Milwaukee M18 Cordless 6 1/2 Inch Circular Saw
The Milwaukee M18 Cordless 6 1/2” Circular Saw is a fantastic cordless tool that is a professional grade high quality saw made from durable materials with plenty of great features.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25
Look & Feel: 24/25
Features 24/25
How much I enjoy 24/25
Total: 95/100
The Milwaukee M18 Cordless 6 1/2” Circular Saw is a fantastic tool that performs so well it withstood two months of hard use remodeling my garage and several other home do it yourself projects. My recent purchase of an older home means I have plenty of work to do and reviewing the tools to do this work is a great way to test them out.
Performance and features that make a tool stand out from the pack of average tools are not just good price or tough durability, it’s also those small things such as quick recharge for cordless batteries. The Milwaukee cordless saw in my opinion is a professional grade cordless tool that has a lot of features that come from people who know tools and their use.
The Milwaukee M18 Cordless 6 1/2” Circular Saw has a 6 1/2” blade with a 3500 RPM motor on a 5/8 inch arbor with an 18 volt DC motor. The saw has a large 5 1/2 inch by 12 1/4 inch aircraft aluminum shoe that has plenty of guides on it including two notch guides for straight and 45 degree cuts.
The shoe also has an 8 inch guide along the length of the shoe and a four inch guide across the shorter length with a degree guide from 0 to 50 degrees for tilt. The saw easily tilts from 0 to 50 degrees using an attached thumbscrew near the slot for the rip fence.
The Milwaukee M18 Circular Saw also has a few accessories that come with the model I received for reviewing including two battery packs, a battery charger, contractor bag and rip fence along with a framing saw blade. The rip fence when in use installs in two slots along the front of the shoe and fastens down using an angled thumbscrew to hold the fence in place better than a straight screw.
The Allen wrench that is used for loosening and tightening the arbor stores in the front handle on the side and both the main handle and front handle are rubber cushioned. While the saw does come with a framing saw blade I found I had to buy a new blade after all the use I put it through and did buy a little better quality blade than the one that comes with the saw.
The trigger is easy to use and grip while using the saw with a safety trigger that you can press from either side of the main handle. The saw has a stop button when removing or replacing the blade so you can remove the arbor screw and push the button to stop the motor from turning, a necessity that I found older circular saws lack.
The lever for blade depth is located by the motor side of the shoe and is easy to use for changing the blade depth while the blade guard lever is on the opposite side near the blade. There is a depth gauge on the body of the saw blade housing so you can see with accuracy the depth at a glance while adjusting.
The saw is easy to use and powerful enough to cut 2x4 and 4x4 boards in single and double cuts for the larger pieces like 4x4’s with the only problem during cutting being when the blade binds. Unlike corded circular saws when the blade binds on a cordless saw it really does drain the battery quickly so you have to stop the blade and readjust your cut.
Thankfully the blade of the saw stops quickly when you release the trigger unlike regular corded saws where the blade will continue to turn for a few seconds after releasing the trigger. This means not only better stops and ends of cuts when not cutting all the way through materials but also a safety factor for having the blade stopping quickly just in case.
Using the saw on regular wood and on pressure treated wood was quite easy and the saw cut through without problems even in difficult to reach and odd positions. Using the saw to cut the overhang of my garage before installing the rolled roofing after repairing boards went easy and holding the saw with one hand as I cut was easy.
The saw has plenty of power but not much torque during cuts that it gets out of hand or that you cannot control the saw with one hand. I found I could easily make cuts using one hand while using the other to hold onto a ladder while cutting holes for eave vents and roof vents that went extremely well and was quite safe for me.
This was one thing I was worried about while working on a ladder or on my roof and having to make plunge cuts into the roof and under the eaves. I was concerned about keeping my footing and safely make the cuts without being too off from the marks I made during the process and things went extremely smooth.
The battery life was just not quite as good as I had hoped as I did have to change batteries after cutting three holes in my roof for the roof vents. Battery life is good and I had no problems always having a battery ready for new cutting when the previous one would go dead.
The roof vent holes went very well even though I did have to replace the battery once but it was more due to my binding up the blade more than making the straight cuts I needed to. Cutting the holes on the roof for the vents meant holding onto the ridge while I sat on the side and made the cut so I did have some trouble making the straight cuts without binding up the blade.
I found I could make more than several cuts in boards on one battery charge but it is really hard to judge battery life as a jammed blade really drains the battery quickly. I was cutting several dozen cuts on 2x4’s before having to remove the current battery and switch it out with the second and this is where having two or more batteries is a must.
The Lithium Ion batteries clip onto the saw using two buttons on each side and just slide onto the charger that comes with this model of M18 Circular Saw. The batteries have a gauge on the end to show how much battery life is left using a simple led bar graph and the charger also has a simple red or green LED to show charging and charged states.
The batteries are simple to swap out quickly and get you back to work but if you’re using this as a main tool for large jobs you may want to have a few extra batteries. I found I had to take a break a few times to allow a battery to charge or just use my old standby corded circular saw for the time being.
I did a lot of work using the Milwaukee M18 Circular Saw including replacing a wall of my garage addition and building a new back wall, building about 100 feet of fence out of 4x4 posts and 2x4 cross pieces with one by six pickets which were all pressure treated wood.
I also built a wall upstairs, cut vent holes for eave vents and roof vents and cut a door opening on my garage so the saw was used quite a bit over the last two months. I have to admit I am very impressed with the Milwaukee saw and would highly recommend this as a regular work tool for a do it yourselfer as well as the occasional use of a home owner.
If a professional is going to consider the Milwaukee cordless circular saw I would suggest the 28 volt version but for homeowners and occasional use for remodeling and home repair the 18 volt version which is less expensive would be a better choice. The Milwaukee M18 Cordless 6 1/2” Circular Saw is a great saw and definitely worth the cost of about $350 and is available at stores such as Mills Fleet Farm and Home Depot as well as on the internet.