1. Bosch X-Line 70-Piece — the one box most homes need
Hanging a shelf, assembling flat-pack, running a cable through a brick wall: the ordinary run of household jobs is what this box is built around. Seventy pieces sounds like a lot, but the spread is what matters. Eleven titanium-coated metal bits, six masonry and five wood cover the everyday drilling, with three spade bits for the big holes. Most of the rest is driving: thirty-four screwdriver bits, plus seven nutsetters for hex-head screws.
A masonry bit has a hard carbide tip that grinds its way through brick. A plain steel bit skids on the surface and blunts itself trying. Keeping both kinds in the one case means a job that crosses from timber into brickwork doesn’t send you back to the shops.
It takes the top spot on coverage for the money. The bit types a weekend job needs are all here, without the trade-kit extras you’d never open, and every shank fits an ordinary drill chuck. It does have limits. Hard steel is better served by a dedicated cobalt set, cobalt being a tougher blend that holds its edge as the hole heats up, and heavy concrete still wants a proper masonry set. Neither is the job this kit is bought for. If you want the bit types sorted before you buy, our drill bits guide runs through them.
2. DeWalt DT71563 100-Piece — more sizes for a busy home
If the house keeps you drilling through a reno, the extra thirty pieces start to earn their place. The wood bits are the clearest gain: thirteen brad-point bits covering 3 to 8mm in half-millimetre steps, against five from the Bosch spread across 4 to 10mm. A brad point has a sharp centre spur that bites where you put it instead of wandering off across the grain, so dowel and shelf-pin holes end up where you marked them. You give up a little reach at the top of the range and pick up real precision in the sizes joinery uses most.
The set also carries metal and masonry bits, a wider run of screwdriver bits, and an adjustable bit holder that extends from about four to twelve centimetres for driving a screw down somewhere a short holder won’t reach. It costs a little more than the Bosch, for gains you’ll only feel if the drill is out most weeks. (Matt would pay up for the finer sizing every time; Joel reckons most people won’t wear out the 70-piece set in a decade of weekends, so why buy sizes you’ll never use.) For a busy home, the depth is worth the difference.
3. Bosch Expert MultiConstruction 7-Piece — one bit, mixed walls
This one takes a different route to drilling everything. Instead of a separate bit for each material, these are multi-material bits: one carbide-tipped bit that goes through brick, soft tile, sheet metal, timber and plastic — and light concrete or stone in hammer mode — so you don’t stop to swap bits when a hole crosses from a tiled surface into the brick behind it. For mounting a TV bracket or a bathroom rail on a wall that’s plasterboard over brick, that’s the least-fuss option there is.
The trick is matching the drill’s mode to the material: switch to hammer mode (the setting that adds a rapid punching action) for concrete and stone, and stay in normal rotary mode for brick, tile, metal, wood and plastic. It’s a drilling-only set of seven bits from 4 to 12mm (two of them 6mm, one of the common wall-plug sizes), with no driver bits, so you’ll still want a driver set alongside it. Seven bits also cost about what the whole 70-piece box costs, so this is a considered buy for someone who drills walls most weekends. For heavy concrete you’d step up to an SDS masonry set — SDS being the slot-in shank system made for masonry drills. For the person forever hanging things on mixed walls, though, it drills the lot without a bit change.
Choosing your set
How much you drill decides it. If the drill sees daylight once or twice a month, the Bosch 70-piece has you covered and leaves cash in your pocket. Mid-reno, or a house that keeps finding you jobs? The DeWalt’s finer size steps mean you’re rarely stuck without the one you need. And when nearly all your drilling is holes in walls — brackets, rails, blinds — the multi-material bits spare you the bit-swapping.
Whatever you buy, the case matters as much as the bits. Loose bits rattling round a drawer chip their cutting edges long before a job ever blunts them, so put each one back in its slot. In brick, draw the bit out every few seconds to clear the dust, or it packs into the flutes and the tip stops cutting and starts rubbing. And pick the bit before you pull the trigger: a masonry bit in hammer mode can crack a tile that a slow start with the hammer off would have gone through cleanly. Bits are consumables and they wear out, but a set that arrives faulty is a different matter — under Australian Consumer Law goods that aren’t of acceptable quality can entitle you to a repair, replacement or refund, so the receipt is worth keeping.
The verdict
You want one set that handles most of the house: the Bosch X-Line 70-piece. The right spread of bit types for sensible money, and it fits any drill.
You’re on the tools often and want the fuller spread: the DeWalt 100-piece combination. Finer wood sizing, more driver bits and brad points that go where you mark them.
Most of your drilling is holes in mixed walls: the Bosch multi-material bits. One bit through brick, tile and metal, no swapping mid-job.
Match the set to the jobs that fill your weekends and you’ll get years out of it. A general kit that covers your regular work is money better spent than a specialist set you’d reach for twice a year.
