Drill bit sets, what type?

Here's my take on the subject. First off if you're doing any drilling and tapping you'll find you need fractional, letters, and numbers. To that end I would consider a set that contains all the above. Secondly I would stick with jobber length, either HSS or Cobalt with either bright finish or black oxide coating.

It's certainly less expensive up front to buy drills one at a time as needed, but I think you'll find by the time you acquire all the drills needed a complete set will cost far less. I would stick with known quality brands like Morse, Triumph, Chicago Latrobe, Union Butterfield, Rocky Mountain Twist Drill, Toledo, Nachi, Cleveland, and Norseman. If you notice all but Nachi are well established brands made in the USA.

Drill Hog is a broker rather than a manufacturer. They are incorporated off shore, and have "locations" in North Dakota and California. I've done considerable research on them, and as far as I can tell the "locations" are merely sales outlets. Being a broker they buy product from a number of sources. One day they may be selling drills made by Chicago Latrobe under their brand name, and the next day they might be the floor sweepings from some unnamed sweat shop in China. You could end up with top of the line drills or the worst ones ever made. It's simply the luck of the draw.

Good quality drills will last a lifetime if treated properly. Many of mine are 40+ years old, and still perform well. Just remember Benjamin Franklins quote "The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten."
 
I started out with a low cost 115pc set of import drills from Enco, before they became MSC. Want to say they cost me $100. About 20% were bent beyond the point of making a nice hole, and maybe another 20% didn't cut well due to a poor grind. But it got me started when I couldn't justify $300 for a nicer set.

As I've used them over the years, several have broken. I have started replacing the broken ones with higher quality tools. My preference has been to buy the bright finish ground drills from Shars. They come in minimum quantities of 5 or 10 depending on size so I always have spares of my commonly used/broken drills.

Amusingly however, I don't think I've ever broken a higher quality drill. So maybe a full set of nice ones pays off.
 
We have 2 of the large sets bought on sale, drawers full of others picked up at estate sales.

Get a basic set for starters and keep your eyes open as deals come along.

Need something for a "planned project", buy best quality you can reasonably afford.

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I also started with the cheap HF 115 set, They are fine for mild steel or softer materials. They wear out real fast on anything harder, As I need replacements I bought good name brand drills. I have since lucked out and scored a drill storage rack from a machine shop auction, It came stocked with 5 to 40 of every size in fraction number and letter, all name brand stuff. Now when a size runs out I buy a full package of that size in name brand to have in stock.

If I were starting over, I would follow the same path.
 
I know this type of storage is not for everyone, but man it sure works well for me. So easy to pull open a drawer and get the drill bit you need. No fighting those indexes that you have to fold open.
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I wish I had the counter space for that setup!
 
I have one of those and like it a lot. Only downside is longer bits don't fit. @NCjeeper , how do you deal with that?
 
I started with a 29-pc. HF HSS set around 35 years ago. Come to think of it, probably more like a couple of 1/16" - 1/4" set from Sears. Bought a HF TiN-coated 115 pc. set that I thought was okay until I started using some good drill bits. I have 115 pc. USA-made sets at both of my lathes, and two at the drill press. I have 29-pc. and 60-pc. Norseman's at my Bridgeport/Jet mills and another pair at the Tormach. As NCjeeper mentioned above, those Huot organizers are very nice for grabbing the one you need. Here's how mine are organized. I have Starrett and General letter, number and fractional gauges on the same shelf. The green case above the fractionals are some cheap Kawasaki fractionals, red case is LH drills, grey case are metrics, black case is a small hole saw kit from Bailey or something like that.

There's some good advise above about buying a quality set and pick up others as you find deals. The HF $100 115-pc. cobalt set will last you for many years. I had a project for my wife drilling holes in some pretty tough stainless, had to sharpen the cheap drill bits after each hole. Never will worry about that again as they hit the trash. The Norseman bits easily did 20+ holes before needing a touch up.

Bruce

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