These Phillips screwdrivers SUCK!

[wdfifteen]

Milwaukee is a good name, but these driver bits are terrible. They cam out and tear up the heads of just about anything I use them on. I've tried them with drywall screws, deck screws, general purpose screws, - forget about brass screws.
They are clearly marked #2 Phillips, so it's not because they are JIS or something weird. I don't know if there is something about being extra hard and extra strong that makes them suck so bad. They claim to have a custom machined tip, whatever that means. Whatever it is, they work equally poorly with a straight drill or an impact.
I don't recommend that you buy them if you ever come across them.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Maybe they were made for straightslot screws?

[RANDY P]

Looks like it was machined at too steep of an angle- they LOOK like they would cam out.

When Bosch is on the shelf I buy those, and Makita brand.

The others all seem to suck.

rjp

[flipper35]

Milwaukee USED to make good stuff. Now days you can get better for less money. I have a MW Sawzall that needs a new switch but I haven't bothered because I have a battery powered one that works just as well and was half the price of the corded one.

The local body shop stopped using Milwaukee stuff a long time ago.

I also have a Snap-On click style torque wrench that is broken and they wont fix it, even if I paid them. Since I use it for wheels I bought one at Harbor Freight. I use the old style dial for engine work, but it probably doesn't make that much difference for what I do.

[911 Rod]

The Canadians invented a screw called the Robertson.
Try it. You might like it.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by 911 Rod

The Canadians invented a screw called the Robertson.
Try it. You might like it.

[Jeff Higgins]

I have noticed more and more so lately that hardware store tools in general have declined in quality. Screw drivers and screw driver bits in particular. These are very critical regarding their geometry - any slight deviation from standards results in slippage and ruined screws.

I've discovered a solution through my favorite hobby, vintage firearms. I started grabbing my gunsmith screwdriver set more and more on my way out to the garage, to where I finally knuckled under and bought gunsmith quality screwdrivers for the garage. I have found, without fail, that they have the proper grinds on them. Mind you, I still have dozens of old Craftsmen, Snap-On, and the like, but most came from my dad and are older than I am. It's just the new stuff that seems to have lost it.

So, maybe try that - I shop at Midway.com for this kind of stuff, but there are plenty of other sites. There are a pretty broad variety of sets available.

[1990C4S]

Switch to Torx. That seems to be the new standard for bigger screws.

[masraum]

I thought the whole point of a phillips head is that they do cam out so you don't break the screw?

I've had really good luck with tips with ridges...



Something I found online.

The widely popular Phillips head attempts to solve this problem by only tolerating a certain amount of circular torque before camming. I find this particularly annoying, as it’s a major pain to try to remove an older Phillips from a door frame/motorcycle/toy. I usually end up stripping the head and making it nearly unusable. Phillips II has non-magnetic stick ‘ridges’ that reduce camming out. Another variation on the Phillips is PoziDrive. It has secondary “Vs” that give more points for the screwdriver to grab as is twisting. There are tons of variations on this, but they all work similarly.

[svandamme]

Phillips screw drivers are supposed to cam out, by design..
to prevent overtightening aluminium fasteners.

It's even in the patent.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US2474994A/en

"ost power screw-drivers are provided with a slipping clutch which may be adjusted to begin slipping before the driving torque is great enough to break the screw or to ream the recess, but unfortunately these clutches are subject to a number of variables so that they cannot always be given or maintain an exact setting. It is the tendency of the operators to set them to slip at too great a torque rather than too little to be sure of driving all screws completely home. The small amount of throw-out retained in the present combination of recess and driver bit is proper to overcome the difliculties explained at the beginning of this specification. Thus there is sufiicient throw-out effort to force the driver clear of the screw recess on the application of excessive driving torque and thereby prevent reaming or marring of the recess and any damage to the driver blade."

If you wanna apply torque, you should get Pozidriv instead. Not Phillips.
Or Phillips II which is designed not to cam out

[Jeff Higgins]

Cam out on the way in, not on the way out. The former is great and, as mentioned, by design. The latter sucks and is not by design, it's just poor quality.

[svandamme]

torqueing
reach torque
cam out


Why would torque work different if you are screwing out a screw that's in tight past the spec?
Phillips is not an asymmetrical profile

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by svandamme

torqueing
reach torque
cam out


Why would torque work different if you are screwing out a screw that's in tight past the spec?
Phillips is not an asymmetrical profile

Screws get stuck over time due to rust, galvanic corrosion, etc. Even just initial stiction trying to start to back out a clean screw that is seated and not yet corroded will be more than the steady torque used to install it. It's important to be able to apply more torque to remove them than was used to install them.

[look 171]

A lot of the screw driver tips are designed for drywall or bugle head screws sold at big box stores. The angle is a tiny bit steeper then your general sheet metal screw heads. We switched to square drive some time ago. Then there Pozi drive heads. I see people try with a Pozi drive driver on a regular Phillips head and it cams out within the first 1/4 turn.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Screws get stuck over time due to rust, galvanic corrosion, etc. Even just initial stiction trying to start to back out a clean screw that is seated and not yet corroded will be more than the steady torque used to install it. It's important to be able to apply more torque to remove them than was used to install them.

Then obviously a Phillips is the wrong bit for that.

Phillips 2 with ACR is the one you need

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by masraum

I thought the whole point of a phillips head is that they do cam out so you don't break the screw?.

They were supposed to limit torque when assembling aluminum aircraft. But i’ve set thousands of Phillips screws of all kinds and sizes with many makes of Phillips bits in a portable drill. Most of the screws at Loews and HD have Phillips heads. I’ve never had problems like I have with these.
I don’t mind them popping out at a torque that will actually drive the screw in. I have had many, many Phillips head drivers that would drive a 2” #8 deck screw into pressure treated #2 pine far enough to bury the head. I’ve given up on using these Milwaukee bits for anything that big. They just strip out the heads.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

The problem with these is the angle of each blade is too small. I've had similar bits. Grinding down the tip helps a little.

[javadog]

Maybe it's not so much the screwdrivers you're using, as the screws you are are trying to drive.

There are much better screws available, anything that requires any force I wouldn't even consider using a Phillips head screw, some of the drivers are also vastly better than others.

Use a pozidriv drive, or, better yet, a torx screw. By quality screws, not the cheapest ones you can fine. Install them with a cordless driver that has a little bit of a hammering function.

[masraum]

Interesting, I've learned some things today.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen "pozi" screws, but wasn't aware of the difference.
I've got Phillips II bits, but didn't know that's what they were called.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by javadog

Maybe it's not so much the screwdrivers you're using, as the screws you are are trying to drive.

Yeah, the guys who built my house should have used different screws so I could remove them with genuine Milwaukee screwdrivers.
And all the thousands of screws I’ve bought over the years are defective, as are the screws they include in the door seal kits and the lock sets I’ve installed recently, as well all the screwdrivers I have that DO work. They’re all defective and this one brand of screwdriver is the gold standard.