Drill

What kind of drill do you use on your hand auger ?

Makita 18v 481... 1090 in/lbs torque

Milwaukee M18 Fuel will be the most suggested model.

Took the overwhelming advice of many, and love mine more than I can explain!

My Dewalt 20v max brushless with 3amp battery works great with 6” auger. (Crappy auger) I have zero complaints about the dewalt. That being said Milwaukee is a better brand 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m a Milwaukee guy. Have a Fuel and very satisfied, on the ice and around the house.

I've got a 750 in lbs Ridgid that I just bought. It's able to cut with my 8" nordic hand-auger, just not as fast as I've seen with those higher torque drills. Check your local Home Depot as I was about to go in there to buy the Milwaukee kit for $399? and I ended up grabbing the $99 Ridgid and a set of 5AH batteries. If you have the budget, nothing wrong with getting the torque-iest drill you can find.

if you only cut 1 hole and dont overlap them to make one long hole any name brand drill with 500lbs torque will work for 8" auger. If you fish like me and drill the two overlapping holes you need a big boy serious drill and battery and a good auger with a spike like the kdrill.

For me on deep water i basically drill 6 holes each time, a sonar hole, a camera hole further away and the two overlapping holes and once you try and drill the second overlapping hole the slush will make girly drills beg for mercy....lol

I run the m18 with 1200lbs, 9ah high demand battery, clam auger plate and 7.5" kdrill.

here is my set up, not cheap but compared to any other drill based battery set up i think this is king of the hill. Oh and yes the battery makes a difference, when i compare the 5.0 battery to the high demand 9.0 you can feel the drill has more power and often with the 9.0 on i dont even bother clearing the holes and just power through.

Odd, as I understand it, the only difference between 5Ah and 9Ah is purely capacity, as in the current the drill draws should remain constant on the load (auger blades drilling ice) and so having more Ah allows you to maintain that current draw for longer periods of time. I wonder if there are any tests out there that show the higher Ah a battery has, the quicker it can drill through whatever it is drilling.

If using the same tool with the same power draw then the difference between 2 amp hr, 5 amp hr, 9 amp hr, etc is just the capacity of the battery. Simply put higher amp hr longer the battery will last drilling holes.

the Milwaukee fuel line was designed so the higher capacity batteries could unlock some additional oomph or in this case with the 9.0 i think the auto cut out the batteries have in them to protect the cells is set a bit higher; the high demand 9.0 was designed to run cooler so it cuts out less when drilling through slush but i'm not sure its adding any additional power unlike the new high output batteries that come in 3, 6 and 12 ah, these will actually give the tools more power. I attached a you tube videos comparing the Milwaukee 1200 lbs to the new rigid 1300lbs and when they ran the normal 6.0 battery on the m18 the Rigid was more powerful or faster because it had the new hyper Octane batteries but when they ran the same test using the new 6.0 High Output the Milwaukee was the winner so the batteries do unlock extra power.


check out this video and you can see the difference the new batteries make to the performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzVkIQdyXaE

Yup the amp hours are just how long the battery will lasts not how much power the drill will have. I have an old Milwaulkee fuel brushless with 650 in lbs of torque. Does wonders on high with a 6” Auger. Even with the dull blades I have now it powers through over lapping holes. Gotta get me some new blades though.

What I will say for the higher amp hour batteries is how well they last. I used to use the 2 amp batteries the drill came with and drain them right down. When you do this you reduce the number of cycles you get out of a lithium battery. Now with my 5 amp batteries more often than not I only use one a trip and it has Charge left over to spare. This increases the number of cycle charges you get on a lithium battery.

I'll put a vote in for milwaukee, not pictured are the new additions: the heated hoodie and the m18 lantern.

Awesome thanks guys

Question for lanternman, why use the clam plate when the k drill floats and is ready to use with a drill?