Well, here's my cordless story;
I had the Makita 9.6 in the early 80s. State of the art then. Not too powerful and short on battery life but sure beat a brace and bit setup. Picked up a B&D Cyclone 12V at the supply house around 93. It was a marked improvement over the Makita 9.6. B&D got stolen around 96 so I replaced it with (2) Dewalt 14.4V because the 2 GC crews I was working with most of the time all used Dewalt 14.4 and thewre was always plenty of extra batteries and chargers on the jobs and we all marked our batteries and used what was available throughout the day and collected our own at quitting time. Pretty handy setup. I was lucky to work with a great bunch of guys on both of the GC crews. Moved to a long-term project at a new factory and had the Dewalts stolen off of the job the 3rd week there. Quickly replaced stolen drills with Porter Cable 14.4V because they were the only thing I could get my hands on right away and get back on schedule. I was very impressed with the PC drills right away. I was shooting tek screws into steel purlans to hang 3/4 EMT all day and never ran a battery down in one day. That job lasted 22 months and was indoors and climate controlled @ 72 degrees year round. I was sold on PC 14.4V cordless. Then I moved on to another job in the dead of Indiana weather working outside in the cold. I soon found out that PC chargers would not charge a battery pack if the temp was below 40 degrees. I would charge my batteries in the motel room at night but run out of batteries before the day was over. In desparation to get done and go home I bought a Milwaukee 14.4 at a nearby supply house. It would not only charge in 40 deg temp but it charged up faster. I bought 2 more Milwaukee 14.4 drills and sold my PCs to a cabinet guy who I had worked with for years . He said the cold wouldn't be a problem for him because he didn't/wouldn't work in the cold anyway. So that's where I'm at now. I do still use a Dewalt cordless recipro saw because I don't like the feel of the Milwaukee Hatchet. I'm sure it is a good tool, just doesn't fit my normal application which is cutting pipe and strut one handed.
