I’ll start off by saying that 12V power tools are among my favorites when it comes to cordless power tools. They are what I reach for first when I need to complete a task. That isn’t to say that they’re as powerful as pro brand 18 volt power tools but with today’s advancements in cordless power tool and battery technology they now have more than enough power for basic tasks and are sought out after due to their small, lightweight, and compact size.
I gathered together a few of the top brands 12V drills from DeWalt, Bosch, Makita, and Milwaukee and put their latest brushed drills head to head in a friendly competition so we can see how they compare to each other in terms of power (torque), and endurance (runtime). Excluded from this competition were brushless 12V drills such as the Bosch 12V EC PS32 and Milwaukee M12 Fuel 2404-22 because it wouldn’t be fair to these brushed drills. All drills selected were the latest 12V brushed drill driver from each company. Although I will admit that I used the Milwaukee M12 brushed hammer drill 2408-22 instead of the companies similar drill driver 2407-22 without the hammer drill function. I did this simply because it is what I had on hand and even though it might seem like it has an unfair advantage, the regular Milwaukee M12 drill driver 2407-22 and M12 hammer drill 2408-22 have identical performance. Also I didn’t conduct a hammer drill tests as that wouldn’t be fair to the other drills in the group.
In addition to the endurance and power tests, I ran each drill individually with a 1/8″ twist bit to see if any had noticeable chuck wobble that affected drilling. The reason for this test was due to concern from many viewers asking about chuck wobble on their drills. Terrible wobble from a chuck can and will affect performance when drilling and driving. You can end up with poorly drilled holes with a terribly untrue chuck and if it is bad enough can make for a very unpleasant experience driving fasteners. After testing each drill individually, the conclusion is that all run bits with no noticeable wobble.
One feature seen common on pro drills are ratcheting chucks and the benefits are stronger bit retention. Since the only two 12V drills in this competition from DeWalt and Milwaukee have ratcheting chucks, I decided to test all four to see just how strong their chucks can grip under high stress. I’ve seen a few other drills without ratcheting chucks fail to hold on tight with larger bits, so I used a 3/8″ twist bit which is the largest shanked bit that would fit into the 3/8″ chucks and drill 5 holes with each drill at high speed. This test would show us if any chucks didn’t have what it takes to grip on tight and the results are that all four drills passed. Even the 2 from Bosch and Makita that don’t have ratcheting chucks managed to hang on to such a large shanked bit without any loss of grip and slipping.
For the endurance test, I decided to drive 1-1/4″ drywall screws into pressure treated lumber and see how many screws each drill could drive on a full charge until the battery would run out of juice and call it quits. Seeing how each drill comes with with a different capacity battery, ranging from 1.3 ah to 2.0 ah, I decided to level the playing field with similar capacity battery packs of 1.5 ah each except for the Makita since it only has 1.3 ah battery packs in their 12V line as they have yet to upgrade their batteries with higher capacities like the rest in the group. So for this comparison I tested the Bosch, DeWalt, and Milwaukee drills with 1.5 ah battery packs and the Makita drill with a 1.3 ah battery pack. The results were: 1st place Milwaukee with 520 screws driven, 2nd place DeWalt with 517 screws, 3rd place Bosch 417 with screws driven, and 4th place Makita with 362.5 screws. Here we can see Milwaukee has the lead with 520 screws and DeWalt very close behind at 517 screws. Not surprisingly the smallest capacity battery 1.3 ah from Makita got the least amount driven. When you look at the results from a different angle, per amp hour, we can see the results yield a different story. Looking at the screws driven per amp hour we can see that 4th place Makita drives just as many screws as Bosch at 278 screws per amp hour. Milwaukee gets 346 screws per amp hour and DeWalt gets 342 screws per amp hour which is very close and in my opinion I might as well call it a tie so both DeWalt and Milwaukee get first place and because Bosch and Makita have identical screws driven per amp hour I will call that a tie as well. So we have a 1st place category for DeWalt and Milwaukee and a second place category for Bosch and Makita for screws driven per amp hour. While I can’t explain for certainty why there is a noticeable difference in screws driven between 1st place (DeWalt & Milwaukee) and 2nd place (Bosch & Makita) drills, I did notice that even though all four drills ran warm when the batteries ran out of power, DeWalt’s and Milwaukee’s drill ran much cooler than Bosch and Makita’s. This leads me to believe that heat build-up has a negative impact on battery runtime.
One thing to note is that currently Bosch 12v power tools are sold with 2.0 amp hour batteries, with DeWalt 12V power tools it’s a toss between 1.5 and 2.0 ah batteries, Makita 12V power tools only come with 1.3 ah batteries, and currently Milwaukee brushed 12V power tools are sold with 1.5 ah batteries here in the USA. So your particular results may vary depending on what battery pack is included with your 12V power tool.
For the power or torque test, I first tested all four drills with lag screws. Soon after I noticed the results were worthless since I kept getting different results every time. This was due to each drill’s electronic overload protection kicking in and shutting down the motor – or lack of. This is an excellent feature to have on any drill as it protects vital components from being overloaded such as the motor and batteries as overloading the components can cause them to burn and smoke. I still wanted to see how each one compared in terms of torque and the solution was to drill holes, starting with 3/8″ and move up a size until all could no longer complete a hole into 2×4. I chose to use Bosch Daredevil spade bits and Irwin Speedbor Max bits because they require more torque than traditional spade bits. I started all drills on high speed second gear and switched to the first speed which is for high torque as soon as it couldn’t finish the current hole. I recommend you view the above YouTube video to see the results side by side. The summary is that once again there were 2 drills at a tie in first place and the other 2 drills in a tie for 2nd place. DeWalt and Milwaukee were the high torque winners in this challenge, both being able to drill holes as big as 1″ with Irwin Speedbor Max bits and both were unable to complete the massive 1-1/4″ Speedbor Max bit. Although both achieved the same high torque performance on speed one for high torque, DeWalt outperformed the competition as it was able to drill 5/8″ holes using the Daredevil spade bit in high speed – speed two. Second place performers Bosch and Makita were very close behind first place as they were able to complete holes up to 1″ with Daredevil spade bits, and topped out at 3/4″ with Speedbor Max bits. If you’re wondering why they were able to complete larger 1″ Daredevil spade bits but not 1″ Speedbor Max bits, this is due to the fact that Speedbor Max bits require more torque to drill as they have 3 points of contact as opposed to the daredevil 2 points of contact when cutting.
Final verdict is that DeWalt and Milwaukee proved to have the most torque and best endurance, although all four drills performed very similarly when you look at the overall picture. If you are deciding to buy into one of these drills you will find that they all offer performance very close to each other with very minor differences in power although endurance will be affected by the size capacity battery the drill comes with. All offer a compact form factor as they are much smaller and lighter than 18V drills, although the lightest and most compact of the group is easily the Bosch PS31 drill. The most featured is the Milwaukee with a metal ratcheting chuck, fuel gauge, belt clip, and led light with 10 second delay – although it’s also the bulkiest and heaviest of the group. DeWalt is the only one in the group with a unique battery platform that strays away from the pod style batteries of the rest and instead uses a pancake style slide pack battery similar to 18/20V batteries. It even looks like a miniature 20V max battery and drill. This aids to the drill’s design with the slimmest and most ergonomic handle of the group and because of the wide flat base can easily stand on its own.
The test subjects:
Bosch PS31 3/8″ Drill
- Torque: 265 in-lbs
- 2 speed 0-350 / 0-1,300 RPM
- 2.1 lbs weight
- 7″ length
DeWalt DCD710 3/8″ Drill
- Torque: 189 UWO = 212 in-lbs
- 2 speed 0-400 / 0-1,500 RPM
- 2.4 lbs weight
- 7-1/2″ length
Makita FD02 3/8″ Drill
- Torque: 200 in-lbs
- 2 speed 0-350 / 0-1,300 RPM
- 2.2 lbs weight
- 7-7/16″ length
Milwaukee 2408-22 3/8″ Hammer Drill
- Torque: 275 in-lbs
- 2 speed 0-400 / 0-1,500 RPM
- 2.7 lbs weight
- 7-1/2″ length
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