Best Drill Bits of 2026

Twenty-one bits, running from 1/16 inch up to 1/2 inch, is the first reason this is the set we point most people toward. The second is the pilot point: the tip starts cutting on contact instead of skating, so on pine, plywood, and most plastic you can skip the center punch and go straight to the hole. Anchors, cable, pilot holes, and bolt clearance all sit inside that range.

Of everything here, this covers the widest spread of household work without asking you to think about it. We chucked these into pine, plywood, plastic, and mild steel, and what stood out is how little technique they demand — keep the drill straight and the hole arrives. The titanium nitride coating is a wear treatment rather than a speed trick, and the tapered web behind the point is what DEWALT credits for the bits holding together instead of snapping.

Where a set like this has bad days is in the smallest sizes. The 1/16 and 5/64 bits are thin steel, and thin steel can snap in sheet metal when you lean on the drill. Buy the individual sizes as they go, which DEWALT sells, and keep the drill slow and square in metal; the point and the coating are doing the real work, not your body weight.

Spin-out is the failure nobody warns you about: the bit grabs, the chuck slips, and the shank comes out chewed. This set's three-flat shanks, on every size above 3/16 inch, are why we rate it the best value here. The flats give the jaws something to bite, so the bit turns with the chuck instead of inside it.

The rest of the package is unfussy in the way that matters: high-speed steel with a black-and-gold coating, a 135-degree split point that keeps the bit from wandering when you start a hole in metal, and 14 pieces running up to 1/2 inch. That is fewer sizes than the 21-piece top pick, so you may find yourself buying a single when a job calls for something in between, and a punch mark still helps on smooth steel, where the split point only does so much.

What we did not expect at this end of the range is how well the bits hold their edge in metal — this is the set we reach for when we do not want to think about the good bits. It is also the set that belongs in a second toolbox or a first apartment: enough range for furniture, anchors, and cable, without paying for capability nobody there is going to use.

Stainless is where drill bits go to die. It work-hardens under a dull edge and the heat pulls the temper out of ordinary high-speed steel, which is why the cobalt question comes up the moment somebody needs a hole in a sink, a bracket, or a rusted exhaust bolt. Bosch builds this set for that job: M42 steel with 8% cobalt, which holds its hardness at temperatures that would soften a standard bit.

The pack-out tells you Bosch knows where sets fail. The small sizes — 1/16, 5/64, 1/8, 3/16, and 1/4 inch — all appear twice, so the bits most likely to snap or blunt in metal have a spare sitting in the same case. Every bit carries a three-flat shank, and the sizes are easy to put your hand on without reading glasses.

It is the most capable metal set here, and it is priced like one. Cobalt buys margin rather than immunity: we run these slow and wet in stainless, and the bits that dulled soonest are the ones pushed fast and dry. Treat it as a hard-metal bit that will also drill wood, not the other way round.

Where it does not earn its keep is a woodworking shop or a general household set. Nothing here drills pine or plywood more cleanly than the top pick, and you would be paying for heat resistance that never gets used. The case is good and the sizes are clear; the argument for buying it is the material on the other side of the chuck.

We kept this set beside a quick-change chuck and stopped swapping bits by hand. The 1/4-inch hex shank clicks in and out of a quick-release holder in a second, and on a job that walks from pilot hole to clearance hole to one size up, that is the difference between working and fiddling.

Fourteen bits, 1/16 inch to 1/2 inch, titanium nitride coated, all with a 135-degree split point for a start that does not wander. Makita's claim that the coating lasts 2.5 times longer than uncoated bits is the manufacturer's figure and not something we measured; what we can say is that the coating is doing the same job here as on the DEWALT sets, and the hex seats without wobble in a quick-release holder.

The catch is the chuck. In a keyed three-jaw chuck the hex shank buys you nothing — you are still tightening jaws, and the flats give them less to grip than a round shank would. If your drill has a standard chuck, the DEWALT DWA1184 does the same work for less and holds better; if you live on a quick-change holder or an impact driver, this is the set that makes sense.

Cheapest here, and shaped like a proper set: 14 gold-oxide bits from 1/16 inch to 1/2 inch with a split point, in a case that keeps them indexed instead of rattling around a drawer. For a spare toolbox, a first apartment, or a garage where the drilling is mostly pine and PVC, that is a sensible place to start.

We like it for what it honestly is — a wood-and-plastic set at the bottom of the price range — and we do not expect it to be more than that. The size markings are clear, the lid keeps everything where you left it, and for hanging shelves, running cable, and building a plywood box it does what a set costing several times as much would do.

What you get for the money is the full span, including the 1/2-inch bit that most cheap kits leave out and that people usually end up buying on its own. That single bit is the reason this set is worth a place in the garage rather than a bigger box with more duplicates of sizes you already have.

Twelve identical 1/4-inch bits looks like an odd purchase until you have snapped your third one mid-job. This is a refill pack rather than a first set: cobalt jobber bits, 4 inches overall with a 2-3/4-inch flute, each with a 135-degree split point and a three-flat shank.

The steel is M35 with 5% cobalt, and the property that matters is hardness running uniformly through the bit rather than only at the tip, which is what lets you take a dull one back to a grinder and bring the point back instead of throwing it away. We ran one through a length of mild steel and it held its line, and the three-flat shank did its job in a keyed chuck without the spin a round shank gives you.

What it is not is a replacement for a set, and it is priced like the specialist item it is. What it is: the answer for somebody drilling brackets, hinges, and pilot holes in steel all afternoon, where 1/4 inch does most of the work and is the size that keeps disappearing into the swarf. Buy it alongside a set, not instead of one.