What Is The Most Powerful Corded Drill On the Market?
Today I’m reviewing the Rigid Heavy Duty 2-speed corded Drill model #R5011,it is a 1/2 in chuck, the drill is often referred to as a hammer drill by most professionals, on account of the pressure & force at which the drill forces the screw. I really can’t stress “Heavy Duty” enough. I originally picked this drill up for a project that I knew I had come up so I took advantage of my Amazon Prime Account and got a pretty good deal on a used one compared to buying new at my local big box stores. I’m no professional handyman, but I know my way around tools & handy work. I’m just an average Joe with an average build, now when I got this Drill in the mail the first thing I noticed was the weight, It’s a moose! The website states it only weighs 5 lbs however after 10 solid minutes of wrestling with this thing It wouldn’t shock me if you were to think it weighed twice that. aside from the weight the second thing I noticed was the drill didn’t come with the front support handle, which at the time I didn’t consider a big deal at all since I got the drill at well under market value ($39.00) As time passed and the remodeling of my bathroom got underway, I soon realized Where I went very wrong & that was buying a used tool without fully inspecting the for sale post thoroughly. Before I dive too deep into the Pros & Cons of this monstrous drill, let me say I completely & utterly underestimated the sheer force & unrelenting power of this drill and I continued to remind me of this each and every time I went to plug it in. For a moment let’s talk about some standard features of this drill it has a 2-speeds supposedly They call it variable speed or rigid VSR feature & the way it works is you turn the switch and it changes it from a heavy duty hard to control (we’ll address that later) high speed drill to a variable speed drill so as you ease on the trigger the speed of the drill increases then as you ease off it slows. This VSR feature (variable speed Reversible) I Personally didn’t notice a magnificent difference between the 2 speeds, However like I said I’m no professional of drills, With my finger putting pressure on the Trigger it seemed the drill was at the same speed no matter the pressure I added to it..
The Lock-on button,-I have used this feature and if you’re going to use it make sure that you use the Auxiliary handle assembly the handle that my used one didn’t come with making my drill very hard to handle and actually extremely dangerous honestly, I’ve quit using this drill entirely until I can buy a spare Auxiliary handle.I read the whole instruction manual and after reading I knew nothing about the drill that I didn’t know before, and I was sort of left sitting there looking at the thing still pretty dumb founded at the raw power of this thing. I’d like to talk Pros and Cons that I discovered during my review.
PRO’S:
- The product itself, has all the power you can hold on to no doubt about it.
- It’s very appealing to the eye, it’s honestly one of the better-looking drills on the market, The orange and black plastic on the drill that rigid is known for looks superb better than most drills on the market, it really pops on the Shelf sitting next to all the other drills on account of a bright orange and black and the sleek design of the drill.
- Handling Feel – The drill feels great in the hand the grips are more than adequate Grips have rubber on the back of the handle and also along the top Ridge the drill is also rubberized so you can get a good purchase on the top Ridge while you’re pressing with the handle, I assure you it has all the weight to back up anything your drilling into. but in the hand it feels great like a high quality drill and exactly what I expected from this drill, the wait isn’t too much but it’s about what you expect about 5lbs.
- Price – the price whether used or new is hard to beat, compared to other drills that are similar I’d say it’s in the middle of the pack but the bang for your buck is going to go to this drill, it has all the bang you could ever want. If you Searching up, you can find a good used one at a great price as I did. however, if you would like to buy one new which I would probably recommend Otherwise it will cost you around $80 however it comes with a carry bag.
- Accessories – it comes with a very nice heavy duty carry bag opposed to those hard plastic cases drills sometimes come in, this is much more pleasant to carry, also come with a chuck and the Auxiliary handle that you very much need I can’t stress enough.
- Warranty– Rigid believes in this drill so much they offer the only lifetime service agreement in the industry all you have to do is register your drill in the first 90 days after purchase it’s totally free and they fix your drill if anything happens to go haywire, catch on fire, dropped out a window, falls in the lake, you name it. Now that’s what I call confidence in your product.
- The gear case is a solid metal you can drop it scratch it do whatever and it’s going to stand up to any abuse you can throw at it, it’s like a solid chunk of steel and honestly where most of the weight from the drill originates from. I couldn’t find much information about the actual gears however it is an 8.5 amp 120 volt 60 hertz drill and all of that goodness happens right inside that gear case.
- GRIP PATENT – remember me going on about the grip well turns out they have a trademark on that specific grip I like so much they call it “Hex Grip™ it has a special micro-texture rubber that makes the grip comfortable but also allows for the best support while that beast is drilling away at whatever poor object is on the other end of this thing.
- Ratings – 5 star reviews you can go to Rigid’s website and look up this exact drill and read all the reviews and you’ll mostly find all good reviews. I don’t know if that’s the best place to look for unbiased reviews but the customers do have some helpful feedback on the drill even if it is paid or fake reviews. I’ve looked at reviews on Amazon and on different blog sites and everyone seems to praise this drill. they praise the sturdiness of it and the power you’ll be very hard-pressed to find a bad review on this drill, I would encourage you to look at some reviews yourself and do the research on this drill before you purchase it to make sure it’s really what you need.
CON’S:
- I will go as far as to say this drill can be dangerous with or without the Auxiliary handle this drill is hard to handle in the conclusion I’ll go into more detail of personal experiences with this drill and examples of how difficult it was to manage.
- The cord- I found the cord was always tangling up, getting in my way, knocking stuff over, I was constantly looking for extension cords to get the drill to where I needed it. The cord really was a struggle I work for this drill for about three to four weeks on multiple projects, I was always tripping over extension cords trying to snake them around objects and yanking and pulling to get more cord, on two separate occasion The plug prongs bent and I had to straighten them to be able to plug it back into the socket and that really happened on 2 separate occasions. I typically use cordless power tools I prefer the Ryobi set of tools but I have a mixture of everything, I usually go cordless when I can but sometimes you need some power that a cordless drill can give you and you just have to yank and pull and try to manage with a cord, it wasn’t the end of the world but it was frustrating at times.
- Weight-the weight wasn’t an issue at first but for prolonged projects manhandling this drill I found can be a very arduous and often times a dangerous task you can never and I mean never let your guard down when you have your finger on that trigger.The weight can also be a pro because heavy drills often times use the weight of the drill to screw in or drill harder.
- Power- you would never expect power to be a Con but sometimes there’s such a thing as too much power, I understand there are smaller drills for smaller jobs but if you’re not careful this drill has all the power to break your wrist. I had it personally catch and kick-back on me as I had a 2-inch hole saw bit drilling thru nothing but particle board & twisted my wrist as the bit caught and kicked back on me with such force I barely struggled to regain some sort of control, I immediately recognized my mistake, I was no match for the power at this drill and hi let go and the drill began to slow down as it spun and spun tangling the cord around it into one huge birds nest of a mess, That I had to unplug and unwind and start over, by this time I feared the trigger. I really didn’t want that to happen again, so I eased on the trigger so easily to engage the variable speed on the drill but it called again. I can’t say enough about the power.
- Speeds- from my experience this thing has 1 speed… Fast! They say it has a variable speed function blah blah blah! The thing is fast I found no way to regulate the speed of this monster. It has fast and faster. You pick your poison. if you have more experience with the drills than I have, you may be able to figure how to adjust the speeds on this drill, I believe with a little more time I could probably get to a hang of the variable speed function and I may even end up liking the drill because it is among the most powerful drills I know. And most of my drills only have one speed.
- Lack of features, it’s honestly pretty bare bones when it comes to features it only has 2 so called speeds and a lock on function, that’s not very much when it comes to a high powered $70 retail drill that is touted as top of the line. After reading the manual I really was kind of annoyed at the lack of features with this drill, I was shocked at the reading the manual that the drill was pretty much a No-Frills type of drill it kind of speaks for itself it has a solid Construction its functions like any other drill and doesn’t have any kind of special spectacular features, which is pretty much okay with professionals that have a lot of experience with the drills.
WHERE CAN I BUY THIS AMAZING RIDGID 120v Corded Drill?
Conclusion:
I want to start off this conclusion by saying I’m no longer using this product and I want to thoroughly explain why, through the process of remodeling my bathroom and kitchen I’ve used this Drill and my Father and my Grandfather and we have all 3 had similar experiences and I’d like to share two those experiences with you. The first time we realized this drill wasn’t for us was during a session of drilling where we were drilling a hole for a dryer vent, we were drilling thru standard OSB plywood the drill was having trouble getting the hole started on account of the fast speed of the drill. My grandfather was man-handling the drill best he could when it abruptly caught and he lost control in a matter of a second the drill spun and hit him in the head knocking his glasses off and startling both of us. That’s when we realized the true power of this drill and called in my father to finish the job, and he did it without incident.
On a separate occasion my father was drilling a hole in a stud to make way for wires from a receptacle when the drill kicked back on him pinning his wrist to the wall after spinning furiously hitting him in the face and splitting his head open after this incident he vowed to get rid of this specific drill. The power is too much without the auxiliary handle. I can imagine the handle makes all the difference in the world but it is a part that slides on and off at will and without it this drill is extremely dangerous and I wouldn’t recommend anyone other than Arnold Schwarzenegger Maybe to use this thing without the support handle, and I can’t stress that enough. That’s my reasoning for retiring my very solid drill, it’s great for what it is, it’s the most solid drill that I own you could probably throw it off of a roof go down pick it up and plug it in and it would work just as good as it did before. and I’m sure it’s an even more powerful and amazing drill with the handle it is supposed to come with, With the handle I’m sure you can add more pressure and get a better grip on the on the drill, I blame myself for not purchasing I support handle because all the incidents that happened probably wouldn’t have with a good support handle. the drill has all the power you could ever want out of a drill, so if that’s what you’re looking for and you can handle The power of it, I’d say you found the drill for you and I would buy it. I can promise you will not be disappointed at all in the strength and power of This drill and it may be perfect for certain purposes but it’s absolutely not meant to be used as a standard home drill I don’t believe, I think this specific drill is more made for professionals or contractors in the field, it would be a great drill for a contractor. if you need an all around drill, this is not the one, however, if you want to mix cement in a bucket with a 3 ft extension buy this beast right away. I will keep this drill but I will also buy the extension before I use it again I assure you that. I hope this helps if you’re looking at this specific drill to buy it’s the strongest drill that I’ve ever used and there are some pros and cons to that, however, no one can deny that it is a great drill and I would recommend this drill for certain purposes.