance.

Impact wrenches are not light.  Most tend to be heavy and bulky and the balance just isn’t there.  However the Milwaukee is different.  The tool weighs 6.7 lbs, so it is about twice the weight of a drill.  Because of the weight, balance is a huge issue.  A well balanced tool means your arms or wrist won’t get fatigued.   The Milwaukee has an incredible balance to the tool.  When held in the upright position, all the weight is right above your hand, not in the front of the tool.  When using the tool in a vertical application such as overhead or below, the tool is also easy to use.  The balance between the head of the tool and battery makes it feel nice in your hand and easy to work with.  The pistol grip fits nicely in your hand even with gloves.  The grip mimics the grip of the Milwaukee drill and has a rubberized back and front handle for added grip.

So it fits nice, but does it have power?  What a silly question.  This bad boy puts out 450 ft-lbs of torque which is more than enough to get any stubborn nut or bolt to move.  The variable trigger moves the 1/2″ anvil from 0-1,900 with an imp of 0-2,200.  Milwaukee sells this tool in a friction ring or detent pin.  The friction ring is great for the one handed and quick socket exchanges, while the detent pin is perfect if you want the socket retention to be at the max.  How does Milwaukee get so much power from an 18V system?  Easy, they use a four pole frame-less motor.  Well I say easy like I designed the tool or something.  I am sure it wasn’t that easy for the designers of this tool.  Basically the four pole motor can produce more torque than a two pole motor.  The frame-less motor is also a better design.

This is one tough tool that really can move any nut or bolt.  I don’t do a lot of automotive stuff, but I do see a lot of mechanics using these tools in their day to day operations.  I know when we took off our lug nuts on a truck, it was more of a joke for the tool.  The tool doesn’t even work up a sweat.  I used to do snowplowing in the winter.  Our mechanic that would travel around carried his Milwaukee Impact everywhere, he loved the tool.  He always had this tool out.  He would change salt augers and some of these nuts and bolts where on there extremely tight.  The salt, water, freezing and warming of these nuts and bolts played havoc on locking these up.

A couple other things we used this for was to trow some anchors in the concrete for our wall.  Did we really need these anchors in the floor, heck no.  But since we had the tool, why not.  Just feel sorry for the poor guy who one day is going to have to take down the wall structure.  After framing up some of the walls we noticed the bolts that went from the i-beam to the post were loose.  So again we had to break out the impact and give it a run.  Take a look at the pictures below of some of these tools we saw that were beat up.  These guys use the tools every day.  They move heavy machines.  These machines are anchored in with bolts and need heavy torque to get them tight.  Plus these are job bought tools, so they are beaten up even more.  This is just one of those tools you always have and now it’s going to get any job done.

If you are even thinking about getting an 18V impact wrench, you have to go with the Milwaukee Impact.  This is a proven tool used by numerous people who rely on this tool day to day to put food on their table.  The Milwaukee impact is well balanced, has lots of power and is backed by the Milwaukee name.

Don’t believe me.  Go look at any review and you will see owners raving about this tool, over and over.  In fact on Amazon there are over 20 reviews with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.  The only thing I can really criticize this tool for is a torque setting.  It would be very cool if Milwaukee came out with this tool, but also had some sort of built in torque setting.

Specifications of the Milwaukee M18 Impact Wrench

Kit includes

• 2663-22 M18™ Cordless LITHIUM-ION 1/2″ High Torque Impact Wrench w/Friction Ring
• (2) M18™ XC High Capacity RED LITHIUM™ Batteries (48-11-1828)
• M18™ LITHIUM-ION Battery Charger (48-59-1801)
• Carrying Case

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