Bosch drills: DRE or DFR

[Fred]

Hi,

Is it worth paying extra for the changeable chucks on the DFR or should I save money and buy the DRE? I think I''d only use the DFR for masonry, i.e. sds bits, and anything else would go in my cordless. Would I ever need to change chucks?

TIA

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Might be worth it if out on a job and only want to carry one drill - but otherwise no. SDS drills tend to be rather unwieldy compared to an ordinary one - and don't have the best speeds for GP drilling. I do have a clip in ordinary chuck for my DeWalt SDS - and that also slops around rather too much.

[dom]

I've got a GBH2-26DFR - tens years old now, and a brilliant tool.

I don't use the 3-jaw chuck very often, but for some things - like hole cutters in heavy timbers and larger (10mm+) holes in steel - it's brilliant.

I now have a DeWalt high torque drill, so the bosch interchangable chuck will come out less frequently now - but before I bought this, the bosch was my tool of choice when I needed something that wouldn't easily stall under load. Far, far more torque than my bosch 14v combi.

I *can* stall the bosch GBH under load, but not that easily. The Dewalt high torque drill would tug my arms out of my shoulders first (and requires some forethought where that could happen).

If you can afford/justify a separate high torque drill, buy that. If not, get the extra chuck.

[dom]

Not a problem with the DFR - the sds chuck comes off, and the 3 jaw goes on in it's place - my 10 year old and heavily used bosch shows not the slightest wear or looseness in this area.