amen to that Kyle -- hence why I went AlliExpress. I figured for 300 less, I'd take my chances with shipping (have never had an issue yet) over having it 'now'.
I was just putting out the options if you 'had to have a mag drill in 2 hours in Calgary'. I've only been to Wieners once...... reminded me of a cross between a dollar-store and princess-auto
But..... after having a mag-drill, it is in the must-have list of tools. Very versatile and handy if you fab any amount of steel on larger items.
I may have the bulkiest/shiny yellow drill around! The part I was impressed with was the cutters..... cut myself taking the first one out of the tube.
Yeah, its an option for sure.
A couple things I've learned:
I've got an old one that I picked up for $100 and its done -PRETTY- well but its sloppy in the bearing and really only has clearance for a 1" depth annular cutter. The centering pin deals with the slop more or less, the depth thing is fine for a annular cutter. It also isn't variable speed, just a high-low transmission in it.
One thing thats a super nice to have is coolant of some sort. Maybe not an issue with carbide tipped cutters but I don't own any of those so I tend to keep spraying mine during the cuts to keep the HSS from overheating. It works but its just one more thing to do, and a machine can generally do it better.
The variable speed would probably help in some cases although I haven't really had issues with only having two speeds on mine.
I do however keep borrowing a friends Milwaukee M18 because it uses a telescoping bearing system and has a drill chuck adapter - This is the cats ass for mounting things like linear scales to machines. Is it worth spending over 2500 on? probably not. Just get friends with more money and cool tools and you're set.
The only thing I haven't had experience with (that I very much want to try, guess I need to find ANOTHER friend with cooler tools) is power feed.. if someone has one I'd like to try it out someday (you can be that friend).
EDIT: I also bought one of these -
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001940139633.html and it is EXCELLENT, assuming you can A) fit your piece on your machine and B) clamp it down. I'd NEVER suggest running one of these without a very secure workpiece.