In this review
I was standing in the drill bit aisle at the big-box store, staring at a $34.99 cobalt set and a $6.99 no-name HSS bundle, trying to work out which one I was going to regret. Then I checked Amazon on my phone. A 14-piece DEWALT set, HSS with 135-degree split points, was sitting at $14.79. That’s the whole story of this review. The math was already done before I walked out of the store empty-handed.
DEWALT DWA1184 14-Piece Drill Bit Set
DEWALT-branded HSS drill bits with genuine 135-degree split-point tips, 3-flats shanks, and a black-and-gold oxide coating. At $14.79 with 19,644 reviews at 4.8 stars, this is one of the better price-to-performance plays in the tool aisle.
Rating breakdown
What $14.79 Actually Buys You
The spec sheet here is suspicious in a good way. A 135-degree split-point tip is the feature that separates decent drill bits from cheap ones. It’s the geometry that keeps the bit from skating across a hard surface before it bites. On a $30 set, you expect that. On a set under $15, you usually get a standard 118-degree point and a lot of walking.
DEWALT put the split point on this one. And it works. I tested it on a piece of 16-gauge sheet steel without a pilot divot, which is the fastest way to find out whether a bit is lying about its tip grind. It bit immediately. No skating. No chatter.
The 3-flats shank is the other detail most cheap sets skip. Three flat surfaces machined into the shank on sizes larger than 3/16”, so the drill chuck grabs hardened steel instead of rounded shank. On a $7 no-name set you’ll strip a shank inside the chuck on a stubborn hole. I’ve done it. It’s how I ended up on this page in the first place.
The Brand Tax Math
I priced four options in the same category before buying.
The Harbor Freight Warrior 29-piece HSS set was $9.99. Twice the piece count, a third cheaper per bit. On paper it wins. In practice, the tips are standard 118-degree grind, no split point, and the shanks round off. You get more bits but each bit is worse. Cost per usable hole goes up, not down.
The Irwin 14-piece cobalt set was $32.97 on Amazon. Cobalt is genuinely harder than HSS and holds an edge in stainless steel and hardened alloys. If you drill metal for a living, you want cobalt. If you drill wood and soft metal on weekends, you’re paying a $18 premium for a hardness you’ll never exercise.
The Milwaukee Shockwave 14-piece titanium set was $21.99. Similar geometry, newer coating, fractional improvement in life. The gap is about $7 and the performance gap is hard to feel unless you’re running these in a production setting.
The DEWALT sits in the middle of all this at $14.79. It has the geometry that matters, the shank treatment that matters, and a brand that actually honors warranty claims if something snaps. The brand tax here is roughly $5 over the no-name set. That’s what you’re paying for the split point and the 3-flats shank. It’s the cheapest you can pay for those two features without gambling on a brand you’ve never heard of.
Where It Gives Up Ground
Every budget pick has a ceiling. This one’s ceiling is easy to find.
This is high-speed steel, not cobalt. If you regularly drill stainless, hardened bolts, or structural steel, you’ll dull these bits faster than you want. Cobalt costs twice as much and it’s twice as patient with hard metals. Know which category you’re in before buying.
The set stops at 1/2”. If you need anything bigger, you’re buying a separate bit anyway. Most DIY jobs stay well under that. A few don’t.
The storage case is a thin plastic clamshell with bit-sized cutouts. It works. It won’t survive being thrown in a truck bed for a year. I moved mine into a small parts organizer the first week. Not a dealbreaker, just a reality.
And 14 pieces is a tight count. A typical metric-plus-imperial household set runs 21 or 29 pieces. You’ll hit a size you don’t have. When that happens, buy the individual bit. It’ll still cost less than upgrading to a 29-piece set of equivalent quality.
The Price Stability Check
I’ve watched this one on Amazon for a stretch. It sits between $14 and $18 most of the time. It dips to $12 on occasion. The $19.99 “list price” printed on the card is fiction. Anyone who tells you they got it on sale from $19.99 paid full freight.
The honest price is $15. If you see it under $13, grab it. If it’s over $18, wait a week.
Who Should Skip This
If you’re drilling metal every day, buy cobalt. The DEWALT will work, but you’ll replace it more often than you want to, and cost-per-hole stops favoring HSS once volume gets serious.
If you already own a 29-piece set that’s working fine, you don’t need this. The reason to buy a 14-piece set is either because you have none or because your current one is failing. “Because it’s on sale” is how you end up with four mediocre drill bit sets in a drawer and no cobalt set for the job that actually needs one.
The 19,644 reviews at 4.8 stars aren’t padding. This set earns the rating by doing the two things a drill bit has to do: start where you tell it to, and stay in the chuck. Plenty of sets twice this price don’t do both. A few do it for less and gamble your time on the shank. At $14.79, the math works.
If you’re building out a starter toolkit, check out our full DIY & Tools category for more budget-tested gear.
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