High: both DeWalts and Panasonic
The easiest ways to reduce vibration are to secure your work as firmly as possible and to use a lot of force to push the shoe of the saw against the material being cut. Another technique is to reduce your feed speed or motor speed. Often, you can find a sweet spot where the vibrations cancel each other out, and reducing your feed pressure usually keeps the blade from pushing back toward you with so much force.
HOW NOT TO EASE VIBRATION
The Panasonic saw has a feature that causes uncontrollable vibration. Instead of having a rigid shoe to hold firmly against the work surface, this saw actually has little springs inside that provide shock absorber–type suspension to the shoe. This means that whenever the blade teeth bite into the wood and pull back toward the saw, instead of pulling firmly against the shoe’s resistance to rip out the wood, the firmly anchored blade actually jerks the entire saw forward as the flex of the springs allows the shoe to move freely.
This action also makes it very difficult to slowly and carefully start cuts in wood or metal, because once the saw teeth get the slightest bite, the saw just bounces back and forth instead of moving the blade through the material.
Other than possibly replacing the springs with steel pins to negate this ill-conceived suspension design, there is no way around this excessive and needless vibration. Either you have to push forward incredibly hard in an attempt to bottom out the springs, or you must hold the tool back with the minimum amount of force against the shoe. Both ways, at times this saw will practically shake the earplugs out of your head.
ERGONOMICS
Besides vibration, a few other considerations affect the comfort of using these saws. The Metabo and Panasonic saws have a spring-loaded trigger lock-switch that must be pushed in before you pull the trigger. Pushing the switch in before every cut requires you to move your hand from its ideal grip position constantly, which causes grip strain and wastes time.
Another consideration is the shape of the top of the tool’s trigger handle. Tools with a rounded-over profile are much friendlier to your hand and easier to grip than those with a pronounced ridge above the handgrip. When I use a recip saw for extended periods, I push on the top of the tool with my left hand; saws with a ridged-top grip handle are uncomfortable and fatiguing. The Milwaukee and both DeWalt saws provide great examples of this grip surface done right.
ADJUSTABLE SHOES
Adjustable shoes allow you to control the saw’s cutting depth, which is important for plunge-cutting safely into walls, floors, ceilings, or roofs. But just as important, an adjustable shoe allows you to use all the teeth on a blade. When one section of a blade’s teeth get dull, you can adjust the depth of cut and then use a previously unused section with sharp teeth.
This isn’t just a matter of blade economy in dollars and cents, but truly an underused timesaver on the job. When making repetitive cuts, the same teeth are being used (and dulled) constantly, but by moving the blade so that even just a few fresh teeth are put into action, cutting times and therefore practical blade life can improve dramatically.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The overall winner is the Milwaukee Fuel model. It cut the fastest, ran the longest, and managed vibration better than the other heavy-duty saws. It features a sturdy adjustable shoe, a quick-acting blade clamp, a useful hanging hook, and LED headlight.
The second-place tools are the Milwaukee and 20V Max DeWalt saws—both strong and capable where it counts in performance. The Milwaukee lacks an adjustable shoe, but the DeWalt has much more vibration, so their exact placement is a toss-up.
Like its brandmate, the DC5385L DeWalt is a strong performer, but it misses the mark with its low runtime.
Next in order come Bosch and Hitachi—both quality saws that work diligently but more slowly than the top-tier saws. The Metabo saw follows. And low or troublesome performance issues have the Makita, Panasonic, and Ridgid trailing the others.
