Ask anyone who drills into concrete for a living and you’ll find that users of rotary hammers are clamoring for SDS-Plus cordless solutions. You try hauling a typical SDS-Plus hammer around all day! Think about how nice it would be to shave off a pound or so while you’re drilling. Since around 80% of concrete drilling applications use a 1/2″ bit or smaller, Milwaukee’s new M12 Rotary Hammer (2412-22XC) is going to turn a lot of heads… and concrete bits.
We put our hands on the Milwaukee 2412 M12 hammer drill at a press event. We immediately felt this tool seemed a perfect match for nearly all of the electricians we personally know. We started planning to get one in for review as soon as possible. We weren’t looking forward to deciding who would get to help us do some “field testing” with the new tool.
Milwaukee M12 Rotary Hammer Features
The Milwaukee M12 Rotary Hammer looks like a truly compact SDS-Plus rotary hammer, except that it’s only 9″ long and weighs less than 4 lbs. This compact model is made even more unusual by the fact that, instead of the expected M18 battery, the tool uses the M18 XC pack. In internal testing, it will drill up to 60 1/4″ holes in a single charge using that M12 XC battery pack. That’s pretty impressive as far as performance and battery life are concerned, but what really impressed us was the speed and agility of the tool. You can easily hold it in one hand while drilling and the fatigue factor was lowered considerably.
The Milwaukee M12 Rotary Hammer has all the rubber overmold you’d expect and was comfortable to use in our limited testing. Forward and reverse drilling are made possible by a sliding thumb switch and the variable speed trigger control did well to allow us to finesse bits as needed. A left-mounted dial allows you to switch between rotary hammer and drill-only modes. There is no chipping mode, which we would expect given the design goals of this tool.
We used it to drill through some cinderblock and found the Milwaukee M12 Rotary Hammer to be very quick and easy to handle. The SDS-Plus bit worked as expected and bit changes were simple and quick. This is a tool that should be in high demand from general construction and repair workers as well as electricians, plumbers and even HVAC installers.
The Milwaukee M12 Rotary Hammer runs for around $275. Pick it up at Acme Tools or anywhere Milwaukee Tools are sold.
