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First season spinning a 10" Nils with a Milwaukee and Clam Plate Adapater. Only put it to 6" of ice thus far. Drilled a few dozen holes only losing one light on the battery status. Quiet and lighter than my Jiffy. Time will tell.
Hows the torque on that setup?
Surprisingly not bad. Having no experiance spinning a auger with a cordless and only reading, I didn't think there would be any chance of this setup working. I reached out last season and got verdict from a NH guy that he successfully uses this setup although he did have some pitch taken off his cutting head. I went ahead and set it up. To my surprise it cuts like butter. No down pressure, let the cutting head do the work like a Nils is intended and no prob through 6" of good ice. Drill hasn't torqued out on me once. I think the worst part is when you stop it. The momentum of the 10" stopping instantly prob does the drill the worst harm. Only time and more ice will prove it a legitimate setup.
As mentioned in an earlier post ... I have the Octane and Nils set up...it's an ICE EATING MACHINE. Last Saturday I got to compare the Ion to the Octane setup. Admittedly it was not the best comparison since the Ion was 8 inch and Nils a 6 inch. Next week I will bolt and 8 inch auger on the Octane and try again. Non withstanding the auger size which will admittedly affect speed here are some observations:Weight ......... advantage Octane. It was about half the weightEase of use ... in terms of start stop,run .... equal. But the weight made the overall Octane experience betterSpeed .... advantage Octane ... almost 2:1 holes perHole shape and slush .....advantage ION ... uniform hole... little slush left behindEnergy consumption ... not able to do a compare since the batteries are different AMP hrsOther considerations:If you are a panfisherman ... advantage Octane/Nils because it is a lightweight, fast, flexible multipurpose machine, with Lifetime batteries and ability to swap auger bits to fit the situation. If you want a single purpose, stable, sturdy, smooth cutting auger built for carving a clean hole for your ice tackles and jigging .... ION at a 2X price point is for you.Full disclosure ... I am drill biased ... light weight and speed is my priority.However ... I realize ... opinions are like belly buttons ...we all have one .Drill away ...
Safety is a matter of operator experience. If your a dummy any drill augers can screw you up terribly. That said ive used the powerpoint and non powerpoint in 8"nills and no walking with either.
Agreed but try one with shaver blades and no centering point on glare ice. I'm comfortable using it but it is one of the trade offs. The Ion on the other hand doesn't have these concerns. Could even be the angle of my blades on my mora versus Ion.
Then 8" blades on my mora were sharpened last year. They dont walk at all and when they turn they cut great. Went to pick up my x5 brushless from lsa repairs today..last week it got a new chuck, this week a new clutch. Talked to him a bit about the issue with cut out and he offered to throw more parts at it..
I think you missed a few areas of comparison. Safety has to go to Ion. The speed and torque those drills put out can easily injure someone and if you don't have a Nils or a flight with a starting point then the shaver blades walk all over the ice. Consistency should also go to Ion. I know several people who have a drill that constantly cuts out, whether its over heating or the load sensor. I used my drill on LG last weekend and it worked perfectly. A month ago I used it at Onota and my buddy cut tens holes with my Ion before I got one cut with my drill.Energy consumption hands down goes to the drill. I've used up the juice in my battery with the Ion on several occasions. If the drill isn't cutting out I've yet to have it go down below 3 bars.Just figured I'd add my 2 cents. I've got both and typically drag both out with me bc they are light and people I bring typically don't have their own augers.
pmaloney nice adds...and yes I did miss the comparisons on safety and starting point. Agree advantage would go to ION. I am currently considering purchasing the Eskimo Pistol bit 8 inch to attached to my Octane. Fisherman love the light weight of the Pistol but comment on the lack of a center point. I may see if Eskimo listens to the feedback and adds a center point next year. Love my Nils but "shaving" more pounds off the auger is something I can "weight" for. Would you say the 8 inch Pistol with center point + Octane make it a best of breed choice for most applications.?
Dont want to pick on you Pat but the nils with and without the powerpoint both have shavers. Bigredonice has the cutting head without the powerpoint and I have one with it. Now to be fair, the one without the powerpoint can definitely walk if the blades aren't sharp but id imagine that has to be a constant thing across any brands with maybe some being a bit more prone that others?
surprising to hear, considering im still struggling turning a stupid 8" with 1300#
I ended up with a Fuel and using my 8" nils. Its rather obscene how well it works.
I bet that set up works great
I don't want to start a Chevy-Ford thing but if I were buying new, I most certainly would NOT buy a Mora. They are about the worst cutting augers out there and I think I have run just about all of them. The drill kind of makes up for the augers incompetence but it is working the drill much harder and you will get fewer holes and more batter drain. Also, if I was buying new, I would not buy a Nills. While they are a fine hand auger, they are much heavier than others and part of the drill/auger combo is light weight. Also the finicky, priority cutting head is harder to have sharpened. For weight and efficiency I would buy either a Fin-Bore or a Lazer. These both take the same blades that are readily available, are lighter than a Nills and cut much much better than a Mora. I would give the nod to the Fin-Bore only because the offset handle works better than the Lazer should you have to hand crank.