Clam Ice Auger/Cordless Drill Review

[prospector]

Yup.

[Pindrifter]

Whats The best setting on the drill for ice drilling?   Millwakee Fuel m18   6 inch auger Lazer  Ice eater Conversion kit. Thanks

[1moslab]

what is the difference between a lifetime warranty and a lifetime service agreement for us slow folk?

[1moslab]

Whats The best setting on the drill for ice drilling?   Millwakee Fuel m18   6 inch auger Lazer  Ice eater Conversion kit. Thanks

low

[MT204]

what is the difference between a lifetime warranty and a lifetime service agreement for us slow folk?

This Lifetime Service Agreement is not a warranty; it does not alter or limit the 3-Year Limited Service Warranty provided with your product, and it is not intended to create any implied warranties or rights of any kind including any warranties of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Any such implied warranties are expressly disclaimed. To the extent they cannot be disclaimed they are hereby limited to three years from the date of purchase.

[1moslab]

oh okay that explains it

[Chi]

oh okay that explains it

calling my fricking lawyer on this one ROFLMFAO

[BlackDucksAndBrownDogs]

You guys are absolutely right.  The warranty and lifetime service agreement on the Ridgid drill is FREE of charge.  I've edited my post.

I still maintain that what we're doing with these drills violates the warranty terms anyway.

If you ever need repair/parts/replacement, good luck!  I hope it works out.

[BaitBucket]

I still maintain that what we're doing with these drills violates the warranty terms anyway.

If you ever need repair/parts/replacement, good luck!  I hope it works out.

They dont specify what it can and cant be used for. They are being used to drill holes..

As for repairs etc, if you bring it to a home depot with a rigid service center, they have the tools and parts to fix it in store..

[BaitBucket]

Yup.

Like I said, that video is 2 years old, and the drill was at least 3years old. The tech in the drill in that video is very likely not the same as whats being used in the new drills u get today.

Its like basing your opinion on a 2015 car according to the reviews of the 2012 model..

[prospector]

Not worried about the drill, looks good. Batteries,  . After talking with a repair center in Utah and Montana, the batteries are the weak link. I live 90 miles from the nearest shop and do not want to take the risk right now. BTW, both places said Bosch was the best by a long shot. # 2 Milwaukee, #3 was a toss up between Dewalt and Ridgid. They both said the Ridgid warranty was good as long as products were registered. They even had batteries in stock. I am not dissin' the drill. I will most likely own one soon as I am a tool freak.

[prospector]

I think we did a good job of hijacking this thread!

[POINTERGUY]

I wanted to give an update after fishing on Saginaw Bay today. I used my clam/rigdid auger today with a 8" mora ice auger with new blades. The ice was about 22" thick. I was able to drill 12 holes on one 3 ah battery. The drill would shut down about 3/4 through, I would let it sit for a few seconds and finish drilling the hole. I am going to buy the milwaukee fuel 18 volt hammer drill with 2 4ah batteries. This is a brushless drill and the rigdid is brushed. The milwaukee has over 700 lbs of torque, where the rigdid has just over 600lbs of torque. The price difference is about $100, rigdid $199 and the milwaukee $299. I am hoping this milwaukee will be the final drill I try with this set up. I am thinking I should be able to get around 20 8"holes with the milwaukee per battery. If this works I will never own a gas auger again. This unit is under half the weight of gas and cuts twice as fast as gas and is silent. This could be a deadly hole hopping. It is also much easier to carry on the quad or pulling in a shanty. Most years we are lucky to get 12" of ice on the bay, so under normal conditions this unit would work out even better. I will post my test results with the milwaukee next weekend after trying it out on the bay again.

[Chi]

I wanted to give an update after fishing on Saginaw Bay today. I used my clam/rigdid auger today with a 8" mora ice auger with new blades. The ice was about 22" thick. I was able to drill 12 holes on one 3 ah battery. The drill would shut down about 3/4 through, I would let it sit for a few seconds and finish drilling the hole. I am going to buy the milwaukee fuel 18 volt hammer drill with 2 4ah batteries. This is a brushless drill and the rigdid is brushed. The milwaukee has over 700 lbs of torque, where the rigdid has just over 600lbs of torque. The price difference is about $100, rigdid $199 and the milwaukee $299. I am hoping this milwaukee will be the final drill I try with this set up. I am thinking I should be able to get around 20 8"holes with the milwaukee per battery. If this works I will never own a gas auger again. This unit is under half the weight of gas and cuts twice as fast as gas and is silent. This could be a deadly hole hopping. It is also much easier to carry on the quad or pulling in a shanty. Most years we are lucky to get 12" of ice on the bay, so under normal conditions this unit would work out even better. I will post my test results with the milwaukee next weekend after trying it out on the bay again.

Good report Pointerguy... Thanks

[Damn Yankee]

Need a little help here. Have been reading all the posts refering to the Clam Cordless drill adaptor and cordless drills to use. Wondering if I should keep my 6" Nils as a hand auger, purchase the clam conversion kit & a new cordless drill or just purchase a new gas auger?
Does the Clam cordless adaptor fit on a 6" Nils? Thinking of purchasing a 20v lith Ion 1/2" Milw hammer drill w/ (2) 4 Amp batteries to make this work. I was told the Clam doesn't fit the Nils but the person that told me wasn't sure? My biggest problem is, we have 24-26" of ice. Obviously we don't have this kind of ice every year, but this year is the exception.

All of the better battery drills have a 1/2-20 thread output (remove the chuck according to the instructions and you will have the 1/2-20 thread). The nils power head has a 1/2-20 thread output. The Nils adapter 1/2-20 female to all Nils augers is a readily available adapter.  I'm away for a few days, when I get home I'll post the P/N with a photo. Most good Nils dealers should have this adapter available.
Go to your local HD and buy/try the drill of choice. If it meets your expectations your good.

[POINTERGUY]

Well I have nothing but great things I say about the Milwaukee fuel 18v hammer drill. My last outing on Saginaw bay I has the rigdid 18v hammer drill and was not able to drill a 8" hole through 22" of ice with out the drill shutting down a few times. As I type this I am sitting about 12 miles out on Saginaw bay. I have drilled six 8" holes through 24" of ice so far and have 2 of the 4 bars left on the battery. The Milwaukee drill never paused or slowed down as I drilled the holes. I drilled one after the other, 3 holes each move side by side. I should be able to get twelve 8" holes on each battery for a total of twenty four 8" holes and a total of over 400" on two batteries. To say I am happy would be an understatement. I made a video of me drilling one hole and will try to post it.
Here is a short video of the clam/milwaukee fuel 8" cordless drill auger in action today. Please disregard the date I stated, I got that mixed up..... lol

&feature=youtu.be

[Shack man Shoney]

Nice video Pointerguy I have the same set up in a 7" mora with a 15" extension. I managed 44 7" holes in 16" of ice this week(704 total inches!!!) and I cant say enough good about the Milwaukee fuel 18v. I have been thinking of trying a lazer or nils auger head to see if even more inches are possible. I'm curious if anyone else has tried those augers with the Milwaukee fuel 18v yet???

[Chi]

Well I have nothing but great things I say about the Milwaukee fuel 18v hammer drill. My last outing on Saginaw bay I has the rigdid 18v hammer drill and was not able to drill a 8" hole through 22" of ice with out the drill shutting down a few times. As I type this I am sitting about 12 miles out on Saginaw bay. I have drilled six 8" holes through 24" of ice so far and have 2 of the 4 bars left on the battery. The Milwaukee drill never paused or slowed down as I drilled the holes. I drilled one after the other, 3 holes each move side by side. I should be able to get twelve 8" holes on each battery for a total of twenty four 8" holes and a total of over 400" on two batteries. To say I am happy would be an understatement. I made a video of me drilling one hole and will try to post it.
Here is a short video of the clam/milwaukee fuel 8" cordless drill auger in action today. Please disregard the date I stated, I got that mixed up..... lol

&feature=youtu.be

POINTERGUY, Good job with all the testing  . Did you need an adapter to go from the Milwaukee to the Clam Drill Plate ?. I located three new Clam drill plates by chance recently, sold two and more than doubled my cost.  , putting the profit toward a Milwaukee. Off to fish Lake Erie today, Eastern Basin., looking for 11"-15" Perch.

[Pindrifter]

I have A lazer 6 inch  With The Fuel 18, Cuts like a dream, No problems.  Found my auger!

[POINTERGUY]

I have heard that the lazer augers are more aggressive cutting so I wouldn't think a 7 or 8" would do very well. The mora auger shave the ice and seem to work much better. As for the adapter for the milwaukee drill it just mounts up like any other drill. I do have an extension on the auger and used it in the video. With these results on a normal year with a foot of ice I could get around fifty 8" holes, which is much more that I have ever drilled on one outing while walleye fishing. IMO this setup is much cheaper than a ION auger and much lighter. I don't think I will ever own a gas auger again.

[BaitBucket]

IMO this setup is much cheaper than a ION auger and much lighter. I don't think I will ever own a gas auger again.

You can also pop the drill off for year round use.

My concern is how long the drill will hold up =/

[POINTERGUY]

One thing to keep in mind, every product has a life cycle and things are being designed today with a much shorter life cycle than in the past. I am willing to be the ion was designed to have, maybe a five year life cycle. Things are built like the old days.

[BaitBucket]

One thing to keep in mind, every product has a life cycle and things are being designed today with a much shorter life cycle than in the past. I am willing to be the ion was designed to have, maybe a five year life cycle. Things are built like the old days.

I could see that being the case if it got year round use. However is only sees a few months of use. It should last much longer than 5 year. Atleast it better if they want to compete with the gas/propane augers that people get decades out of.

[hamms]

I watched video on these and it is impressive. I know a couple guys running 5" mora and 6" lazer on this plate and in naifc and other tourneys . They troll the ice and that says a lot to me that they sold gas augers.

[POINTERGUY]

I got a good laugh last night on Saginaw bay. There was 9 of us and when we stopped to set up everyone was trying to start their gas augers and I broke out mine and popped five 8" holes trough about two foot if ice before they had one or two finished. One I the guys looks at me in disbelief and asked what I was using..... Lol the Milwaukee has yet to shut sown while drilling a hole....... It's a beast.....

[Doug.M]

I got my Clam Auger Adapter Plate in Dec 2013 first put it together with a Makita Drill I already had. Had about 500 inch pounds of torque with a 2 amp hour battery. I used a 4" synthetic auger, Perch setup. With this setup I would have no problem putting a 6" auger on.
 
Was not too happy with only being able to drill about 6-8 holes. Started doing a little research and learned that you need more Amp hr in your battery pack and more torque will help. So I went to Home Depot and compared the specs on the various drills. I found most good home drills had about 480 - 520 inch pounds of torque and most came with a 2 amp hr battery.
 
I found the Milwaukee 18v Fuel series drill to have 720 inch pounds of torque and came with 2 - 18v 4amp hr batteries cost $299. That was 50% more torque and a brushless motor and some smart tech stuff between the battery and the drill.

The results where unbelievable the first day i got about 60 plus holes chasing perch about 12-14 inches of ice, didn't even dip into the second battery. again I attribute this to a quality drill and synthetic auger 4". The battery has steady power thru out the discharge and no memory on the lithium battery. I drilled over 40 plus holes thu out the day and at the end I wanted to see what it would do and drilled another 17 holes consecutive before the battery died.

The down side to this is cost. I have about $500 into this but it is specific to my needs and the drill has dual purpose, I do suggest if anyone goes this route they will be very happy with the setup and people will want to borrow your auger. I would get the extension that CLAM sells for this product because if you put just your auger bit on it you will be starting off drilling your hole bent over.  They were not available when I bought mine and I made my own extension out of a  broken had auger I had.

Another thing....DO NOT GET THE BATTERY WET it will short out the electronics in the Battery. This happened to me brought it back to Home Depot and they took care of me.

[dangle]

Well I have nothing but great things I say about the Milwaukee fuel 18v hammer drill. My last outing on Saginaw bay I has the rigdid 18v hammer drill and was not able to drill a 8" hole through 22" of ice with out the drill shutting down a few times. As I type this I am sitting about 12 miles out on Saginaw bay. I have drilled six 8" holes through 24" of ice so far and have 2 of the 4 bars left on the battery. The Milwaukee drill never paused or slowed down as I drilled the holes. I drilled one after the other, 3 holes each move side by side. I should be able to get twelve 8" holes on each battery for a total of twenty four 8" holes and a total of over 400" on two batteries. To say I am happy would be an understatement. I made a video of me drilling one hole and will try to post it.
Here is a short video of the clam/milwaukee fuel 8" cordless drill auger in action today. Please disregard the date I stated, I got that mixed up..... lol

&feature=youtu.be

[dangle]

I agree with pointer using the Milwaukee 18v fuel drill, I purchased the clam adapter and 7"auger combo, and was very impressed with it's performance. I just came off the ice today, drilled 25 holes through 32" of ice, and on one battery and it was still strong. I posted before about using a dewalt 20v drill and the did ok the first time out on thinner ice, but never did well with it since. I too recommend the Milwaukee 18v fuel drill. awesome performance!
Thanks for the insight Pointer,

dangle

[nnelzon23]

18v Fuel drill new through a dealer on Ebay for 229. Refurb for 199.

[POINTERGUY]

I agree with pointer using the Milwaukee 18v fuel drill, I purchased the clam adapter and 7"auger combo, and was very impressed with it's performance. I just came off the ice today, drilled 25 holes through 32" of ice, and on one battery and it was still strong. I posted before about using a dewalt 20v drill and the did ok the first time out on thinner ice, but never did well with it since. I too recommend the Milwaukee 18v fuel drill. awesome performance!
Thanks for the insight Pointer,

dangle

Glad to help out,  I will never go back to a gas auger. This setup has worked great in these extreme ice conditions this year and will be even better in a normal season.