We have all done it. We need to make a quick hole and just grab any old drill bit. The bit might be dull, it might be chipped, but hey what heck I need my hole. Each time we do this, we put more wear, tear and stress on our drills and batteries. Now we are not saying doing this is going to kill your drill and batteries, but why make the tool work harder than it should.
Over time not much has changed with drill bits except the bits have been manufactured with better material, sharper edges, better flute system and better designs. Well come to think about it, drill bits have come along way. Well Milwaukee is taking it one step further with their Speed Feed wood bits.
The biggest obstacle is not drilling a hole through wood, but being able to move the material you cut up to the top of the hole. Here is where Milwaukee has a cool design. As you can see by the picture, it has a completely different design than a traditional spade bit. The bit is still fat at the bottom and tappers off towards the top. The coated flutes and the tapered top helps remove wood chips faster. According to Milwaukee, up to ten times faster than traditional wood bits. The bits have a double wing spur for clean hole cutting. One other note is the bit lengths are 6″ and the shank size is 1/4″
We read about these bits a couple months ago. We thought it was a cool idea, so naturally we wanted to put them to the test. We went to our local home improvement center and picked up a set. The Speed Feed bit set we bought was model 48-13-0300. They make a couple different sets and also sell these individually. Our set comes with three bits 3/4″, 1″ and 1-1/4″. When we first saw them, you could see right away how this design makes sense andwe were anxious to try them. We did some drilling with them on some scrap wood we had laying around. and were pretty impressed right off the bat. They did seem to drill faster and the chip removal was great. The holes were not as clean as we expected, but they were acceptable to us. As you can see by the video below, we went through a piece of landscape timber and 2×4 with no problem. It’s fast and easy to work with.
If you are going to be drilling a couple of holes or a lot of holes, we would recommend taking a look at the Milwaukee Speed Feed bits. They stay sharp and true to their name. They move a lot of material out of the way, so you can barrel on down drilling your holes.
