Ingersoll Rand, which has been facing increased competition from Milwaukee, Dewalt, Harbor Freight, and others, launched a new IQV20 cordless reciprocating saw, C5101.
IR haven’t sent press materials in a very long time, so I dug around to see what I could learn about their latest cordless offering.
Ingersoll Rand says that their new cordless reciprocating saw is 5% lighter than the leading cordless competitor and cuts through steel pipes 20% faster than the leading cordless competitor.
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Leading cordless competitor? They don’t specify the cordless competitor, which is important.
Do they consider cordless power tool brands to be competitors, or are they looking solely at brands that exist solely in the automotive tool space?
The IR C5101 has a 1-1/4″ stroke length and 3000 SFM max speed.
This matches the on-paper specs for Milwaukee’s M18 Fuel Super Sawzall reciprocating saw (2722-20), and Makita’s XGT saw with AVT (GRJ02). Dewalt’s Flexvolt and 20V Max FlexVolt Advantage saws have a 1-1/8″ stroke length and 3000 SFM max speed.
IR uses older battery tech; I doubt they’re beating brands like Milwaukee and Makita in cutting performance.
It would be great to know where their “cuts through steel pipe 20% faster” claim comes from.
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Looking around a bit more, Snap-on’s 18V cordless reciprocating saw (CTRS8850) has a 1″ stroke length and 2400 SPM speed. Maybe that’s the brand Ingersoll Rand considers as their “leading cordless competitor?”
Features include a brushless motor, tool-free blade change, and LED worklight.
Ingersoll Rand touts the blade-change feature:
Say goodbye to time-consuming blade switches. The tool-less blade clamp lets you make quick and easy changes, so you can get back to work.
When is the last time a major cordless power tool maker released a reciprocating saw that didn’t have a tool-less blade clamp?
IR says that their new saw is compatible with their 5Ah and 2.5Ah batteries.
There are tool-only (C5101) and kit (C5101-K22) options. The kit comes with 2x 5Ah batteries and a charger.
Despite the saw having launched more than 2 months ago – according to the date stamp in Ingersoll Rand’s social media posting – it doesn’t look to be available for sale anywhere yet.
Would any of you buy this IR instead of a reciprocating saw from Milwaukee, Dewalt, Makita, or other such brand that specializes in cordless power tools?
Steve
I really don’t have a need for a “large” D handle recp. saw like this for the type of work I do. I do, however; use the smaller M12 “hackzall” quite a bit. The size, weight and power are all quite phenomenal. If I’m cutting metal pipe, I’m using a band saw, which is much quicker than any recp. saw.
With that in it’s a no for me. Even if I wanted/needed one, there doesn’t appear to be anything special about this one…
Jared
IR should really consider a “cordless alliance” or “power share” arrangement. They make good cordless tools, but competition is fierce. The mainstream offerings are so good that more specialty brands must find it very hard to stay relevant. I would definitely consider their tools if it didn’t mean buying into another platform.
fred
When we bought and rescued a failing metal fabrication business – almost all of the small power tools were pneumatic and IR, CP, Dotco, Cleco, and Dynabrade were well represented brands. In the intervening years advances in cordless tools have made some of them less relevant. I still think that may still be a case for pneumatic production grinders and sanders and some specialty tools (as other have said) like air chisels and needle scalers. I agree that IR would likely be more competitive if they used their experience to produce innovative cordless tools using a battery platform frome one of the other major players.
Saulac
IR felt off my radar when I gave away my pretty significant automotive tool set. I don’t work on car as much any more, but this reminds me that I still need cordless replacements for: “air” hammer (with cordless impacts can deliver ridiculous amount of torque via…hammering…why this is not ready a thing?), body saw, needle scaler.
Jared
I’m 100% behind the cordless air hammer idea. I’m sure the problem is bulk and power, but it doesn’t have to have long-stroke power to be useful. Something the size of a compact impact driver would be fine with me.
Ryobi seems like they would be the first to try it. They already had a cordless hammer for nails.
It’s one of the last major air tools where there isn’t a cordless alternative. If it existed, you could even use one of the air hammer needle scaler attachments with it and kill two birds.
John
I use a rotohammer in chisel mode as an electric air hammer. It works great.
eddie sky
Clever but way to heavy a tool for repeated use like welding slag cleanup or descaling rust on a frame. Something the size of a cordless ratchet would be ideal…
MM
It may be that IR is using a tool truck brand as a point of comparison, most of their power tools seem focused towards auto repair. They were one of the first to have a cordless bandfile sander and their model is specifically the smaller type used for grinding out spotwelds when doing unibody repair. I considered buying one years ago but I didn’t really want to buy into such a niche platform when I don’t fix cars for a living. A couple other interesting cordless tools which come to mind are their “body saw” model C1101: I wish other cordless companies would make their own take on that, preferably one that could take jigsaw blades as well as the standard air saw blades. Also, their monster 1″ impact wrench, which IIRC is the most powerful of any model that Torque Test Channel has put on their dyno. I certainly don’t need that but I imagine it’s handy if you’re a diesel mechanic.
This saw feels a bit like Festool’s recip saw: if you simply needed a Recip for most purposes you’d probably never consider either brand. But if you were already on the platform for some other main reason and you happen to want a recip? Then you might consider these. But I still think it’s a small market; the mechanics I know all have either Dewalt, Milwaukee, Makita, or Harbor Freight tools already, often multiple of those brands. If they wanted a recip saw they’d buy one of those.