No, an impact driver isn't a drill replacement for professional hole-making. It can spin a small pilot hole in wood in a pinch, but when a hole needs to be clean, straight, and sized right—in metal, door edges, cabinet faces, or framing—a real drill/driver is the tool. That's the short answer. It also explains why the tool list I approve for our renovation crew starts with an IRWIN V20 1/2" cordless drill/driver kit and not just an impact driver.
I'm the procurement manager at a 22-person renovation company. I've managed our tool and hardware budget for six years, tracked annual tool spend of roughly $38,000, and ordered from over 30 suppliers. I'm not a brand ambassador; I'm the guy who logs every purchase and sees which tools survive warranty periods and which ones end up in the drawer of regret. This is the purchasing view of the old question: does an impact driver work as a drill?
Impact Driver vs Drill: Why They Feel Different on a Job
An impact driver delivers high torque in bursts. That's great for driving screws and lag bolts, because the impact helps the bit grip the fastener head instead of cam out. A drill delivers continuous rotation. That's what you need for cutting holes. The moment you put a hole saw or a twist bit in an impact driver, the burst action fights the cut. It makes the hole rougher, the bit hotter, and your wrist more tired.
There's also the chuck mismatch. Most impact drivers use a 1/4-inch hex collet. A proper drill/driver, like the V20 1/2-inch cordless drill/driver kit, has a 1/2-inch three-jaw chuck that holds round-shank bits and large hole saws without adapters. Adapters technically work; they also add wobble. For a $50 cabinet door, wobble isn't acceptable.
Does an Impact Driver Work as a Drill?
In softwood, with a hex-shank bit, yes—you can drill a small pilot hole. I wouldn't want to drill a 1-inch hole through a door face with it. The second you need precision, depth control, or torque at low speed, an impact driver is the wrong tool. The plus side? An impact driver is better for driving dozens of screws. That's why most pro crews carry both. It's not either/or after the first week; it's a two-tool system.
In March 2023, one of my techs tried to use an impact driver to enlarge a strike plate mortise. The bit grabbed, jumped, and tore a chunk out of a finished door jamb. That mistake cost us a jamb repair and a repaint—more than a mid-range drill would have cost. That was the day I wrote our official rule in the procurement notes: drilling gets a drill, driving gets an impact driver.
What I Put on the Standard Crew List
When I build a tool list, I look at three things: how often it solves a problem, what it costs when it's missing, and whether a small order is easy to place. The IRWIN items below have earned their way into our kits by hitting all three.
IRWIN V20 1/2-inch Cordless Drill/Driver Kit
This is the base unit for crews doing door hardware, cabinet installation, and light steel work. The 1/2-inch all-metal chuck holds standard round-shank drill bits and hole saws. Two speeds give you low-end torque for metal and higher speed for wood. The kit comes with two batteries and a charger, which matters when you don't have time to wait at the charging station. We bought our first V20 kit in early 2024, and it's still in daily rotation. In cost-per-hour-of-use terms, that drum beats any spec sheet.
IRWIN Bolt Grip Expansion Set
Stripped bolts show up at the worst time. The Bolt Grip expansion set (a dedicated extraction set for stripped or broken fasteners) is one of the few tools that actually works as advertised. We carry a set in every service truck. It doesn't take much room. But it saves a lot of phone calls.
In Q2 2025, a tech removed a rusted set screw from a commercial door closer using the Bolt Grip set. That extraction took 15 minutes. The alternative was removing the closer, drilling out the screw, and re-tapping—half a day of labor. The set paid for itself on that one trip.
I'll admit I once saved $60 on a no-name extractor set. It snapped on the first use, and we spent $220 to repair the door. That's the kind of "deal" that looks good in a catalog and costs real money on a job. The Bolt Grip set replaced it.
IRWIN Bi-Metal Door Lock Installation Kit
If your crew installs locks or replaces door hardware, this kit is worth a slot in the box. It's a bi-metal hole saw set with a guide that keeps the bore centered on the door face. There's no wobble, which means no oversized holes and no patching. The first time we used it, the holes on both sides of a steel door lined up cleanly. That doesn't sound impressive until you've had to explain to a client why a lockset cover plate doesn't cover.
The kit works with our V20 drill/driver, so we didn't add a new power tool. For the cost, it protects the most expensive thing on the job: the door.
IRWIN 2GO 3 Tool Box
Storage is part of productivity, not a side expense. The 2GO 3 tool box is compact, tough enough for a van, and big enough for a drill bit index, the Bolt Grip set, the door lock kit, and a few hand tools. When I audited our technician time last year, we found that 30 minutes per week per tech was disappearing into messy tool piles. At a loaded labor rate of $50 an hour, that's $1,200 per tech per year in lost billing. A $20-30 tool box that fixes that is not a luxury.
There's another reason IRWIN is on our list: I can buy a few sets without a sales pitch or a minimum order. When I was running a smaller crew, the suppliers that treated a $200 order like real work were the ones I stayed with when the budget grew. I still look at tool vendors the same way.
When an Impact Driver Is Actually Enough
If you're a DIYer doing light shelving, an impact driver with hex-shank bits can drill occasional pilot holes in pine. If you're a pro driving 300 screws a day, the impact driver is a faster tool for the screwdriving part. But it is not the primary tool for making holes. For professional work, buy a drill/driver first. Add an impact driver after, if your fastener volume justifies it. For our crew, the V20 drill/driver kit is non-negotiable.
The Honest Boundary of My Experience
This is based on six years of renovation and light commercial work, not production assembly or heavy industrial drilling. If you're hanging drywall all day, your impact driver might be in your hand more than your drill. If you're drilling concrete or thick steel plate, you need an SDS rotary hammer or a corded drill, not a compact drill/driver. And if you're a small shop, the cost math may come out differently. But for general renovation and service work, I'm confident in the split: drill for holes, impact driver for fasteners.
Pricing and product details change. Prices were checked against distributor invoices in early 2026; verify current rates before buying. A tool kit decision made once isn't a decision made forever.
