JiggingGuy wrote:
Went out to Lake Simcoe on Saturday, temperature was -17 degrees when arrived on ice at 6:30 AM, ice approximately 18".
As mentioned before I don't have the Milwaukee M18 but a Ridgid 18V X4 however my brother has the M18 with the red lithium batteries so I asked him to bring it just in case.
First impression the auger worked awesome, cuts through the ice like butter and no downward pressure required when drilling. However, the limitation was the battery/drill. First drill used was the Ridgid with 1.5Ah hyper lithium battery on a X4 drill, 2 fully charged batteries and I got 3.5 holes before both batteries were dead. No problem, got out my bothers Milwaukee M18 as suggested by Vexilar. It was a little better, 4 more holes drilled in the morning before both Milwaukee batteries died also.
Summary: 4 batteries (2 ridgid, 2 milawaukee Red Lithium) 7 holes. Auger worked as advertised, even fell in the hole once and saved by the foam. However, the weak link is drill/batteries. Maybe the -17 degrees is too cold for batteries but in Canada this is not uncommon for Jan and Feb.
I believe the ad mentioned that it should drill 18 - 20 holes on one battery... I find that hard to believe. I haven't given up on my investment, I will bring it to BOQ this upcoming weekend with 2 new 3.0 AH batteries and see how it goes. Temperature is suppose to be near 0 this weekend. Maybe the batteries will last longer and I can get more holes.
JG.
JiggingGuy,
It's not the drill it's the batteries. You need the 4.0amp XC batteries. I picked up my drill used and it came with the thinner regular M18 batts, no good. The batteries shut down due to being overworked. In the video you can see they have the thick battery I mentioned. Made the switch and never looked back. I sold the other batteries on Kijiji to recoup some of the cost of buying the higher end battery.
RJ