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Loading...A drill is the one power tool almost everyone owns, and a whole industry of $9-to-$95 attachments promises to turn it into everything else — circular saw, reciprocating saw, chainsaw, rivet gun, water pump, post-hole auger, pipe cutter. Eighteen of them went head to head against the real tools they claim to replace, timed on the same cuts and jobs.
The results split cleanly into three piles: attachments that genuinely earn a spot in the toolbox, cheap novelties that merely disappoint, and a few — the vegetation cutter above all — that are outright dangerous to run.
Best Performance
Fastest standout cutting attachment
Purchased for: $95
Made In: China
Excellent performance. Made very fast, smooth, and straight cuts on multiple PVC sizes. One of the strongest performers in this comparison.
Made consistently smooth and straight cuts on several PVC sizes in roughly 2-3 seconds.
Best Value
Shockingly capable for the money
Purchased for: $18
Made In: China
Surprisingly strong performer for the price. Fast on 2x4s and even did well on hardwood. Good option for very light-duty cleanup.
At only $18, it beat the $170 compact comparison saw on several wood-cutting tests.
Runner-up
Simple but extremely practical
Purchased for: $20
Made In: China
Simple and very effective. Worked well on rope, standard straps, and a 4-inch-wide strap. Definitely worth the money.
One of the least flashy tools, yet it worked exactly as intended on rope and wide straps.
| Name | Purchased for ($) | Purchased for, Per Piece ($) | Link | Made In | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetation Cutter | $17.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Very sketchy and dangerous. The attachment came loose, a fastener went missing, and the blades were thin and likely to bend or break. Not recommended. | |||||
| Circular Saw Attachment | $28.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Took 5-10 minutes to assemble, has no blade guard, and lacked proper blade centering. Cuts were slow, rough, and not straight. Not recommended. | |||||
| Reciprocating Saw Attachment | $11.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Blade fell out multiple times during wood cutting, then the internal plastic gears shattered while cutting metal. Not recommended. | |||||
| DeWalt Impact Connect PVC/PEX Cutter | $95.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Excellent performance. Made very fast, smooth, and straight cuts on multiple PVC sizes. One of the strongest performers in this comparison. | |||||
| Chainsaw Attachment | $18.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Surprisingly strong performer for the price. Fast on 2x4s and even did well on hardwood. Good option for very light-duty cleanup. | |||||
| Rivet Gun Adapter Kit | $15.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Installed rivets quickly, but spent mandrels were difficult to remove and often required disassembly or pliers. Performance was decent, design was poor. | |||||
| Universal Socket Adapter | $9.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Seemed gimmicky, but performed better than expected and handled high torque. A few pins got stuck, yet it still survived testing. | |||||
| DeWalt Metal Shear | $56.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | Taiwan | |
Cut aluminum easily and handled 18-gauge steel with slow but steady progress. A solid value for sheet-metal cutting. | |||||
| Strap Winder | $20.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Simple and very effective. Worked well on rope, standard straps, and a 4-inch-wide strap. Definitely worth the money. | |||||
| Auger Set | $20.00 | $10.00 | Search on Amazon | China | |
Both augers worked better than expected. Good for soft ground and useful for post holes and similar jobs. Best used with a low-speed drill, clutch, and side handle. | |||||
| DeWalt Copper Pipe Cutter | $55.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Very quick and clean copper cuts in under 3 seconds. Left a smooth, straight finish with only a very small inner burr. | |||||
| Wire Brush Set | $10.00 | $1.00 | Search on Amazon | China | |
Budget-friendly rust removal set. Not premium, but it cleaned rust well and held together without shedding badly. | |||||
| Flexible Drill Bit Extension Kit | $14.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
The flexible shaft worked well when supported, but the included right-angle adapter failed catastrophically due to very soft gears. | |||||
| Deburring Tool | $19.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | Taiwan | |
Performed very well on copper, PVC, steel pipe, and even on a sharp AR500 hole edge. A strong value under $20. | |||||
| External Deburring Chamfer Tool | $17.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Removed external burrs quickly and effectively from steel pipe and bolt ends. Carbide edges held up well. | |||||
| Water Transfer Pump | $14.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Included suction hose collapsed and was poor quality, but the pump worked well once a better hose was used. | |||||
| Drum Sander | $10.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Did a good job reshaping wood and removing a steel edge. Sanding sleeves cost extra, but the tool itself performed well. | |||||
| Drill Brush Attachment Set | $9.00 | $ | Search on Amazon | China | |
Worked well for scrubbing and cleaning, especially on the dirty truck tire. Good low-cost cleaning attachment. | |||||
Lower is better
Prices are approximate purchase prices at the time of testing. Hidden control tools were used only for comparison and should not be treated as reviewed drill attachments.
Lower is better
Observed time to complete the demonstrated cut. Lower is better. The drill-powered circular saw attachment was dramatically slower and produced a rougher cut.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full-Size Circular Saw | 1.40 |
| 2 | Circular Saw Attachment | 11 |
Lower is better
Best completed times. Lower is better. The attachment suffered repeated blade issues before finally finishing.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full-Size Reciprocating Saw | 3.60 |
| 2 | Reciprocating Saw Attachment | 64 |
Lower is better
Best observed times. Lower is better. The drill-powered chainsaw attachment was surprisingly competitive for its price.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Compact Makita Chainsaw | 1.30 |
| 2 | Chainsaw Attachment | 3.34 |
| 3 | Compact $170 Chainsaw | 4.79 |
Lower is better
Observed cut times on Osage orange hardwood. Lower is better. The attachment again delivered unexpectedly strong performance.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chainsaw Attachment | 11 |
| 2 | Compact $170 Chainsaw | 18 |
Lower is better
Lower is better. The adapter set rivets much faster than the manual tool, but mandrel removal was a major design problem.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rivet Gun Adapter Kit | 1.50 |
| 2 | Manual Rivet Gun | 4 |
Lower is better
Lower is better. The drill-powered transfer pump was faster than the dedicated pump once the weak stock suction hose was replaced.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Water Transfer Pump | 34 |
| 2 | 1/10 HP Dedicated Water Pump | 40 |
Higher is better
Higher is better. Despite looking gimmicky, the universal socket survived a surprisingly high-torque test.
| Rank | Product | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Universal Socket Adapter | 533 |
The buy list is short but real. The DeWalt Impact Connect PVC/PEX cutter is the standout — smooth, straight, 2-to-3-second cuts across every pipe size up to its 2-inch rating — and its sibling copper pipe cutter is just as convincing. The $18 chainsaw attachment is the shock of the comparison, out-cutting a $170 compact chainsaw on both 2x4s and hardwood; for light-duty cleanup it's absurd value. The strap winder, auger set, DeWalt metal shear, deburring tools, drum sander, drill brush set, and wire brush set all do what they claim for reasonable money. Even the universal socket adapter — a gimmick on paper — survived 533 in-lb of impact-driver torque.
The avoid list is where the money-saving dream dies. The vegetation cutter is the most dangerous attachment tested here: it shed its blades and a fastener mid-run at ankle height. The circular saw attachment has no blade guard, no way to center its blade, and took eight times longer than a real circular saw to make a worse cut. The reciprocating saw attachment dropped its blade repeatedly, then shattered its plastic gears on a bolt a real saw cut in 6.8 seconds. The rivet gun sets rivets quickly but traps every spent mandrel, and the flexible-extension kit's right-angle adapter ground its soft gears to pieces on one lag bolt.
The pattern is consistent: attachments that transmit the drill's rotation directly — cutters, brushes, augers, winders — work, often brilliantly. Attachments that convert rotation into a different motion through cheap internal gearing fail, sometimes destructively. Spend where the mechanism is simple, and buy the real tool where it isn't.