Milwaukee 18V Rear Handle Circular Saw

This review was created as part of a paid affiliate program with the Home Depot.

My first order of business with this and every product review is a disclaimer: I am not a professional contractor. I am a farmer and a fine furniture maker. When it comes to construction and renovation projects, I’m a DIYer and weekend warrior. That said, I doubt many professional contractors will be reading my tool reviews. My goal in reviewing tools and products is to provide honest feedback based on my own use and experience with these tools to other regular folks like me- wanting to get their hands dirty, try new things, and get the best value for their hard earned dollars.

Let’s talk about the M18 Fuel 18-Volt LIon Cordless 7-1/4” Rear Handle Circular Saw!

For folks regularly using worm drive saws, looking for tons of power out of a battery operated tool, this is the right one for the job. It generates the power of 15A corded circular saws while giving an even faster cut than it’s corded brothers, delivers up to 570 cuts per charge on a M18 HD12 High output battery, and is part of the M18 FUEL system featuring over 175 other industrial quality power tools.

This saw has a lot of plus-es, aside from plenty of power and a long battery life which make it really handy to keep around. One of those is onboard tool storage. There is nothing worse than going to change a blade and realizing you didn’t bring the right wrench in your tool bag and have to walk all the way back to the truck, or worse, make a trip back to the shop to grab it.

My main critiques with this saw are the high(er than some of their competitor’s) price point at $269 for the bare tool, (and, thus, fact that it doesn’t come with an onboard HD12 battery). I also understand that the battery cost alone would hitch up the price point significantly, so I can’t get too ruffled about that. For home users and diy’ers, this saw is priced out of their market, but I’d also argue it’s more saw than most of those folks need. I would love to see this saw with positive stops at 45 and I first thought the LED was a bit superfluous, but it’s proven a few times to be really helpful. The saw is powerful, but with that comes a lot of extra weight, so it’s not one I’d personally choose to use for an 8 hour day for little cuts, but if I were framing and cutting 2x6’s all day, this would be the perfect tool for the job. The weight is also a sign of the increased durability I’ve come to experience and expect with Milwaukee tools. For the sake of these reviews, I do put these tools through a lot, dropping them off ladders, doing partial charges on the batteries, getting them wet, dragging them through the mud, inevitably they get licked by my donkeys and chewed on by my goats, but they all just keep chugging along. One very nice feature of the Milwaukee that isn’t available on some of the competitor’s saws in the same bracket is that any M18 battery will power the saw, so if you happen to be at the end of the day with only a few cuts left to make, with a dead battery, you can swap in a smaller battery to finish up the job.