Fleet Farm had the Milwaukee 2804 on sale so I bought one. Only one problem, I cant find an auger to go with it. Every place seems to be sold out. I really want a Eskimo Pistol 8", but am open to others. Anyone have any suggestions on place that might still have some?
Ice Fishing
Auger for cordless drill
It comes down to blade style really. Do you want a chipper blade or a shaver blade? Shaver like the Lazer blades are fast, but very very fragile. I have a 10” lazer and a solo 154 powerhead that will cut through ice faster than you could ever want. But, if you hit any dirty ice, its junk quick. I had a rotation of 4 sets of blades for it. I fish a lot of rivers and dirty ice. Years ago I bought a 8” Kluge (original kdrill before the kdrill] it may cut a moderate amount slower, but its got a million miles on the blades and keeps on cutting. The last 2 years it has been on a cordless drill and still cuts great. I got tired of having to ship blades off for sharpening. If I didn’t have sandy, nasty ice in most of the places I fish, maybe I’d use the lazer more but I’m sticking with the kdrill.
Our high school fishing club has run the lazer, mora, pistol bit, and K-drill (all in 6" and 8") on clam plates with milwaukee drills. By far the favorite is the pistol bit. We are slowly changing all augers over to pistol bits. The whole setup with drill, clam plate, and auger weighs about 10-12 pounds. The one thing we noticed is how well the pistol bit "finishes" cutting at the bottom of the hole. No sharp or uneven edges at the bottom or augers pulling themselves in the hole.
All work just fine as long as you have an adequate drill paired up with it. We do have one drill set up with an 8" blue Nils. Definitely the fastest auger we have. Only tradeoff is weight, but not bad.
The overall speed of drilling a hole isn't why you want a centering point, like hockeyguy said, you just have to start out slow before going full bore if you don't have the point or it'll skip on the ice similar to drilling a hole into metal. With a centering point, you can giver full throttle right off the bat. It's simply a change in technique, not a deal breaker, but I wouldn't go without one if I were buying new. As you get snow and slush on a lake later season, the centering point becomes less important as well.
Meatseeker I have 5", 6" and 8" Lazer auger drills that I use on my clam plate. Absolutely no issues at all getting them started without that point on the bottom of the auger. Time and time again I've raced some of my friends with my 6" vs their fancier 6" pistol bit or kdrill and I've beat them, so they work well. I would not go out and buy a pistol bit or the one that strikemaster makes (lite flite???) because I already had the hand augers to use and they work great!
Meat, when I first tried my auger set up (8" Lazer), it cut like crap and I wondered if it was due to lack of centering point. I got new blades and you can't even tell there isn't one. May take a split second to dig in before you can really give 'er, but it does not seem to be an issue. At least for me...
You don't need the gear reduction with the 8 Pistol Bit. Most that are using that are running 10" metal bits.
But here is what I found with a simple Google search: Take the bolt out that is right under the round red plate this will slide right off the top part that goes in the drill put the Clam shaft right in the Pistol bit line up the bolt holes and your ready to go.
Clam plate with Milwaukee Tool 18v, 8" Lazer (hand auger), Clam extension (for deep ice) and you'll be amazed how fast it cuts. I don't notice any issue starting to drill or cutting at bottom of ice. Clam plate is super handy to grab and go, set on ice and keep drill out of snow, and not bust your wrists.