Can Hercules Keep Up with Milwaukee and Dewalt? Testing Hercules Brushless Impact Driver!

[@KyleRS877]

I’m on the Hercules wagon now. I like all their tools so far with zero issues and the price with the awesome warranty you can’t beat it

[@Chabonz-du8sd]

I just got all Hercules and got rid of my craftsman

[@KyleRS877]

@ nice! I still love my craftsman hand tools

[@michaelpaez71]

Great way to kick off Saturday morning is watching this video and a bowl of cereal. This should be good

[@TinkerWithTools]

Thanks

[@ericadney6222]

Awesome video! I really like your head to head testing. After watching all your videos on this Hercules driver I went ahead and ran over to grab the combo kit that you mention about 2 weeks ago. Haven’t put her to the “TEST” the way I have done to my ole’ DCF850, but what have used it for is has worked really well. And that $98 dollar price point for the combo is definitely a plus. Another plus was that right now I was pleasantly surprised to find that Harbor freight is also offering a FREE 4ah extreme performance battery with all these new kits as well!! So for $98 bucks I got the driver, 2.5ah standard battery, 12v/20v charger and a 4ah 21700 cell second battery!!! Super good value and a 5 year tool / 3 year battery warranty!! Can’t go wrong at that price!! To put it into a speeding perspective, spent $80 bucks last night on dinner for my wife and I!! 😳😳. Yeah, old harbor freight is offering some value and I am heading to get the drill combo and another free 4ah today!! Again, thanks for the great reviews!!

[@TinkerWithTools]

Glad they are proving helpful. The promos they are running right now are really just driving up the value proposition. Has long as expectations aren’t set sky high like they were right when the tool released, I think a lot of people would be happy with it.

[@nismomike3182]

So the Hercules with premium battery is just about 5% behind the Milwaukee, and 20% behind the Dewalt when they use a 5ah.

[@ElectroAtletico]

Good price. Good performance. Great warranty. That's all I needed to purchase the Hercules Compact Impact. My Hercules cost $99 and it came with a charger a 2.5ah and a 5ah battery.

[@TinkerWithTools]

That's a good deal when you can get it for that.

[@EngineersPerspective701]

I warrantied a DCD999 for a bad chuck and gearbox maybe 6 months ago. Sent it through my local Acme store and had it back at no cost with a new chuck and gearbox within 30days. Overall satisfied

[@TinkerWithTools]

I appreciate you sharing your experience!

[@UnbeatenPath1]

The herc launched when the gen 3 milwaukee and 850/887 were the top of their lines. Back then, I remember it beating those drivers, and for the price, it's a great tool

[@TinkerWithTools]

It would have been competitive with the older DEWALT impacts for sure but they were competitive with the Milwaukee at the time either. The herc for me is just a small step behind that top tier performance. For the price you pay that’s not a bad spot to be.

[@robjackson9671]

I got a extra herc for $33 when they were running 2 tools for 99. For the price you can't beat it.

[@thereloadingcraft]

How are tables better than pouch cells? Pretty dissappointed Milwaukee’s forge 8.0 and 12.0 are tabless and not pouched lithium.

[@calebcrockett1085]

Hey as someone who owns Dewalt let me say I can tell you the 5ah being a pouch cell didn’t mater much since it was heavier and actually bigger than a regular 5AH. The 8ah tab-less they came out with is the size and weight of my old 6ah so was definitely nicer for size/weight ratio to performance

[@TinkerWithTools]

I don’t know if they are necessarily better in a pure output but in terms of things like cooling and weight (and likely cost to manufacture) are where it wins out. No manufacturer puts out the same size battery in both tabless and pouch so it’s a little hard to measure or test.

[@edwardoavila7666]

the tabless cells that milwaukee and dewalt (and most other makes) use are JP40 tabless cells with 60amps max discharge rating, which is nuts. to my knowledge they are a bit higher max discharge than pouch cells (i have both the 5ah PS and the 8ah PP), the big benefit with pouch cells is slimmer profile for a given size and less weight, though they have about the same footprint. to be honest I kinda wish I had held off on the 5ah PS and waited for the 3.5 PS or gotten a few of the 1.7's. for drills and impact drivers where you want it to be handy and maneuverable i cant justify putting a brick on the bottom of your tool. the old 5ah was about the biggest battery that you could use all day on those.

[@richardwang474]

I have all dewalt battery powered stuff and a few bauer 20v. I haven't used the 20v Hercules stuff yet and can't really justify buying it right now but I can tell you that the corded Hercules stuff is the real deal. Everything corded by Hercules is professional grade.

[@TinkerWithTools]

The cordless stuff is right up there depending on the tool. The fact you now get a warranty and they have combos and deals on them occasionally makes it a compelling value.

[@isaiahsexton1423]

i love that dewalt does so good with a 5 ah battery considering i never use anything longer than that on an impact driver i don’t really pay attention to any test with larger batteries bc i don’t use them that way

[@hectorlozada2503]

That dewalt is a beast

[@86Sando]

It’s great to see Dewalt dominating however I reckon the R&D department at Milwaukee would be working overtime to take the top spot again. Thanks for making videos like this mate. 👍

[@TinkerWithTools]

No problem. Thanks for watching!

[@DustbowlMic]

If I throw my Hercules 12AH battery on my impact driver things break lol

[@mohammedaldujaili2890]

I appreciate your honest opinion.

[@TinkerWithTools]

Thanks!

[@SThom27]

The Milwaukee and the Hercules both have overheating issues with the Milwaukee having several major points of failure. The Hercules just ends up derating itself, but still operates. All the most powerful impact drivers (the Flex Quick Eject included) all have issues overheating. So far, no idea if the DCF860 has similar issues. I just want everyone to know the whole story so they don't waste money on the big dawgs like I did. Reliability is a major concern.

[@TinkerWithTools]

From my experience they all get hot when pushing them. I have never had it negatively affect the performance of the tool so far.

[@riba2233]

Looks like you need to take a look at makita ;)

[@JimE6243]

Another good comparison.............. as usual. Thanks. Have you ever considered do a comparison of rotary tools((Dremel)? Did a channel search but nothing came up. Thanks for the content. JimE

[@TinkerWithTools]

I'll put it on the list. I don't know what exactly I'll do to test and it might take some time to gather a few up but I appreciate the suggestions.

[@georgedavall9449]

Tinker With Tools !!!!!!!!!!!! I tried to tell You! You needed to do this test/ review! Ha ha j/k of course. Great test and how bout dat Yellow tool!!!!!! WoW! 👍☺

[@TinkerWithTools]

Thanks George!

[@georgedavall9449]

@@TinkerWithTools 🙂

[@georgedavall9449]

@@TinkerWithTools You're Welcome!

[@bjw90]

Great video, great comparisons!! I am a homeowner, building up a collection of tools & have been watching quite a bit of videos before jumping in to a battery lineup. I am kinda on the fence between Hercules, or Dewalt. Would you say this herc impact driver is comparable to the DCF840, their more entry lineup? The 840 is on sale right now, curious if that would be a better route than going Hercules?

[@TinkerWithTools]

I'll make a short comparing the two so you can see that - so you have performance comparison. As for my opinion - I think that the Hercules is more powerful, has a better warranty and while the initial price on these two points is similar, the next purchase on the Hercules platform will be cheaper. So as long as they have the tools that you need/want, then it will be more cost effective in the long run. The dewalt is a nice impact driver but it's not a feature rich impact (lacking speed modes, etc).

[@bjw90]

@@TinkerWithTools thank you for the super quick/very informative reply! Thought I was already subscribed, but realized I wasn't! fixed that!

[@jimfeaster4837]

Super video!

[@TinkerWithTools]

Thanks!

[@keysautorepair6038]

Great job testing about time someone does a fair comparison looking like the Dewalt would be a better value option when you factor in the cost of batteries.

[@TinkerWithTools]

I think that it would perform the best but the batteries with hercules are 1/2 the cost or less of the other two. the 8ah hercules battery is $99 standard pricing (but you can get it and one other tool for $99 right now) and then Milwaukee is $199 for either the 8ah Forge or the 6ah Forge and the Dewalt is $219. I think there is a performance and platform benefit with Milwaukee and Dewalt but just based purely on cost, Hercules wins for me.

[@keysautorepair6038]

@@TinkerWithTools I have all three Milwaukee 12-18v Dewalt 12-20v and the Hercules 12-20v I think I have a problem lol to many power tools they are serve a purpose.

[@konadayz426]

Off subject. But the blue bits you used are those wiha terminator blue bits? If so are they any good? Nice review too

[@TinkerWithTools]

Yes they are wiha and I love them. I am starting to see the oh so familiar trend of them disappearing off Lowe’s shelves and it made it so nice to have easy access to them.

[@jasonhoyt8232]

I would be curious to see how it does against one of Makita's top 18v impact drivers. Makita's impacts aren't general the fastest, but very reliable and ergonomics.

[@TinkerWithTools]

Different style of tools really. On bigger stuff I would bet on the Hercules driving faster but the Makita is nicer to use than anything else in my opinion.

[@billcuningham586]

Hey, thanks for the response. I really don't know the technical stuff with these batteries, e.g. I would guess that a 12 amp battery would be "twice" that of a 6 amp battery if they are the same type of battery. Guess not. I also completely understand not being able to own every type of battery. So it looks like the 8 amp Forge wouldn't do any better than the 6 amp Forge when compared to the 8 amp DeWalt battery. Again, thanks.

[@billcuningham586]

Why not compare the Milwaukee using the 8.0 amp Forge battery to the 8 amp DeWalt battery? Both have tabless cells. Wonder if the extra 2 amps on the Milwaukee would've moved it closer to the DeWalt in your speed tests? Just wondering...

[@TinkerWithTools]

The 8ah had only recently come out and I don’t currently own it. I would love to own every battery that comes out for testing but it’s just not feasible for a channel my size. With that said, I did test the 12ah that day as well. I found it was basically the same on these tests as the 6ah Forge.

[@iker1644]

Great job, as fair as you can be in a non-lab environment. Good Job Tinker.

[@TinkerWithTools]

Thanks!

[@tumbleweed1976]

Thank you for your data 🎈

[@Samuelzelis]

In every test you pressed harder on the Dewalt and Milwaukee,

[@alexandujar6150]

Which one feels the smoothest and best ergonomics?

[@TinkerWithTools]

I personally like Milwaukees ergonomics the best of these three but that could just be familiarity at this point. The DEWALT will never have ergonomics. As for smoothness the DEWALT and the Milwaukee might be a tad more smooth but if I am being honest if those are my main priority I wouldn’t be picking from these three impact drivers. None of them are outright bad but there are smoother impact drivers on the market.

[@alexandujar6150]

@TinkerWithTools like the triple hammer bolt? I want that impact but the no quick insert collet is almost a deal breaker. And I hear metabo is slowly fading away

[@TinkerWithTools]

It superior to the triple hammer for me and has a quick insert collet. Metabo HPT isn’t fading globally (known has Hikoki) but it has been fading in brick and mortar stores around me. They still have a solid online presence though.

[@247Combat]

@tinkerwithtools im in the market for a new impact driver and im on both the milwaukee and dewalt platform. Would you recommend the 860 over the milwaukee gen 4?

[@TinkerWithTools]

I think you really can't go wrong based on my experience but since the Gen 4 milwaukee has had some realiability concerns with others that I have seen, I would probably tip the hat to the Dewalt. But it's really close.

[@Veau88]

That herc is better then anything dewalt had until they released the 860… and not just a little better

[@BrandonCabanillas]

Hercules gives you enough quality and your monies worth for newbies

[@robertpaget809]

Where’s tinker 2 weeks since last post

[@TinkerWithTools]

Life's gotten busy for a time. I am moving and with all the prep to sell my current house and prepare for the next one has taken over. Hoping to film out put out a video sometime next week, and then there might be another small break until it's back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[@robertpaget809]

@@TinkerWithTools well good luck on the house bud Look forward to ya next vid 😁👊👍

[@durantplayz7111]

Cant imagine how much Master Mayhem got paid to flex like the Hercules was smoking everything lol not hating on Hercules i have theyre high torque. Thinking of trying theyre ratchets since HPT doesnt make one

[@TinkerWithTools]

I haven’t tried the ranchets but I have considered. I just picked up a grinder and the cordless router on their two tools for $99 deal they have right now.

[@durantplayz7111]

@TinkerWithTools yea I got my high torque and a 8ah from that deal when it first started. I haven't used any other of they're tools but they dont seem bad. That deal seem.great too

[@DanielJones-nl9qd]

When I asked somebody at harbor freight about the warranty they told me u have to ship it off after the store warranty is up and if I’m remembering right that was something like a year maybe

[@TinkerWithTools]

I have never heard of anything other than an exchange over the counter.

[@DanielJones-nl9qd]

@ maybe whoever told me that was misinformed idk💁

[@brianf9619]

My question is Do you think Hercules is a Pro Grade Tool , yea the price is nice but can I build 10 Decks in 90° weather with it , I have my doubts, and how about the rest of their tools , Im Not going to jump on their Platform for 1 tool . Ive been in Construction for over 30 years and Never seen a Hercules tool on a single jobsite , Just Sayin ... 🤷👍🖖

[@TinkerWithTools]

Am I going to see contractors in the wild using it? Maybe not but it’s offering performance that’s nipping at the heels of those tools at a fraction of the cost. I am not a pro and I can honestly say that while I don’t plan on going all Hercules for my tools, the ones I have tried so far could probably get the job done and I have the assurance of a reasonable warranty. Not every tool needs to be pro grade to be successful and I would certainly rather have Hercules for the money that some of the offerings from craftsman and Ryobi and a price point that is often higher.

[@KyleRS877]

I don’t see why you couldn’t. All mine are awesome

[@sethhovey8227]

First!