Which Metal Cutoff Wheels Brand Wins?
In our test we compared 6 metal cutoff wheels options head to head. Makita came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
The quick take
The short version of why each pick lands where it does, built straight from the measured results.
“If you're taking into account time as well as cost, it's hard to argue that the Makita isn't the best wheel because that thing cuts fast and it also lasts a quite a long time.”
The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Products are listed in the order they finished.
Diameter loss
- 1Makita
started at 4.53 in, down to 4.4 in, 12.5 percent of the wheel used
- 2Diablo
started at 4.62 in, down to 4.38 in, 15 percent of the wheel used (a little more wear than the Makita and DeWalt)
- 3DeWalt
started at 4.53 in, down to 4.42 in, 10 percent of the wheel used
- 4Milwaukee
started at 4.54 in, down to 4.18 in, 31 percent of the wheel used
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)
started at 4.54 in, down to 4.05 in, 41 percent of the cutting wheel used to make one cut (highest wear of the six)
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)not tested
Speed
- 1Makita
cut faster than the Milwaukee; 'this is the best wheel we've tested so far' at that point in the video, before being tested against the Diablo
- 2Diablo
the fastest cutting wheel tested up to that point in the video, even faster than the Makita, and made 'a fast and smooth cut'
- 3DeWalt
described as cutting 'much slower' than the Warrior due to being a thicker wheel, and in the closing recap called 'the slowest cutting wheel we tested'
- 4Milwaukee
'a very fast cutting wheel compared to the Warrior and the DeWalt wheels', but wore down very quickly
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)
cuts extremely slowly compared to the competition, taking 8 to 10 times longer to make a cut
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
Advertised width vs actual
- 1Makita
advertised 3/64 inch (0.052 as spoken); wheel started at 29 g and finished at 27 g (2 g lost)
- 3DeWalt
advertised 0.045, actual measured 0.070 (noticeably thicker than advertised)
- 4Milwaukee
advertised 0.045, actual measured 0.058
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)
advertised 1/16 inch; measured actual also looks like 1/16 inch (0.0625), i.e. this is the one wheel whose actual width matched its advertised width
- 2Diablonot tested
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)not tested
Weight loss
- 2Diablo2 g
- 3DeWalt2 g
(vs Warrior's 7 g)
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)7 g
(highest of the six)
- 1Makitanot tested
- 4Milwaukeenot tested
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)not tested
All measurements (5 more)+
Advertised width
- 2Diablo0.040
advertised, 0.0455 actual (spoken measurement)
- 1Makitanot tested
- 3DeWaltnot tested
- 4Milwaukeenot tested
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)not tested
Weight
- 4Milwaukee
started at 33 g, lost 5 g
- 1Makitanot tested
- 2Diablonot tested
- 3DeWaltnot tested
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)not tested
Width
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)0.055
(spoken measurement)
- 1Makitanot tested
- 2Diablonot tested
- 3DeWaltnot tested
- 4Milwaukeenot tested
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
Manufacturer claims
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)
designed for cutting metal, claimed to deliver 1,000+ cuts and last 30 times longer than regular wheels
- 1Makitanot tested
- 2Diablonot tested
- 3DeWaltnot tested
- 4Milwaukeenot tested
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
Wear
- 6Lenox MetalMax MetalMax (diamond cutoff wheel)
showed virtually no wear and no noticeable material loss
- 1Makitanot tested
- 2Diablonot tested
- 3DeWaltnot tested
- 4Milwaukeenot tested
- 5Warrior (Harbor Freight)not tested
How it was tested
- cutting a half inch wide, 3 inch tall steel bar with a fixed-force (approximately 3.1 lb downward), motion-controlled grinder rig to remove human variance
- measuring wheel diameter before and after one cut to compute percent of wheel used
- weighing material/wheel loss after the cut
- checking actual blade width against the brand's advertised width
“If you're taking into account time as well as cost, it's hard to argue that the Makita isn't the best wheel because that thing cuts fast and it also lasts a quite a long time.”
Brand head-to-head scoreboards featuring this test
Data notes and caveats
No prices are mentioned anywhere in this video for any of the six wheels, so priceMentioned and budgetPick are null throughout per the verbatim-or-omit rule. No explicit runnerUp is named by the narrator; Diablo is the closest alternative to Makita on raw cutting speed, and Lenox MetalMax is called out separately as best-in-class for durability but in a different use case (thin material, not general speed/cost tradeoff), so it is not treated as a competing runnerUp either. All five advertised-vs-actual width measurements taken together show a consistent pattern of measured width running thicker than advertised width across every non-Warrior brand (DeWalt, Milwaukee, Makita, Diablo); Warrior was the one wheel whose actual width matched its advertised spec. Chapters align one-to-one with each brand's section plus intro/setup/parameters/conclusion, so chapterMap is true.
