DeWalt's All New DCF850 Tiny Impact Driver Dyno'd vs Milwaukee & Makita XGT Ep60

Welcome back to the Torque Test Channel. This week, DeWalt released their all-new DCF850B itty-bitty impact driver, and while there's been plenty of DeWalt suitcases circling around YouTube with these things in it, which we think is great, more data is more better we always say, we thought you might want to see how one we bought from the old Home Depot performs on our dyno versus the trusty Milwaukee Gen 3 and another newcomer to the channel, the Makita XGT40V impact driver. So strap in, plenty of surprises and disappointments on today's episode. You're of course looking at the DeWalt kit right now, this is the DCF850P1, which comes with a 5Ah battery and charger. That's because it has been so far the only way to purchase the new DeWalt model, which means we forked over 200 big ones for the pleasure. Even when sold bare, these will go for $150, which is still quite some cheddar. To save some scrap, you could buy bulbous bumblebee bygone models from many years past at the same 1825 lbs this 850 is advertising for less coin, $125 for the 887 model, or even $90 for the 809 if you're willing to step down to 1700 lbs. But that 1825 lbs, or about 152 ft lbs, is not the main trick up this tool's sleeve as you've probably noticed. While the seemingly ancient equivalent power model 887 comes in at 5.9 inches long, near mid-torque category length nowadays, this new 850 is only 3.97 inches long, making it noticeably shorter, even next to the 4.6 inch Milwaukee Gen 3, which most feel is sort of the standard for a compact driver in the market. The Milwaukee does advertise 167 ft lbs, but a 17 ft lb difference can't always be felt, but this size difference can be seen here clearly. In order to include another high-dollar, similar-specced contender into the bunch, we decided to include the latest from Makita, which is their 40V XGT GDT-01Z. This one in particular was loaned to us thanks to YouTuber MasteringMayhem, who always finds crazy deals in tool leaks, check them out below. This formidable 40V foe advertises 1950 lbs, or 163 ft lbs, similar to the Milwaukee, 4.7 inches in length, also similar to the Milwaukee, but it's price is more similar to the so-far priced DeWalt, but taking it up a notch further, the GDT-01Z sells for $209. For an impact driver, that's more than our new kit costs. The last XGT tool we tested, their all-new 3.25-inch impact was about as impressive as anything cordless we've gotten our hands on to date, but that was a ground-up 40V effort. This driver appears to us to be sort of their existing LXC 18V model, with new wiring for higher voltage. We'll have to see how it stacks up today, one thing's for sure, though between the specs and size of the Milwaukee Makita, and the voltage and asking price of the XGT vs. DeWalt, the new Atomic 850B has it's work cut out for it to stand up in this group. To maybe shake some things up, we'll also be throwing in a 4Ah compact battery with 21700 cells from DeWalt that we purchased, not as part of it's points in it's ranking since it doesn't come with one, but we're curious to see how it will do. The Makita XGT has more modes and options than a cheesecake factory menu, which considering impact drivers are not always just about the beans we seem to focus on, it's probably a good thing. And while being an all new Atomic offering, like the 921 compact wrench we just tested and liked a whole lot, that had some new options and some nice new button selectors as well. The 850B has the classic 3 speed toggle selection you're used to finding from DeWalt, and a new progressive trigger too, but it may be lacking some of those extras compared to it's contemporaries especially in this price range. Luckily when it comes to those settings, we can leave that to the more qualified 4x4 punishing channels out there, today we want to know about those beans. Does micro atomic level mean ditto for power? Our first test is called Working Torque, brands traditionally hit their torque claims in this first test believe it or not, let's see how they stack up in order of price sold bare. Here's first the M18, 167 foot pounds, or the 2000 inch pounds it advertises. Now for the all new this week DeWalt 850B Atomic, 141 foot pounds, ok a bit lower but also close to it's torque claim already, looking good so far for it's size. Now for the Makita XGT impact driver, do impact drivers even need 40 volts for their tiny brushless motors? 114, that's no typo, 114 foot pounds, 3 tests none of them were over 120 here. This tool was supposed to be about Milwaukee Gen 3 performance, but so far isn't DeWalt itty bitty level performance. Here's hoping reverse, the least useful direction for impact drivers, shakes things up. Here's how the M18 liked our max reverse test, 181 picking up a good amount of torque over the first test, but also leveling off towards the end. Now here's the DeWalt DCF850B, 167, not bad, surpassing it's torque claim now by quite a bit and still coming in strong towards the end, something we do not see very often on tools getting smaller and smaller. Now we have the 40 volt Makita, was that working torque test just a fluke? Let's see, 140 foot pounds, so far it just seems like this one is having a hard time bringing those beans. What has brought the beans on this channel in the past time and time again is 21700 size cells, which can be found in the DCB240 battery we've purchased. While it's not cutting down in size everywhere, the battery does stick out more, it certainly does in overall height and weight. But power too? Let's see, here's the 4Ah compact vs the 5Ah XR battery, 164 from 167, I'd say that's identical in real life. Good to know though, you can lug around less weight and still be packing the same power. When we tested the 4Ah standard XR battery on the DeWalt High Torque, it did not love that one, so we think this is sort of the best of both worlds. We saw the same sort of relationship between a Milwaukee CP3.0 and XC5.0, same beans, smaller profile. On to our last test though, which is max forward, also 10 seconds, and the last shot at the belt for the DeWalt and redemption for the higher voltage, higher dollar Makita. We're jumping into that DeWalt vs Milwaukee on screen right away, 177 vs 188 with some not small gaps on the curve admittedly, but both of these tools are hugely impressive. Now for that Makita, let's see some 40V fortitude, 131 and talk about leveling off. We're not left feeling bummed though, that DeWalt, which admittedly should make less than a Milwaukee, it said 17 ft lbs less, making around 10 ft lbs less. We thought XGT would be the modern Makita offering to put a hurt on this category, but the Japanese Makita driver we tested previously may have been a better contender. Let's see that here with both of these tools best runs. That Japanese driver just makes more power with 18V than it's 40V US cousin. We tested and retested that XGT over and over and came up with the same results every time. On to the rank chart though to really see how they stack up. Starting below the Milwaukee for now, their power runs are divided by 5 on our drivers chart. That's 28, 33, and 35 for the all new DeWalt, and 23, 26, and 28 for the 40V Makita. The DeWalt is smaller and made more beans, so this is going to be a bloodbath, 44.3 ft lbs per inch and 29.8. The DeWalt beating out the Milwaukee per inch, which traditionally gets less efficient with smaller size, not the other way around like we're seeing here. The DeWalt gets max 100% here for it's torque claim and the Makita, a rare exception in this category, 86% or 86 points. The lowest you can find these two bare tools for comes in at $150 and $200, that's 9.4 and 5.6 points, neither of them super cost effective right now. That totals 249.7 and 198.4, putting the Makita among the Bosch freaks, which is not great company to keep, and the DeWalt moves up into third, above the Makita from Japan, which is very impressive. Our channel and this rank list weighs heavily on the ft lbs these tools make, because we want to show you the power these power tools make vs their claims. That's not always the most important thing, especially for impact drivers, but that Makita, it's really making low enough to be a standout for all the wrong reasons if you ask us. So far on this channel, Makita has been absolutely busting up the rank charts, taking the top spot in mid torques, and compact cordless for bringing sort of bigger but beefier versions in those categories, and the 40v xgt 3.25 brought all the beans and then some, while being the smallest of anything that compares to it power wise. Those ft lbs per inch are probably the highest anywhere for anything you're going to find. So there's possibly one of two things going on here, one, Makita's ground up designed 40v max tools that are made for xgt may be standouts, while their lxt 18v tools that were sort of converted to 40v but otherwise unchanged might be less impressive. The second theory is that as you make a tool smaller, despite 40v architecture maybe lending itself to being smaller, having double the bolts available diminishes as an advantage down to zero on smaller tools that maybe don't need all of that current like this impact driver. It's always important to remember on this series that impact wrenches are two machines sort of working together. If you upgrade the motor and battery to 40v, but the spring that that motor is fighting against and the anvil and hammers it's hitting are all unchanged, same tension, same weight, will it ultimately even make more beans? We look forward to testing more xgt tools soon to make more wild assumptions about that answer. But today, that dewalt really stood out to us, noticeably smaller, not the same power as an m18 gen3 that we think you may notice, but a true modern 2022 effort from dewalt that we think is light years ahead of their current offerings in drivers. This has got to be the impact driver to beat when it comes to packaging, power, and size on a job site. You can think of a long list of tasks that the gen3 can do that this won't, but this will fit in between more plumbing and wall studs than pretty much anything else out there. Another home run from dewalt, a brand that's nearly put us to sleep in the past with some of it's aging offerings, but we're fully awake now and ready to purchase more from our local hardware store to test for you guys and cut through the bus as usual. Click subscribe to join us on that journey, click like because for some reason youtube says that means something, and thanks as always for watching.