When a brand hits and misses in one shot

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:03]Welcome back to Torque Test channel.

[00:00:05]Today we have a bit of a shot at redemption. As the last time we visited Bosch recently, their largest impact, their 3/4 in wasn't all that much of a standout. The plainest form of a 1/2 in and 3/4in drive clothing sort of tool.

[00:00:18]So today we have something else, something new, all new from Bosch compared to their latest stuff. It's their new compact. They're calling a mid torque, but it's sort of a compact by any other brand's metrics. and they're all new mid torque that is mid torquy.

[00:00:31]This being on the more stout and chunky side of things by the looks of it and it's checking a few boxes for me visually just looking at it and maybe packing some sauce. So, no anvil swaps and calling it a day on this one. Two efforts at their respective categories.

[00:00:45]So, let's torque test these versus some of their competition these days. Do some tearing down to poke at its soft and fleshy bits and learn more about how it works and rank these on our leaderboards. This is the GDS18V-350N and it goes for around $170 at its current retail price. Bosch is calling this a mid torque or one of their two newer mid torque. So, frankly wasn't really sure what this was going to look like when it showed up, but this is as expected pretty small. It may not be quite as small as like this thing, Milwaukey's latest M12, which is still to this day their most powerful compact from that red brand. Far beyond their own 18VT version lately. But at 5.2 2 in long. This sits right at the average length for a cordless compact impact wrench as sold by other brands. This 4 amp hour core battery fits right in here and puts its weight and overall size into a nice little hip shooter category.

[00:01:38]Bosch rates this at 410T-lbs breakaway and 250 or 258 if you read its manual as its tightening footpounds. 250 being the most common rating for a compact, but that 410 is doing a lot of heavy lifting with its breakaway figure. So, let's see where it lands to fit in with this beast of an M12, their Gen 2 as well as Milwaukeee's Gen 1 M12 for context and Robi's compact impact wrench and DeWalt's DCF 921. Just to round things out, let's see how it does. This is an industry standard called Working Torque.

[00:02:11]It's a 5-second test and forward. Here's how she gets on.

[00:02:23]177 foot-lbs sort of slotted in there with the Robi and DeWalt. Not too far off from the pack, though. More to come from this guy with reverse coming up.

[00:02:32]This is a new Bosch GDS 18V780N.

[00:02:35]So, not 350, but 780 now. Hopefully, we're seeing more than twice as much punch from it as well. We paid $199 for it and it's got some spicy numbers adorning it as well. With 575 ft-lbs tightening and 740 foot-lbs nut busting.

[00:02:50]The shape of this reminds me of the DeWalt DCD 10007. It's backing up some junk in the frunk here with the looks of things and enough definitely to seat it into the mid torque category. It's calling these new models. Compared to the most compact mid torque on the market, the M18 here, it does look and feel girthy and measures in at just over 6.6 in long, which is shorter than the 6.9 in long DCF 891. The top dog, the leader in our mid torque class of impacts from what we can measure. And while DeWalt is around half pound lighter bear tool, that's about equalized with a battery on here attached between the two. in that number one spot. DeWalt Bosch does despite not having proactor in the name of this tool state a 4 amp hour is compatible with this tool, but the proactor are the batteries used for best performance. So, we assume that means the performance they're writing on the box, which is how we typically pair tools for testing on the channel. We'll be testing and ranking this tool both ways today. So, you have an idea of what this all looks like either way. up first now up against the Top Dog DeWalt, this M18, and the Flex Mid Torque, which shares nearly all the same specs across the board. Here's how it does.

[00:04:07]410. That's That's pretty good, actually. Let's take another look at this with the recommended quote unquote battery, the ProFactor battery.

[00:04:22]So 433 now up from 410. To give you an idea of just how good that is, the last Bosch midtorrque we bought a couple years ago was their 18V-300 and that made 282 in this test and it also somehow costs more at 219. This thing is really on a charge. Let's head over to reverse and see how things progress and hopefully we see a similar bit of momentum coming from this small guy.

[00:04:47]Let's see how it does in the 10 seconds industry standard max torque test.

[00:05:03]191 foot-lb and now with the Robi and the Gen 1 M12 passing it up at this point. To put this into context, the last time someone came out with an 18VT compact that was doing these numbers, half the brands out there were not even selling brushless models of these tools yet. These are like subcompact impact numbers and even lower than that in some cases from a model they're slapping the phrase mid torque on. I'd hate for someone to buy this as their first mid torque impact. Let's see how its more chunky cousin, the actual mid torque, does up against some equally stiff competition now in reverse.

[00:05:52]Now, before we get into it, I bet you probably missed what this tool shed during its run. Let's see that part again. Yeah. Did you catch that? Yes.

[00:06:02]Here it is again. Yeah. Violent enough tool to start chucking its hardware out.

[00:06:07]Typically, you don't loctite these side housing bolts. You just tighten them in.

[00:06:11]This one wasn't tightened down really at all, seeing as this tool isn't really even that violent. Oddly enough, it feels less dramatic using this. And it jumps and wiggles around less than the compact model we were just testing. 487 foot-lbs, though. Very good. And trending with that similarly spec flex mid torque. Let's take the gloves off with the battery they prefer you to use to hit their advertised figures. Here it is.

[00:06:45]Damn.

[00:06:46]>> 533 up from 487. That is impressive. And mostly all at the end here, meaning the motor in this thing needs that battery when things are tight. And there's really not all that much turning progress at the bolt head. The DeWalt really has sort of been on its own here in the last couple of years. In fact, I just looked this up. Actually, it's been about 4 years, four years, and the DeWalt has sat unchallenged at the top in mid torques. The possibly most useful category of impacts as far as number of bolts it can tackle and fit in there on a vehicle. This is what's getting me a bit excited. Speaking of excitement, normally when we buy new tools, we hope for something cool to show. And usually that means some extremes. Basically, if this compact makes 250 and the mid torque makes around 450 to 470, this is going to be a big snoozefest. We all didn't learn that much by seeing some average Joe's take on the world. But today, we've got two edge cases for you.

[00:07:38]This compact, for instance, is just downright bad. It's not going to make a boring 250, but a whole 28 up here, meaning a $120 Robi kicks its pants. And as a matter of fact, the GDS18V-230, this guy, which we bought at $149, this is their 230 model, and this is how the much newer 350 does against that. Maybe the folks over at Bosch can clear this up for us how the older, cheaper 230 model beats the 350 here. The 350 is also a little bit shorter, and yet they call this new one a mid torque and that older, longer one not. I don't really know what's going on there. The 230 model makes an understandable 236 for us and it's rated at 230 foot-lbs. Those numbers all make sense to me. Not sure what happened, but we think this is just a repurposed impact driver. It has a shared manual with their newer impact driver. It has a high IPM like an impact driver and its dyno curves here are like an impact driver with lots of hits making progress down low, but not enough on each one of those hits to provide the ump needed to make a difference once things are tight at the top. Anvil swapped impact drivers made into impact wrenches are cool, but that's because they're like four or four and a half inches long. We think there is some space in the subcompact market for something like these, but likely not in the just regular impact wrench looking stuff. This is the main attraction though today. I feel their actual mid torque. Let's see what it can do in our own best case scenario test. 15 seconds.

[00:09:07]Batteries fresh off the charger. The best it could muster. Here's both battery setups with this guy on screen.

[00:09:30]601 and 630 foot-lbs sandwiching the Dwalt depending on how you want to set the tool up. For the first time on the channel, four years in the making, we've had little squiggly lines go at top the yellow DeWalt here in a mid torque category. Now, in all fairness, you have a long list of battery options from DeWalt, but even all of those seat the DeWalt still around or just above this level. We're going to have to tally things on the leaderboard to see where it all falls. But first, we want to take this thing apart and see how they pulled this off. The screws on this guy, I mean, these need to be addressed. None of them were all that tight. One came out on its own, and we saw that. And none of these hammer case screws up here had any Loctite on them, which typically they should. If you buy this tool, recommend snugging up all these ones on the side and blue loctite on the fronts and you should be good to go. And we think you should because this thing is pretty awesome inside. One of the smallest brushless motors we've ever seen on this class of impact. And just look at how much room is dedicated to the hammer assembly up front. It's all about what's up front with this tool.

[00:10:31]And the reason for some of its odd proportions is this. We got a nice teflon ring seal here. It keeps the grease inside when it gets super hot.

[00:10:39]Inside here is a solid brass bushing up front and a wide surface to spread those side loads over on the anvil up here.

[00:10:46]It's not skimping to save some length, which you probably could. So, that's pretty cool. And up front, it's going to be the heaviest nonheavy looking hammer assemblies I've ever seen. 1.7 lbs from this thing. Some high torques have 1.8 1.9 lb hammers. 652 g while the DeWalts in this category is 550 g or 1.2 lb. And that's mainly all hammered, too. The spring looks sort of undized. The planetaries aren't all that thick either, though they are straight cut gears. Straight cut sungeear here as well, which puts less side load into the whole tool while driven. And that comes at usually the cost of a less smooth and more chunky sounding gear assembly, but smoother in use on your hand while impacting on stuff. And I can back that up. Not a lot of drama using this thing.

[00:11:32]So, they're really taking a page out of one of our custom builds. And this thing is tungsten up front. Or really, I mean, what's going on here is diameter. The diameter of this hammer is 20% larger than DeWalt's. And that explains the sort of like super guppy looking shape this thing has going on. Not only does diameter add mass quicker, but also places that mass further from the center and as a result makes the dogs on the anvil longer. And each one of those hits more impactful from like a mechanics like a like a physics standpoint. This whole slim, modern, but seemingly undersized with a ton of windings motor and massive hammer relationship does make sense when you look at its graph.

[00:12:10]Sort of the opposite of the compact impact wrench they're selling. The motor isn't going to cycle this thing all that rapid compared to most tools. So, it gets a slow start. In fact, this hits 2400 times per minute. Compare that to DeWalt's mid torque at 3250 and M18s at 3,500 RPM. And you might think something's wrong with the tool when using it, but it's a bit of a poweritzer. It chugs away. It saves its special skill for the end when everyone else is slowing down and keeps going with more impactful, albeit slower hits.

[00:12:41]And that's sort of what you want when you're budging something free. It doesn't take you this long to work for you to see this advantage we're seeing here. You're starting up here in maybe the 5600 range worth of stock and breaking that free. Back to the breakdown. This tool doesn't place the electronics in the base, which we like to see. It uses potted electronics in the center handle where it gets beat up less from vibration, your hand acting as a damper. And the DeWalt does this, too.

[00:13:07]But unlike that, this whole thing is in an aluminum drop in like cast aluminum housing that drops into this handle and up at the head to that aluminum. And we've not seen this before. Snakes its way all the way up here to locate and brace the brushless motor. probably good for heat dissipation as well from that board with a fan placed right here by it. And this also uses a KU trigger mechanism with a bellows to prevent like dust and ingress. KU makes some pretty good triggers as well. Let's rank this tool. Depending on how you set it up, we have both battery types here. The Dino runs get turned into points like this.

[00:13:41]With the max capability of the tool we saw on the day compared to its length, how much torque it makes per inch.

[00:13:46]That's 95.5 points, which is a new channel record. It's rated at 575 in tightening, which is what we do in forward and reverse. And it gets its max points here for more than doing that. In bear tool form, what you get out of this tool for its price, that's where things get pretty crazy, as we mentioned before, because we bought their last mid torque down here at 219. This is 199 and does all of this. That's 47.5 points here. Really good stuff. This totals 395 flat and 402 flat. Placing the new Bosch here a top everything. And realistically, you could put a 6 or an 8 amp hour power pack, 15 A on here, and get this up to 639 we find. And yet, while this was $229 when we bought it, it's about $279 retail today. We don't shuffle these around every week based on price changes, which do happen almost daily. So, if we recked all these, it would still finish second if that were the case. So, we're going to give credit where credit is due. Bosch knocking it out of the park here with a cannon of a mid torque. They put out a mid torque with a high torque hammer inside and a mid torque that's a repurposed little impact driver. Bosch really do just be having fun over there. No more rules. I sort of love it. Definitely makes us remain relevant when you truly have to buy both of these to compare it to known examples to figure out what they really are. We'll be back here each Friday doing exactly that for you guys and other fun stuff. Click subscribe if that sounds like a good time to you and thanks for watching.

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