Hammer Drill vs Regular Non-Hammer Drill

30 Jan.,2024

 

I’ve only used a hammer drill a few times and never on hammer mode. For concrete work I wound up buying a wired Bosch rotary hammer in SDS.

Since I already have several SDS bits and the rotary hammer, the value of also adding a hammer drill to my tool set seems less worthwhile.

But I’m researching options to get into the cordless tool game and it seems like the big boy voltage cordless drills as part of the tool sets tend to be hammer drills.

So I’m wondering if my guesses are right. Please correct anything wrong below:

A hammer drill will do the same thing as a non-hammer drill will do if in non-hammer mode, but it will be a little heavier and bulkier than a non-hammer model. So if you’re drilling a few holes, won’t notice a difference but if drilling hundreds of holes throughout the day, it might wear on you.

If you can only have one, then the hammer drill probably makes sense to give you that backup option to use it in hammer mode, even if you have a rotary hammer since I don’t think they’re much heavier than non-hammer.

If you can have two and are doing lots of small non-hammer drilling then get a smaller non-hammer drill and pair it with a more powerful big boy hammer drill, since if you’re drilling thick steel you want a big boy drill.

If you have a rotary hammer then the hammer drill is nowhere near as good for drilling concrete. Unless you just need a quick small hole and the hammer drill is next to you and the rotary hammer is back in the truck or on a shelf and the saved 10 seconds of drill time by using the rotary hammer is offset by the 2 minutes to get the tool. So while the hammer drill suboptimal tool, maybe it’s closer and good enough for a small job.

The big sticking point is whether the general purpose drill bits I’ll keep with the hammer drill will actually work well for concrete, but maybe as I said, good enough for one or two small holes.

Doesn’t seem to make sense to have any non-SDS masonry bits for a hammer drill if you have an SDS rotary hammer because if you’re going to the trouble to get special drill bits then you might as well grab the rotary hammer.

I could have asked a more simple question of: I’m planning to buy some M18 tools, should I get a hammer drill or a non-hammer drill, assuming I already have a rotary hammer. But I think the answer is just get the hammer drill because of my thought process above. And curious if my thought process is correct.

 

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