Reciprocating Saw Blade 2018 Test: Which Brand Wins?
In our 2018 test we compared 7 reciprocating saw blade options head to head. Diablo came out on top. See the measured results, the runner-up, the budget pick, and a link to the full test video.
Some figures on this page were transcribed from the test video and have not been independently re-verified. Treat the numbers as a close guide and watch the full video for the exact readings.
Diablo
Price shown in test: $13 a blade
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Milwaukee
Price shown in test: a little over $3 a blade
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Milwaukee
Price shown in test: a little over $3 a blade
Affiliate link. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
The quick take
The short version of why each pick lands where it does, built straight from the measured results.
“I don't really think we needed a whole lot of science involved to prove the Diablo blade is the best.”
Best in 1 of 2 measurements, including Mild steel cut time.
Placed top three in 2 of 2 measurements.
Placed top three in 2 of 2 measurements.
The measured results
Every number below is read straight from the test. Products are listed in the order they finished.
Mild steel cut time
- 1Diablo37 seconds1st
no visible damage to the blade afterward
- 2Milwaukee2nd place
no exact seconds figure was spoken in the transcript for this brand, only that it finished second and stayed in good shape
- 3DeWalt46 seconds3rd
3rd place; narrator notes it had the worst paint of all the blades, flaking off very quickly
- 4EZARC47 seconds4th
tied 4th place with Makita; narrator notes this blade was "in pretty bad shape" with visible damage to the teeth, and separately states "all the blades except for Easy Arc did fairly well with the mild steel"
- 5Makita47 seconds4th
tied 4th place with EZARC; also described as finishing "1 second apart" from Bosch
- 6Boschapproximately48 seconds6th
(not stated as an exact figure; derived from the narrator's statement that Bosch and Makita "finished 1 second apart" and Makita's own confirmed 47 second time), 6th place ahead of only the Warrior brand
- 7Warrior54 seconds
last place of all 7 brands; narrator notes the teeth still looked good afterward, it just did not cut fast
Spring steel cut distance
- 1Diablo
not given as a verbatim measurement; described qualitatively as the only blade that "came to work prepared for the job," clearly the best/furthest of all 7 brands before it ran out of steam where the steel thickens from 7/16 in to 5/8 in; teeth still looked in good shape afterward
- 2Milwaukee2nd place
described as "really impressed" with this blade's performance, though the blade itself was destroyed in the process with the teeth completely stripped
- 3DeWalt
grouped with EZARC, Bosch, and Makita as doing "a respectable job" on spring steel, worse than Milwaukee and Diablo but without a finer individual ranking given among the four
- 4EZARC
grouped with DeWalt, Bosch, and Makita as doing "a respectable job" on spring steel, worse than Milwaukee and Diablo but without a finer individual ranking given among the four
- 5Makita
grouped with EZARC, DeWalt, and Bosch as doing "a respectable job" on spring steel, worse than Milwaukee and Diablo but without a finer individual ranking given among the four
- 6Bosch
grouped with EZARC, DeWalt, and Makita as doing "a respectable job" on spring steel, worse than Milwaukee and Diablo but without a finer individual ranking given among the four
- 7Warrior
last place by a wide margin; barely cut through the surface of the steel, lasted maybe a second before stripping all the teeth away
How it was tested
- mild steel cutting speed, timed to completion with a fixed downward weight on a freely rotating saw mount (seconds)
- hard spring steel (tapered 7/16 in to 5/8 in sickle mower steel) cutting distance and durability before the blade overheats and stops cutting
“I don't really think we needed a whole lot of science involved to prove the Diablo blade is the best.”
Brand head-to-head scoreboards featuring this test
Data notes and caveats
The spring steel (hard/hardened) test measures cutting distance rather than time, and the narrator explicitly states he will measure the distance each blade cut ("I'll take a measurement from the beginning of where the cutting began and where the cutting ended"), but no numeric distance measurements are ever spoken in the transcript for that test, only qualitative rankings (Diablo best, Milwaukee 2nd, EZARC/DeWalt/Bosch/Makita tied respectable middle tier, Warrior last). This looks like a results-shown-on-screen-only gap rather than a caption failure, logged to data/onscreen-only.txt; confidence is set to low per the standing rule for this situation even though the mild steel timing data and brand identities are clean and unambiguous. Only 3 of the 7 brands have any price data at all: Diablo ($13, spoken), Milwaukee (a little over $3, spoken), and Makita ($3.36 each, taken from a meta chapter title since it was never spoken in the narration). Chapters exist and do map usefully onto brand segments for at least Makita, EZARC, and Harbor Freight/Warrior.
