Dewalt has apparently launched new Elite series drill bits, and right on the packaging they claim you get “up to 2x longer life vs Milwaukee.”
I find it interesting that this claim takes up more real estate on the packaging than any of the features.
Looking online, they emphasize and elaborate this claim.
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The “up to 2x longer life” part means nothing. “Up to.”
Retailers use this trick all the time. “Save up to 40%.” Actual discount on what you’re shopping for? 0.5%. The “up to” means this is still true.
So what’s new or notable about this Dewalt Elite Series cobalt alloy drill bit set?
The larger sizes (over 5/16″) have Dewalt Pilot Point tips, which helps avoid the need to drill a separate pilot hole. Dewalt says the drill bits “power through stainless steel and hard metal with ease.” The largest drill bits have 3-flat shanks.
According to the fine print, Dewalt says their cobalt alloy drill bits, specifically 1/8″, 9/64″, 5/32″, 3/16″, 13/64″, 7/32″, 15/64″, 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″, deliver “up to 2x longer life vs Milwaukee” when used at 1200 RPM in low carbon steel 1/8″ thick.
What about medium steel at 1/4″ thick? Stainless?
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This “up to… more than Milwaukee” marketing tactic has become a trend for Dewalt.
On one hand, brand competition like this is entertaining, in a “grab some popcorn and watch reality show gossip play out” kind of way. But I mostly find it very distasteful, and even concerning.
The pricing on the 14pc set (DWAMDCE14SET) is unusual. Lowe’s has it for $26 – which they say is discounted from $30 – and Acme Tools has it for $58.50 with “was” pricing of $70.
Contrary to what it says on Lowe’s website (screen capture shown here), these drill bits are only compatible with drill chucks and will not work with impact drivers.
Milwaukee’s Cobalt Red Helix drill bits are advertised as being for use in a wide variety of materials including metal, non-ferrous metals, wood, and stainless steel.
Are these the ones that Dewalt says their Elite cobalt alloy drill bits last up to 2x longer than?
As far as construction tool brands go, I’d be more inclined to go with Bosch’s cobalt metal drill bit set.
These are also advertised as being multi-material drill bits that could be used with handheld cordless drills.
Diablo also recently launched new metal drill bits that they claim bore “up to 50% more holes per charge vs STD [sic] drill bits.”
They’re still claiming theirs is the “first” and “only 3-in-1 bit solution” for drilling ferrous metals.
MM
I don’t care for “pilot points”. Most of the time it doesn’t help, yet the tips are more fragile and they are more difficult to resharpen than normal bits. IMHO it’s mostly marketing hype.
Now sometimes this feature can be useful, mainly for enlarging existing holes, but I feel that the type with more steps on the tip like the Norseman Vortex Point is better. I doubt these are terrible as Dewalt drills tend to be pretty good value for money among the big-box brands but I doubt they are anything special either.
On a side note: Amazon seems to have 10% off most Amana Tool router bits.
Stuart
I have had good experiences with my set of Pilot Point drill bits, at least in the context of construction brand-grade drill bits.
In my experience, the tolerance of Dewalt drill bits are not as good as industrial brands’, but they’re convenient and economical for use with cordless drills in mixed application environments.
I bought a set of TiN-coated Pilot Point drill bits in the past, and have not had any regrets. The only reason I wouldn’t buy the same again today is because I have a higher budget. Today I’d get standard construction-grade bits (Milwaukee Shockwave or Dewalt when on sale), and higher-end brands for precision and performance in a controlled setting.
I’ve seen the Norseman Vortex Point drill bits. The 15pc set is $120. This Dewalt 14pc set is as low as $26. I’d hope the Norseman set is better.
mark w
I personally find this shape makes it really difficult to drill holes in thin plastic. It catches a lot of the cutting edge all at once and tends to chip and breaks the hole. Standard shape drill bits work fine on this task.
fred
Some plastics are significantly more brittle and subject to crazing when drilled. For Plexiglas and Lexan installations we always used Fuller Plexi-Point drill bits.
https://www.wlfuller.com/drills
Gary Diamond
I bought that Bosch colbalt drill bits and they are no better than regular drill bits. All of the drill bits I have used in the past will walk across the metal.
fred
While you can probably use cobalt alloy twist drill bits on various materials – would you really chose them for this? I guess that Dewalt and others may tweak the cobalt content to archive a compromise on brittleness. My take was always to choose cobalt for hard materials – but expect the probability of breakage when hand drilling. When needing a cobalt bit – I also try to select the shortest length possible – maybe from my set of screw-machine length bits. For wood and mild steel drilling HSS – for me is a better choice. At the other end of the spectrum are solid carbide bits which can bore hard materials – but break even more easily – and do best using fixed spindle machines with extremely low runout
MM
I feel the increased risk of breakage for a cobalt-steel bit over a HSS bit is slim, most of my general-purpose drills are cobalt. Solid carbide? That absolutely requires a rigid setup, no way will that fly with a hand drill. But, the nice thing about carbide drills is that if you’re careful (and you have the appropriate machine to use them in), you can drill out broken & stuck drill bits, taps, etc. A carbide drill will happily go through a steel drill bit, file, etc.
Stuart
I agree, but am under the impression that modern cobalt drill bits – at least those sold at home centers – have been tweaked for use in handheld cordless drills. Drill presses used to be strictly recommended to help avoid breakage, and that’s still true depending on the alloy.
ColeTrain
“Drill bis”? All this AI and tech and spell check still sucks? Speaking of AI harbor freight doing the rest of them in generating power tool images. Scroll down to the shop by brand pictures, looks better than bosch and Ryobi images I’ve seen all the Hercules doesn’t sell that type of Saw.
https://www.harborfreight.com/power-tools.html
Anyways, has anyone used these bits as far as Phillips, how do they grip?
Stuart
Thanks – *fixed*!
WordPress got rid of their spellcheck years ago, saying “other solutions exist,” but the problem is all the ones I’ve seen route through 3rd party servers, and I’ve never been comfortable with that. I have yet to find a good service.
Built-in browsers will underline spelling errors, but for a word that’s in the dictionary, such as “bis,” it’s down to my proofreading ability, which is not infallible.
For longer posts that I proofread multiple times, each time with substantial changes, I’ll pass those through a locally installed copy of MS Word, and it will then yell at me for informal tone and various grammatical rules that I intentionally break for the sake of readability.
Maybe I’ll eventually embrace AI crutches, but not yet.
Are you referring to the miter saw? I’m not convinced that’s AI, it could be something they’re releasing or at one point planned to.
John
We use exclusively cobalt bits at work both for hand drilling and machine work, and don’t have an issue with breaking them. They’re more brittle, but only in the sense that where a normal drill bit would bend these ones break. But either way the bit is garbage.
fred
We used a lot of cobalt short, stubby and super-stubby adapter bits. Back then our source was Pan American Tool. I don’t recall anyone complaining about breakage on these – although we did more hand drilling (pneumatic tools) than machine drilling. We’d even use 100% carbide stubby bits on graphite composites without breakage. But the short length (OAL something like 1/2inch) probably cut down on flexing. We also were not drilling tiny holes (IIRC – #20 was a common bit size.)
In my home shop – where I recall snapping a cobalt bit – it was probably handheld drilling with a smaller diameter jobber-length bit and from torque reaction at break through.
CMF
Drill bits have become very expensive. Recently looking for small sets to leave in different places, plain cheap bits. Except for no name Amazon sets, all the brand names small plain Jane sets have gone up quite a bit from what I remember.
I am not a Milwaukee fan boy, love a couple of their tools, but find most of them to be lacking in certain areas.
But, their marketing team is tops. All the home Depots I go into, they all tell me they are Milwaukee houses. 95% of all emails I get from various online vendors, always lead with Milwaukee…Milwaukee weekend, or special sale or anything Milwaukee related, Sometimes not even advertising other brands they have.
Milwaukee, right now is King. Dewalt is trying whatever to gain ground. I am guessing in the Milwaukee off ices they got a kick out seeing Dewalt having to market like this.
Stuart, I remember a few weeks (or months) back when you had the article on the Diablo’s. Bosch has had these for at least 15 years, and do ceramic, concrete, as well as any steel.
https://www.amazon.com/Bosch-MC500-MultiConstruction-Bit-5-Piece/dp/B003TO5FEA/
Stuart
Those are masonry bits that can kind of drill through whatever you’re mounting to the masonry wall or surface. I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.
CMF
In reply to Diablo’s “only 3 in 1 solution”
Stuart
Those are metal drill bits, not for masonry.
ElectroAtletico
Here’s the issue to ponder – all these manufacturers, some of them outstanding on their own, seem to constantly talk about “Milwaukee”.
Why?
Blocky
In an intro to advertising class, we were taught rule of thumb: category leader should never invite comparison.
McDonald’s will never reference Burger King or Wendy’s. Coca-cola will never acknowledge Pepsi.
This new tack by Dewalt represents a shift in the industry, at least to my mind.
Cando
Why does Milwaukee compare their tools to “60V Competitor” with DeWalt yellow colour scheme or “40V Competitor” with Makita green colour scheme?
MattT
Well, I’ll probably give these bits a try just out of habit. While my main tools are Milwaukee, I’ve found I’m generally more satisfied with DeWalt’s bits (drill and driving) than Milwaukee’s. I don’t know what’s supposed to be different about these new bits because, in my experience, DeWalt bits already stay sharper longer than Milwaukee’s.
Blocky
I have two boxes of DeWalt cobalt bits that have lasted me about 10 years. One set is pristine; the other is well abused but serviceable, minus four of the smaller bits which were sacrificed on a handrail project. Those bits were said to have been manufactured in Germany, and I wonder if the new elite series still are.
I also have some Milwaukee cobalt bits, and that Bosch set as well. Pretty sure they are all ‘M35’.
Some of the dewalt bits have seen far more off angle pressure than they should have and survived. I do not love the way that this tip geometry chips out in brass, ime, but the holes were still clean so no complaints. I generally reserve them for harder metals and use HSS for just about everything else.
fred
Acme lists the COO as Germany
JoeM
Okay, pure personal, small-scale experience with me here: DeWALT always claims it can outlast Milwaukee on Consumables. Milwaukee always has at least one line of products that proves them wrong.
These two are at the top of the industrial consumables game. When you go through a lot of common bits, you love both these companies equally. They won’t do you wrong.
That said, once you cross the line into precision work, your top three become Wiha, Wera, and Bosch. Wiha makes far superior 4mm precision bits, Wera makes far superior precision drivers/kit handles, and Bosch (and by extension their umbrella of Dremel, Freud, Diablo, and I believe it’s Imperial?) does Blades better than the big two. Consumables are still consumables, and precision comes at a higher price for accuracy, and use of harder materials. But there’s always going to be certain thresholds where the big two aren’t in the same sandbox, so to speak.
Does this set of DeWALT bits last longer than a specific Milwaukee line? I believe it. Does Milwaukee have a line to compete with them and win? Absolutely. Who wins in this competition? We tool users, because it drives their prices lower on clearance for new sets, and also forces other companies to just offer disposable sets by the dozen at pennies-on-the-dollar for throwaway tasks. Keeping these two competing top-end sets as the ones we hold onto for regular use and go-to use.
Matt_T
Imperial blades are owned by TTI. Though Bosch have probably OEMed for them at some point. Took a quick look on their website and didn’t see anything definitely Swiss made. They do have some Fein looking, Made in Germany, Starlock.
JoeM
It probably is Fein I’m thinking of, thank you, Matt! I knew there was another blade brand, primarily Bosch tools using them, but that brand makes blades for all the other universal arbours, posts, and mount points. I didn’t need it to be Imperial specific, I swear, in the moment, it’s the only name that my brain could produce. I appreciate the correction!
The Bosch Family brands. That’s who I mean. They all seem to have more precision-machined blades for all the kinds of saws. Dremel, in this case, just has certain universal attachments, like sanders and spiral-cut saws, where they aren’t available from any other brand. They’re the only ones, rather than the best-of-the-best.
Thank You, again!
Stuart
There is zero evidence that Bosch has contracted with Fein to make OMT blades, despite their partnership on Starlock. If you’re going to say something like “primarily Bosch using them (Fein),” please provide support for such reasoning.
Bosch has produced many types of linear cutting edge accessories in Switzerland for a long time, even preceding their entry into the oscillating multi-tool market.
Milwaukee Tool acquired Imperial Tool a few years ago, and to my knowledge they are not producing blades for any outside brands.
Matt_T
Stuart, I’m basing it on the look of some of the blades and German COO. Take a look at the picture of the back of packaging for COO.
https://imperialblades.com/product/ibsl340-standard-multi-material-blade/
If not Fein who else might be making these blades in Germany?
Matt_T
I only mentioned Fein because they appear to be a current OEM for Imperial.
IIRC Bosch group and Fein are co-inventors of Starlock. But they’re separate companies with distinct OMT blade lines. I’ve never seen a Swiss Fein, or German Bosch group, OMT blade.
I agree with Stuart on Imperial not OEMing for anyone else. Doubt anyone would want them to TBH.
Stuart
Why do you say Fein appears to be an OEM for Imperial/Milwaukee? I haven’t seen any indication of this either.
Stuart
Matt – thank you, I think you’re right and am glad to be corrected!
I don’t see the Imperial Starlock blades in stock at regular power tool or accessory suppliers, and am wondering if it’s old inventory.
I wasn’t even aware Imperial Tools made Starlock blades – over the past few years I have only ever seen their USA-made split-ring universal-style blades.
It’s possible their Starlock blades predate Milwaukee Tool’s acquisition. I’ll look around to see if I can find any insights.
JoeM
Uh… Guys? Even I’m not positive it’s Fein… I just mean the other Bosch-Associated Brand I missed in the list there. I don’t know if it’s Imperial either. I just know there’s one more brand name under the Bosch family umbrella that makes precision blades. It’s not specifically Oscilating Blades, it includes all blades. Jigsaw, Scrollsaw, Circular, Reciprocating, Oscilating… There’s someone I’ve missed in the Bosch family of brands that makes precision made blades.
That’s my point. Industrial blades, much like any consumable, are made quite well, and very strong, by the major companies, just like the drill and screwdriver bits. But when you cross into precision blades and bits, the companies change at the top of the game. From personal experience, they’re Wiha, Wera, and the Bosch Family of brands for blades, specifically. I could throw Veritas by Lee Valley in with the precision blades and tools as well, but on that I can be called very biased due to where Lee Valley comes from. Also in their swing toward extreme precision carving and machining tools. Sometimes they’re more fragile in the hands of those less trained in precision work, but they are extremely well made.
There’s just a line you have to draw, where Milwaukee, DeWALT, Makita, and Metabo/Hitachi/MetaboHPT aren’t the top producers of the bits and blades being used for the job. I’m sorry if it caused any misunderstandings. I use more precision tools these days, than I do larger scale construction tools. Not that I haven’t tried.
Stuart
Bosch also owns Freud and Diablo.
Davida1
Obviously it’s just anecdotal, but I personally did have better luck on harder stuff eg. Stainless kitchen stuff, using DeWalt cobalt bits, whereas the Milwaukee just burned up the bits and further hardened the material. Regardless of brand, stainless is a bear to drill through, and you have to think of the bits as semi disposable and bill accordingly
Harrison
Obviously this kind of direct brand vs. brand comparison is tacky, but let’s not pretend Milwaukee doesn’t also do this. They are probably the brand that goes the furthest to compare to competitor’s products.
A good number of their tools are accompanied by a bar graph showing productivity vs. “20v Competitor” etc. They make it pretty obvious with colour which brand they are referring to.
In many cases, these charts are cherry picked, or in the case of their latest 6 1/2” circular saw, just blatantly false. (I’ve used it, it’s a perfectly fine saw- Probably the best Milwaukee has ever made- But in no way the category dominator they would have you believe.)
Stuart
We’re not talking about how many brands show bar graphs with competitive colors or similar non-specific references.
Can you show me any examples of Milwaukee slapping “vs Dewalt” on the front of their retail packaging?
I’m not a fan of specific callouts; it seems tacky and desperate.
https://toolguyd.com/ryobi-craftsman-cordless-drill-social-media-comparison-2025/
https://toolguyd.com/walmart-hart-tools-craftsman-ego-wonka-posts-2024/
https://toolguyd.com/tool-rants-december-2024/ (scroll down to the part about Home Depot’s in-store poster)
Harrison
I’m quite aware what we’re talking about, I’m just pointing out that Milwaukee is no stranger to making comparisons to competitor’s products.
Check out the below listing, third image. They may omit the brand names, but it’s quite obvious who they’re referring to. Im not aware of any other brand that does this for their product listings in Canada.
https://www.atlas-machinery.com/milwaukee/MIL-2833-20/
Clearly this isn’t exactly the same thing as Milwaukee doesn’t directly name the brands, but they are so obvious they might as well. At the very least, this is the same category of behaviour, and they’ve been doing it for years.
(The fact that the claims are an outright fabrication for the above product is neither here nor there.)
I agree with you. I find this kind of thing tacky and off-putting. Especially from the supposed market leader.
Stuart
I’m a firm believer that people and brands shouldn’t step on others to make a sale. Colored graphs and alluded competitive references toe the line, but to me specific call-outs – especially on product packaging – is well beyond the realm of acceptability.
“Well, Milwaukee did [something different].” Does that justify what Dewalt is doing with their marketing and packaging claims?
KC
I am working on a project right now that requires me to drill and tap 32 holes in 3/8” steel plate. I have intentionally used three different brand / model 1/8” bits today for comparison to drill pilot holes because I saw this post. One is a brand new Milwaukee Red Helix Cobalt for hard metal, one is the new Dewalt Cobalt Elite bit and the third is one from a set I’ve had for a couple of years that has some miles on it. It’s a Dewalt Industrial Cobalt bit. Honestly, I am not very impressed with the either the new Dewalt Cobalt Elite bits or the Milwaukee Red Helix Cobalt bits. The older / used Dewalt Industrial Cobalt bit is taking 35-40% less time to drill the holes than the brand new bits I just bought. I already had an extra set of the Dewalt Industrial Cobalt bits put away for a spare. Before hitting “Post Comment”, I ordered two more sets……. I have a feeling that those are going away soon as they have been replace with the Cobalt Elite bits on the shelf at Lowe’s. The older Dewalt bits, according to package labeling, were made in both China and Germany. The new Dewalt bit is made in Thailand. The Milwaukee bit is made in Korea. I wonder what else changed, other than manufacturing location, with the Dewalt bits? It is obvious to me that something else changed.
Soup
I’ll believe it when ProjectFarm confirms it.