Milwaukee 49-56-9085 Big Hawg Kit, 10-Piece

I'm a huge Milwaukee fan and a Professional Electrical Contractor and have put these to the test in the field. I really wanted these to work out but unfortunately they did not. They do not cut a clean hole and can horribly over cut. For example 3 5/8 can and will cut up to almost a 4" hole. The sharpening kit, which I initially thought sounded like a good idea, but now I quickly realized why they include it, you have to use it constantly and way too often. They bits surprisingly burned out beyond sharpening very fast too. Don't even think about using these where you need a clean hole. I'm pretty sure that Milwaukee will end up discontinuing this line due to this fact. Everyone of my employees dislike using these as well. I do however like the 3/8" spade bit arbor (hence the 2 stars). I've taken them out of my work vans and now they sit in the shop.

Pro: cut very fast in wood, good balance with 3 cutting teeth, deeper cutting than any bi-metal hole saw, cut piece comes out easily, sturdy case, uses 5/8-18 arbor with standard 1/4" pilot bits, includes tiny diamond sharpening tool and hex wrench for arbor.

Cons: high speed steel cutting teeth are limited to wood, limited number of sizes with none smaller than 2-1/8 inches, case holds 4-1/4 inch as largest size and 8 hole cutters at most.

Much faster than a bi-metal hole saw in wood and drills can cut twice as big a hole with the same drill. Good hole cutter for use with cordless drills. Vastly superior to Lenox One Tooth but not quite as good as the Blue Boar.

I bought one of these kits and was pleased with the overall performance in wood even with 14v cordless drills. The big side gullets help clear the shavings as you drill and the 3 teeth counterbalance each other and cutting is a lot smoother than when using the Lenox One-Tooth hole cutter. The cutting teeth are made from high speed steel so they dull quickly in anything other than soft wood.

Milwaukee provides a tiny diamond file in the case to sharpen the teeth but a longer one will work much faster and keep your fingers away from the teeth. Pilot bit is a wood spade drill and 1/3 of the improved performance of the hole cutter is this drill. Replace it with a twist bit and you will be sorry you did - slower drilling and much harder to get the cut slug out of the hole cutter.

The case looked neat at first but then I realized two defects, one small and one very big. The small defect is not having a place for either a 1/2" hole saw arbor or for a 4-5/8" hole saw (for 4" pipe). The big defect is that the case only holds 8 hole cutters, or 2 per space. The hole cutters with their thick walls and large teeth cannot be stacked the way a bi-metal hole so can and they are two tall to stack more than two in each space in the case. While this is better than the Bosch TCHS and Bosch quick change kits that only take one hole saw per space, it is still a far cry from other hole cutter kit cases, including those from Milwaukee.

You may be able to add a few bi-metal hole saws in the other sizes commonly needed as the smallest Big Hawg that Milwaukee makes is a large 2-1/8 inches. 75% of the hole saw sizes needed for electrical or plumbing work are not available as Big Hawg hole saws which may be why Milwaukee only offers this size case with them.

The RPM guide from Milwaukee recommends a low speed which on most drills is 400-500 RPM. I find that 1000 RPM works much better.

I now leave these in the shop and carry around one of the Blue Boar tungsten carbide hole cutter kits. They are better than the Big Hawg in every respect with their harder teeth, more teeth in most sizes, many more sizes available from 7/8 to 6-1/4, and I can get 50% more hole saws into their case or add the most frequently used sizes to a bi-metal hole saw set.

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