If you went to your local home improvement store to pick out a Pro-grade hammer drill with the express intent of getting the fastest concrete drilling, which one would you choose: Bosch, DeWalt, Flex, Makita, Milwaukee, or Ridgid?
Go ahead, take a guess. I’ll show you how we tested and how each drill performed so you can see if you’re right!
Alright, let’s set the table by meeting the exact models we tested, the battery we paired with them, and some basic stats.
*** 4/18/25 Updated data! We have fresh results for every drill and now have data for the Milwaukee Forge and Ridgid EXP batteries. DeWalt PowerPack and Makita High Power results coming soon!***
Check out which models made our list of the best cordless drills for the year!
Bosch 18V ProFactor Hammer Drill GSB18V-1330CN
- Battery Selection: 6.3Ah Core18V
- Top Speed: 2200 RPM
- Hammer Rate: 30,000 BPM
- Max Torque: 1300 in-lbs
- Length: 8.3 in
- Weight: 5.9 lbs with battery
- Price: $149 bare, $279 kit w/a 4.0Ah battery
DeWalt 20V Max FlexVolt Advantage Hammer Drill DCD999
- Battery Selection: 6.0Ah FlexVolt
- Top Speed: 2250
- Hammer Rate: 38,250 BPM
- Max Power: 1219 UWO
- Length: 8.4 in
- Weight: 5.9 lbs with battery
- Price: $239 bare, $329 kit w/6.0Ah battery
Flex 24V Hammer Drill with Turbo FX1271T
- Battery Selection: 6.0Ah Stacked Lithium
- Top Speed: 2500 RPM
- Hammer Rate: 32,000 BPM
- Max Torque: 1400 in-lbs
- Length: 7.3 in
- Weight: 6.1 lbs with battery
- Price: $179 bare, $279 kit w/6.0Ah battery
Makita 40V max XGT Hammer Drill GPH01
- Battery Selection: 2.5Ah
- Top Speed: 2600 RPM
- Hammer Rate: 39,000 BPM
- Max Torque: 1250 in-lbs
- Length: 7.2 in
- Weight: 5.3 lbs with battery
- Price: $244 bare, $499 kit w/two 2.5Ah batteries
Milwaukee M18 Fuel Hammer Drill 2904
- Battery Selection: 6.0Ah Forge
- Top Speed: 2100 RPM
- Hammer Rate: 33,000 BPM
- Max Torque: 1400 in-lbs
- Length: 7.1 in
- Weight: 5.7 lbs with battery
- Price: $199 bare, $299 kit w/two 5.0Ah batteries
Ridgid 18V Brushless High-Torque Hammer Drill R861152
- Battery Selection: 4.0Ah Max Output EXP
- Top Speed: 2000 RPM
- Hammer Rate: 32,000 BPM
- Max Torque: 1250 in-lbs
- Length: 7.3 in
- Weight: 5.0 lbs with battery
- Price: $149 bare
The Method to Our Madness
Most cordless drills are only rated to drill in concrete with bits up to 3/8-inch. While I’m confident using 1/2-inch bits with any of these models, we stuck to the manufacturers’ recommendations.
For this experiment, we used Milwaukee 3/8-inch concrete bits. We marked each bit at 3 inches by flagging it with tape and drilled to that depth in a 4000 PSI concrete test block.
Each drill had three runs in its highest speed, and we averaged the times to get our final results.
Since we were looking for the best possible drilling times, we used advanced batteries when there was one available. However, a couple of batteries now on the market weren’t available when we ran these tests:
The good news is that it gives us a reason to come back around and run these tests again!
Results
| Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flex | 3.58 sec | 3.60 sec | 3.60 sec | 3.59 sec |
| Milwaukee | 4.53 sec | 4.81 sec | 4.53 sec | 4.62 sec |
| DeWalt | 4.43 sec | 4.80 sec | 5.03 sec | 4.75 sec |
| Bosch | 5.84 sec | 5.02 sec | 5.41 sec | 5.08 sec |
| Ridgid | 5.31 sec | 5.16 sec | 5.26 sec | 5.24 sec |
| Makita | 5.53 sec | 6.93 sec | 5.52 sec | 5.99 sec |
What if You’re Using Standard Batteries?
In many cases, advanced batteries don’t come in kits that are available. We wanted to see how our these hammer drills handled the same test using the packs that you’re more likely pairing with them.
Here are the battery pairings we used for this set (note that Makita is unchanged):
- Bosch: 4.0Ah Core18V
- DeWalt: 20V Max 5.0Ah
- Flex: 24V 5.0Ah
- Makita: 2.5Ah
- Milwaukee: M18 5.0Ah
- Ridgid: 4.0Ah Max Output
| Run 1 | Run 2 | Run 3 | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flex | 3.36 sec | 4.39 sec | 4.50 sec | 4.08 sec |
| DeWalt | 4.49 sec | 5.34 sec | 5.09 sec | 4.97 sec |
| Milwaukee | 4.60 sec | 5.27 sec | 5.56 sec | 5.14 sec |
| Bosch | 4.75 sec | 5.69 sec | 5.86 sec | 5.43 sec |
| Makita | 5.53 sec | 6.93 sec | 5.52 sec | 5.99 sec |
| Ridgid | 5.93 sec | 5.98 sec | 6.38 sec | 6.10 sec |
Key Takeaways
If you were wondering whether a drill’s hammer rate or top speed was more important, Flex answered that resoundingly. Even though it was tied for the second-lowest BPM in the group at 32,000, its 2500 RPM top speed gave it the fastest concrete drilling times in both experiments.
It’s also interesting to see the difference advanced batteries make. For the models we tested with both a basic and an advanced pack (both of Bosch’s are technically advanced), the drilling times averaged about 10% faster. So, even with tools like hammer drills, an advanced battery can give you significant productivity gains.
