Are Harbor Freight Drill Bits Secretly AMAZING?

Thank you!

I wonder if simple sharpening of the bit would improve usability

I remember when the cobalt bits you bought were cobalt bits. Now they are Chinese garbage

It's a great buy. Learn how to hand sharpen drill bits and you can cut with these for a very long time.

I'm a retired industrial machinery/heavy equipment mechanic after 45 years. This is a great buy. I've bought 5 or 6 sets, a couple for my shop, one for my son and I've mutilated a couple of sets myself over the last 10 or so years.

Subscribed. I don't need fillers, splash & sparkles. Just the facts and a subtle amount of humour. Hmmm ... just like Atomic Shrimp, but for tool guys!

Nice review! About five years ago, I bought a cheap impact drill and masonry bits from Harbor Freight to redo all of the plumbing in a concrete pumphouse at a trailer park my parents owned. I had some doubt that they would last long enough to complete the job which entailed drilling a few hundred holes in the walls and floor for piping straps and other fixtures. Five years later, I am still using the same drill and bits and can't seem to wear them out. It was a real surprise and a good purchase.

Great video, no distracting noise or "music", subscribed. I've been a fabricator for three decades and want a set, a good one, but big dollars aren't in the budget. I made a quarter to a third of my salary this far dealing with broken bolts, stripped threads and the like, so I like to think I know about drill bits, taps and dies. Maybe I'll buy this set and just not let anyone else touch it, seems like fair for the money. Harbor freight quality scares the crap out of me with drills and taps, did you review their taps? I already trust your opinion seeing this video alone.

I agree with you. Some of the negative reviews were all about the operator using the drill bit. I've ruined/broken several drill bits while drilling by hand (no cutting fluid, hot holding the drill motor steady, and my fav...bearing down on the drill motor like the hulk because I just wanna get the hole drilled and be done with it). You've convinced me that this particular Harbor Freight tool product is a worthwhile investment. Thanks!

Good coating on a cheap drill try Dormer from Brazil

I don't know why this annoys me so much but... Center drills are what you use when you need to use a center (live or dead). Spotting drills are what you use to spot holes!

I have the cobalt and the black oxide sets. The black oxide tend to be warped, so they drill an oversized hole. The cobalt are straight as an arrow and work great. I've never understood someone who complains about dull drill bits. That's what God invented the bench grinder for. Don't be lazy.

Junk junk junk. I've used these drill bits for 10 months only on mild steel and more than 1/3 of the bits are shot. Keep in mind they've been used on a drill press at proper speeds using oil. Avoid.

Maybe Harbor Freight made their drills better after the negative reviews?

i used that exact same set at the shop for a very long time. They performed perfectly fine in +/-.003-ish work in regular material no issues. I would just sharpen them or replace them with generic mcmasters as needed. if this is a testament to anything… I sold my shop a while back and out of a large roller cart of nothing but drills and different indexes the only full index set I kept was this one

Harbor freight is for weekend warriors doing simple projects. There products are fine for none professional setting were you need it maybe couple times a year.

Are cobalt drill bits better than tugsten ones, or am I getting confused and mixing stuff up and they are not used for the same types of metal?

Nice video. but I feel you did miss the Most Critical Part of Cobalt Steel drills. That is Cobalt Steel is the only Efficient Alloy to Drill Through Stainless Steel as i have learned by Professional instruction and verified in the field. Also Caveat===I purchased two, 1/8 in. "Cobalt Steel" Bits (not Kobalt brand name) from Lowes. The 2 brands, 'Bosch' and 'DeWalt' names and both name brands became Dull in 5 min. drilling 16ga. sheet metal galvanized roofing panels I immediately returned them and read the label Micro Print saying Both brand names were "made in China" --- two American Brand Name products "made in China" of INFERIOR MATERIAL and selling for $9.00 USD Each . Please do not allow anyone to tell you-that-- -"you get what you pay for" ever again.

Ive considered buying these due to your video but would they be good for hand drilling on steel and aluminum?
From what i understand, cobalt is harder and more brittle so ideally youd want to use them in a drill press. However a majority of my work i need to do pilot holes by hand in a hand drill. Would these be good for that? I feel they would be extremely brittle. The highest quality ive ever personally used was Dewalt drill bits. In between these due to the value or another dewalt set.

I also do some carving work in aluminum so ill drill 3 holes in series and once the hole is drilled i like to rotate the bit side to side to carve more. Wondering if these could hold up to that.

Also you mention sharpening your drill bits, what is a cheap tool you recommend?

Excellent video. I don't know very much about drilling but know enough to understand that I am the reason drill bits don't last very long for me. 😂

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, PERIOD !!!!

So that's the HF "in-store only" set I'd heard about somewhere. Not having a nearby HF, I foolishly purchased what to all appearances was the exact same set from Temu (same photo as HF's, even). Unlike yours, which appear to be marked HSS Co, the Temu ones were marked just HSS. Dollars to donuts they were not M35. Worse, Temu insisted that they'd shipped the correct item. So, scam by one of Temu's affiliates.

The only review that matters is your own.

I have bought expensive and cheap. I will say, one of my favorite things to do in shops that I buy tools from is to look at relief angles on drills. Turns out, expensive and cheap often have the wrong relief angle. I now have a grinder and repoint all mine and do it for others for a profit. I will say, something happened to drills over the years.

I used a HF cobalt drill set to drill out a broken stainless steel stud. They performed better than I expected, but it was such slow going in the very hard material. I ended up spending $30 on a Bosch tungsten carbide tapered and straight cutter for a Dremel and it's really like a hot knife through butter. I don't think I'll ever drill out bolts that same way again.

I bought the cobalt set. Some of the drill points are so far off center they don’t work until centered with my Drill Doctor. Overall the set is fine for me.

Your index comes with bits lettered numbered and fractional.

Thank you for the video

I wonder what Karrot Top is doing right now....

Why are you wanting m42 Cobalt bits? 99.99% of everything you do HSS will work fine.

Great video. I wonder if these are improved from what they were selling, say 15 years ago?

I have 4 drill index sets, one red-box chi-neh HSS from yesteryear that I found in a rental basement missing 31%, which I 'adopted'. One new HFT HSS index I bought new, when I finally was rich. One HFT TiN coated index when I splurged. And, a HFT cobalt set I got when I was rich, but before the online jungle, and before I knew anything proper about machining. I have a small shrine in the corner of my shop with candles and a doily and a carving of the Great CNC, for it. I discovered they were hard, later, and found they worked well for SS, where before I learned a nice sharp HSS at a nice slow RPM, would do OK. Using common sense, and a bit of machining logic, I would give my set from 2007 a big thumbs up, especially for the price, which was reasonable, and I cannot remember.
I have had none break, but it would be nice if you could get individual replacements at near the same as the kit price.

People say they can feel the difference with just a couple inches but most of the times that's not true

Saw the same thing about the reviews. How could they be bad? Just bought these a couple days ago and they're great. Been getting chips longer than the entire bit when drilling into plate with my press. 16 holes into 1/4" plate and it seemed like it only cut better as I went on. Slow turning and press hard, cuts through it quite literally like butter. Best drill bit set I've had (not saying much, I used to only own junk)

I can say with near 100% confidence those who hate on these just don't know how to use them. To be fair, for the longest time I didn't either. Kept wondering what I was doing wrong and why all my bits were dull. Were they all that bad? No, I was the reason they were dulling. Its real easy to mess up drilling metal and can be impossible at times to drill properly when only using a hand drill, what are the chances that many of these buyers don't know that?

Sometimes I can just tell a reviewer didn't use it right just by reading their post. But, that's the nature of the internet, and those who don't use it because they think they know better. And well, for a time, I was that guy too (and probably will continue to be).

Thank you so much for giving the Humor box solution. That was my only real complaint with the HF set.

i've been buying harbor freight tools since they were a mail order company in the 1980s. i've purchased welders, floor jacks, sanders, a 56" tool box, and a lot of small hand tools, i even own their 2 stroke fence post auger, (god has that saved me a lot of work and heartache over the years). most of it has been decent, and some of it was crap (belt sander will shake you to death), but usually the overall value for what you get it well worth it. i have owned this set of bits (or its predecessor) since the 90's, i've broken a few small ones using hand drills, and burned up a few from being lazy with the cutting fluid, but for the $40 or so i paid for it back then, its been one of the best values for the money that i've purchased there, and would recommend it in a heartbeat...

I have that set. My father bought it impulsively in like 2002. He let it go to me when I moved out because I was the only one who ever used the drill press anyway for my little hobby projects like building airsoft guns from scratch or making parts for my car or motorcycle. I have had to replace a few odd sizes, as in recent years I have used it extensively for low end restorative gunsmithing projects, for which it has performed perfectly adequately in spite of the extremely hard metals I occasionally encounter while rebuilding unusual parts or making them from scratch.
When I can afford better, I'll buy better. For now it's fine.

fwiw I've had good luck with individual bits from McMaster, I wanted to get some extras for some 20x20 frame prep and got what I needed at a relatively small markup compared to getting a whole index. I probably should still buy a whole index though...

I had this set for a few decades bought back when Haber freight was in a tent in the parking lot. Not much metal work with these mostly woodwork. Have broken a few of the small bits, but for the most part, I still have a full set. Don't use them like I used too.

I bought mine back when they were $39. I use them with my mill and lathe and they serve me well. It’s rare when HF disappoints.

Bits will break or get dull with enough use. I'm not a Professional, I tinker with all kinds of stuff around the house. Although the case was kind of beat-up, having that many bits in an organizer is super cool. It would be easy to keep all cobalt bits together, any bit that gets destroyed could be replaced in the case.

They’re fine on soft materials like balsa wood and liquid white glue, anything else, get some good drills!

Nothing wrong with these drills they are just fine.

for home machine work they sound perfect.

After one hole?

I drill into stanless steel, forget the grade, but it's for explosion proof cabnets and mild steel often. As long as you sharpen them when there dull their great.

I like them, they're prebent, I don't have to bend them myself.