I used to think I wanted an Alemite but the DeWalt is looking pretty nice. What is everyone using and most importantly.....are you happy with your choice?
I got a Milwaukee and wouldn't have it any other way.
M18 Milwaukee is my pick too. I have three impacts and a grinder, I like them all.
The Milwaukee seems miles a head of the old Lincoln's and Alemite's. I'm a Milwaukee guy myself but have always used DeWalt for cordless. All my cordless are long in the tooth so it would be a good time to change brands. Thanks for the input.
I have a 18v Lincoln and a 20v Dewalt... Really Really like the Dewalt it pumps about 5 tubes which is about a week before I swap batteries, I am running the 4 amp hour 20v extended life battery. The Lincoln will go through 2 tubes on a really good day.
I've done 8 tubes on one 12V battery in a Milwaukee, consistently.
I have an Alemite and really like it, it's been totally trouble free. My next one will probably be a Milwaukee M18, since my service truck already carries their drill, grinder and impact wrench and they are great.
Milwaukee M18
my alemite has been great although fluctuate how many tubes i get out of a charge lately, ive been as high as 25 tubes on a single charge and as low as 6 in a single charge i grease my skiddy and backhoe daily so i usually run through 2-3 tubes a day
Ingersoll rand 20 volt ( the new Q series) is very good as well..
The options keep expanding
Three tubes of grease in a backhoe and skid steer? Good gracious that seems like a boat load of grease getting everywhere! The beauty of the M18 is the variety of high quality tools. I almost bought an M18 grease gun today, but I but instead I messed up and order 18 ratchet binders (meant to cancel the 8 and get 10) and 40' of gondola shelving and 60 shelves from a Fred's closeout, and an Amazon order... there went $2.5k :Banghead:
Yep when im digging and there is no water I will use 1 full tube and most of second on both machines but when I digging deep and im in the water the grease get washed out fairly quick coupled with the hard rock and I hate noise so I will stop and grease it as soon as it gets little noisy
Yeah digging in water is an exception. It gets me when you see a machine, like a wheel loader, that has black grease piling up on the pins.... not every pin needs grease like the bucket pins! Makes a horrible mess for someone to clean up down the road.
I dig and hit water on a regular basis. This week I will be digging for a pool about 80 ft away from sea water..
I have snap on 18v (not the latest lithium ion powered units) I have the grease gun, drill, impact wrench, and flashlight. I'm a huge fan and thought the warm months won't be without them. The grease gun has be not been beaten by guys I work with using other bramds of chordless tools. The cold beats the batteries up real bad tho. I'm told the lithium ion ones are better, but still not great in the cold.
We call anything under 20 cold......I'm thinking that's still shorts weather up there how do they work between 0 and 20?
I have a heater blower in one of my service body compartments... Keeps the batteries useable... Just. But air tools just freeze up much colder than 30below
Don't forget, Roddy is probably talking 0-20 F, and Simon is probably talking celsius; this really hurts my head.
That's what I was thinking. On the positive side I think if it gets cold enough those numbers somewhat come together.
I use an alemite and i have had no problems with it. I do like the versatility of the M18 though with being able to have one battery type for all tools.
Are you guys happy with the m18 grinder? I have the half-inch impact and love it looking at getting the grease gun also
I bought an M18 grinder and 1/2 impact last month. I love them both. If you are going to do a LOT of grinding, get an extension cord, but for normal stuff, the M18 grinder is all you need. Doing a long grinding job, you need a lot of batteries, but other than that, it does anything a good corded 4 1/2 will.
I've only used the grinder a handful of times, but I'm well pleased with it.
Thanks guys I'll have to add one to my collection.
-40 is the same Fahrenheit or Celsius. To convert Celsius to °F, multiply by 1.8 and add 32.
Yeah, -40 is the same anyway you slice it: too damn cold for me to even THINK about doing anything
Have you ever thrown hot water into the air at -40? Pretty neat trick.
Brother, I've never breathed at -40. I try to come up with excuses to stay inside at 40f.
Look it up on YouTube, I think it might be on there. Kind of freezes into a giant snowflake. BTW, when I say -40°, I mean -40° actual, not this mamby-pamby wind chill BS. If the wind would be blowing more than 20mph at -40, I think the wind chill would be close to -75. We had some cold last winter, -20°F for about a month straight. I don't think it got down to -40, but was close numerous times. This winter has been awesome so far, -15° for lows for about a week. It's been in 30's and 40's the last three weeks.
I used a Lincoln in my days as a field service guy,and it was a solid gun. I haven't used the Milwaukee grease gun,but their other 18V stuff is rock solid and I use them every day at work. I have no doubts the grease gun is just as good. The 12V stuff they make have been my go to tools in the shop though,they are awesome!
has anyone tried the Dewalt? I have a few of their 20 volt tools, one of which I'm really happy with the other i like but i just don,t think it's going to last.
I also was wondering about the dewalt
We have a few at work for the field guys that are dewalt. Have not heard anything bad about them. But the milwalkee impact is way better.
I bought the Dewalt 20 volt. Its been a great gun.
Have an 18 V Dewalt. Great gun, little heavy but it PUMPS the grease out. Just make sure you throw away the coupler it comes with. Worse than a new Lincoln out of the package.
Milwaukee M18.
Why do All the Milwaukee guys just say "Milwaukee M18" and that's it? If you're going to have an opinion, say WHY… What do you like about them? Do you have it because you happened to have Milwaukee tools? Have you ever ran anything else? I have ran and owned Lincoln 12V, 14.4, and 18. Alemite 14 V, Dewalt 18 V, and a couple of cheapos. I have never ran Milwaukee because they are not that popular around here. Dewalt is king here, everyone has them, everyone has 20 batteries so you can pretty much go anywhere. I'm not saying they're the best, but I have never had one I disliked. This is better, I'm still curious about what makes a Milwaukee miles ahead of Lincoln and Alemite. Battery, weight, quality?
Go buy one, you'll see. I own other Milwaukee tools, at the time I bought mine, they had more pressure than most of their competitors. I've owned Lincolns and you couldn't give me one today, heavy, cumbersome, no power, constantly changing batteries, blah, blah, blah. The Milwaukee 12V is compact, light, puts out some pressure, and averages 6 tubes of grease per small 12V battery. I just swap it out once a week. Year before last I was on a Wirtgen W2100 all summer, I greased 72 grease fittings daily on it, I used the hell out of it and NEVER HAD AN ISSUE. You wanted an opinion, now you got one.
When the Lincoln's first came out they didn't hold up under heavy use....at the minimum it seemed like a battery or two a year. When I say miles ahead it is somewhat based on the experience I saw with the first Lincoln's. I really want battery tools that is part of a system. You can usually buy a tool with the batteries from a popular manufacture about as cheap as buying the batteries one at a time for a specialty tool. The Alemite used to be what I though I wanted but at the end of the day all it does is pump grease With the Milwaukee that grease gun also shares the same platform with a toolbox shop vac, leaf blower, and impact. All very useful tools for what we do.
shimmy I am going to put it in simple terms the new lithium milwalkee tools are way better than the dewalt!! dewalt is basically a black& decker brand!! There is a reason everyone has dewalt they r cheap!! the reason everyone has 20 dewalt batteries is cause they don't hold a charge very long or hold up to commercial use very well!! it depends on region to which brands guys are loyal to but here u can pick the pros from the weekend warriors by their choice in battery tools!!
Hey, I'm not trying to start a war here. I just was looking for opinions as to why you guys are swearing by them. Nobody around here uses Milwaukee, so I can't try one. Few guys are getting Dewalts, 18's and 20's. I have a 12 V Lincoln that I have been using for almost ten years. Probably pumped over 1000 tubes. Have wore out at least 3 barrels. Yes, its not the fastest gun, but it still works, and when it quits I'll get a new one.
My neighbor is our Master Mechanic at work and EVERY tool he owns is a Snap-On, EVERY SINGLE ONE. He is the most brand loyal individual I know, he owns their entire line up of cordless tools, including a Snap-on grease gun. He has even told me that the Milwaukee grease gun is a better unit than his expensive Snap-on. I don't care for his, it's huge and bulky and does a mediocre job on stubborn fittings. He has it for obvious reasons including standardized batteries amongst his fleet of tools, plus the Snap-on warranties.
The 18 volt Milwaukee has a two speed volume/pressure switch. Can also set the number of pumps (1-50) per trigger pull.
Now we're cooking with fire. The number of trigger pumps? I could easily get used to that. We just got a new 18 V Dewalt for the shop. We wanted commonality. How many batteries with the Milwaukee, and if its cold out, how many tubes?
Can't help you much on battery life. I bulk fill the gun, normally don't go though more than one fill a day. I have left the compact battery in for two weeks and it was still going strong. There's a lot to be said for commonality. If your happy with the Dewalt stick with them.
My thing is, I like consistency in greasing. I realize it is going to sound crazy, but I have a system. For instance, on my scraper, I have pins that I put 10, 20, or 30 pumps in. Would be fantastic to set the gun, pull the trigger, on to the next one.
The 18 volt would be perfect for that, I don't think the 12 volt can count pumps. Easy enough to set on 10 pumps and just pull the trigger again when it quits pumping.
I am not sure how many tubes of grease my DeWalt 20 volt with the XR battery will pump. I have pumped 7 one one charge and it was still going. its also variable speed. I tried a cheep HF afew years ago. It went in the trash. I went back to a hand gun. I am happy I jumped in on the Dewalt. The tech I hire loves his Lincoln he has had it for years.
I have owned a Lincoln 14.4v,( pretty good grease gun) so when it wore out I bought the Lincoln 18v, thought it would be a better gun, but I am so disappointed with it. Batteries not lasting very long, the relief valve always popping off, you wouldn't notice until you had grease all over yourself. I tried to remove the valve and just put a plug in, but could not find a plug with matching threads. So I tried a Alemite, like the gun for the most part, eventually one of the batteries quit holding a charge. Recently I bought a Dewalt 20v, I like the gun, batteries hold up pretty good, but it too has a stupid pop-off valve. I had gotten used to watching for the pop-off valve on the 18v Lincoln that now I watch for excess grease from the valve on the Dewalt. I do like the variable speed trigger. My next gun will probably a Milwaukee M18 after reading this thread. We are always looking for something better.
This is a perfectly good thread, so I'm going to resuscitate it... Many of those responding to the original post -- [essentially] Which cordless grease gun do you recommend? -- have stated that they prefer the "Milwaukee M18." My research is showing that Milwaukee manufactures more than one 18V cordless grease gun, so I think it would be great for the thread if the Milwaukee cordless folks would kindly provide a part number for their grease gun(s). As I quickly found out with our new Makita 1/2" impact driver: newer isn't always better ...so we went back to the old "heavy" brush-type 1/2" impact and have been smiling ever since. Thanks for your productive posts
I have the same consideration, I have all Snap-On and did not want to have a bunch of different batteries. I love my Snap On cordless grease gun, no issues.
RBM that snap on guy has a big smile on his face when you walk up to the truck.
2646-80. Just came in Friday so will have to see but I really like the Milwaukee impact and grinder.
I have an Alemite which has been perfect.
My M18 has lots of pressure, tightens up excavator tracks quickly. long 4 ft hoes makes it nice. even has a little light to see what your greasing in the dark.
I have a Lincoln grease gun. Have it for two years now, and never had one problem.
We use Dewalt here but that's because at some point before my time, someone decided everything needed to be dewalt. It is kind of nice though because they are all the same battery so when a battery needs charged I can steel one off a crew truck while mine charges
Yeah, Milwaukee tool is owned by the same company that makes RYOBI and Craftsman power tools. I'm not sure what you mean the Dewalt batteries don't hold up. I have several of the newer "RED LITHIUM" batteries from Milwaukee that the tabs break off in the lower half of the battery leaving it split. It all comes down to pick you favorite color. Milwaukee has the most fluffed up marketing so maybe that is why the perception is so high?
Milwaukee name is licensed to a chinese company that builds ryobi and rigid power tools. I'm not sure about craftsman, but i wouldn't surprise me.
I ponderd this for a while. I ended up purchasing the Dewalt 20 v lithium model. The only problem i see is that greasing is so easy and enjoyable now that my grease consumption has gone way up. I never should of waited so long.
I spotted this at a trade show the other day.. For the price, thought it would be worth a try. They suggest using it with a little impact driver but I find it works smoother and faster with a drill. Kinda gimmicky and clumsy to set up but once you get rolling it works OK.
Tsc had one on clearance for $30 the other day. It was a different brand however.
just bought a milwaukee have`nt tried it out yet
I was running production loader. I had a fresh 980G Cat reman. Greasing after shift every night with a Lincoln hand gun wasn't getting it. About 2 tubes into new bushings was cutting right into my continuing investigation of the best barley sodas. The company purchased Lincoln 1844 18 volts for us. I had it for about 6 months and a little smoke rolled out of the top of it and it was done. Liked it very much till it died. I bought a 18 volt 10,000 pound Milwaukee. It was a good gun however the batteries did not last very long. I gave that to a guy that was working with me. I bought a 10,000 pound Dewalt about 3 years ago. It was pricey, with 3 4 Ah bats, it was just south of 600 including shipping. In my experience and speaking for me only, it is the best electric gun I have had. I added a Lock and Lube fitting to it as well. Generally it will pump through the toughest zerk. Occasionally I may have to wiggle something to get it to take grease. The downside is that it is heavy by comparison and it can't get wet. If you put it in a a plastic bag to use in the rain it will start to heat up. I put about 3 grease rags over it now when its raining seems to be fine. A battery seems to last about a week I bought three and rotate them just to space out the charging cycles. I suspect this gun will last into retirement and beyond.
i`ll soon find out what this milw. is made of got some fittings on an old truck that has`nt been greased in probably 25 years to test it on
I have the milwaukee 18v fuel with hard case... it's OK. I mainly got it because I was switching my cordless tools from dewalt after a bunch of them got stolen I still like my alemite but the batteries are finally giving up so on to newer and better Have used it quite a few times and it seems to work good... plenty of pressure fairly quick and the tube cylinder makes it easy to thread unlike some guns where if you're in an odd position trying to change tubes it can take a while... I remember a there were a few things I didn't like about it... but can't recall them right at this moment...
well a good report anyway still have`nt tried mine out