

It’s important to choose “impact ready” bits, which are toughened to handle the power output of an impact driver.
#HAMMER DRILL BITS DRIVER#
You can also find various sizes of sockets and socket adapters to use an impact driver with nuts and bolts. Straight, Philips, and Torx are among the most common, but there are a half dozen others to cope with all driving needs.
#HAMMER DRILL BITS DRIVERS#
Mostly these bits are for driving, though you can buy HSS drill bits with ¼-inch shanks for occasional drilling duties.ĭriving bits come in a variety of shapes, so impact drivers can be used with many different fasteners. Impact drivers don’t have a chuck but instead use a quick-release clamp designed to accept various kinds of bits with a ¼-inch hexagonal shank. These give a more secure hold for heavy-duty drilling. SDS drill bits are very similar in construction, but the shank is modified to suit the relevant SDS chuck. RELATED: The Best Drill Bit Sharpeners for Tool Maintenance This is valuable when driving into softer materials like wood or drywall, preventing you from accidentally driving the screw below the surface or even, as can happen, right the way through. The clutch on a cordless drill/driver allows you to reduce the amount of torque applied to a screw so that when that limit is reached, the clutch slips and the chuck stops rotating.

Impact drivers are the perfect tool for heavy-duty driving, but most aren’t intended for delicate, precision work. Small hammer drills can be used to drive screws (some consumer-grade models incorporate a clutch), but many are too large and powerful. However, this tool has a different trick up its sleeve: the addition of a clutch.

Modern versions offer greater flexibility with variable speed.Ī cordless drill/driver has the simplest action, in that it is purely rotational without any additional force. Early impact drivers were very much brute force, all-or-nothing tools. Thus the focus of the force is to drive screws and other fasteners, or indeed undo them. It makes a similar sound to a hammer drill, but the energy goes in the same direction as the chuck rotation, not in a straight line along the drill bit. It is compressed every half turn then releases, delivering tremendous force. Inside the impact driver body is a heavy-duty spring.
