Cordless Drill Versus Impact Driver

If you have a choice I'd recommend an impact driver rather than a cordless drill for the simple reason that it does not transmit all of the massive torque to your wrist. I have both the Dewalt 20 volt drill and their 20 volt impact driver. On a recent trip, my camping buddy suggested I use the drill since it's a little quieter and we had a lot of neighbors in the campground. I was doing some maintenance on the jacks (greasing them) and thus was raising and lowering them. Anyhow while trying to lower the jack from the totally up position, I had the direction backwards on the drill. When I pulled the trigger, all the torque went into the drill. The force between the drill and the bumper with my hand in the middle caused enough of an injury for me to go have it x-rayed. I feared having crushed the distal metacarpal of the middle finger.

The impact driver doesn't work the same way. It has an intermittent high torque that creates the clanking noise but doesn't twist your wrist all around or slam it into things (at least not yet for me). It is also more compact than the drill.
I still use this to drive lag screws into the ground as stakes for my tarp or clam shelter. It is super fast and holds very solidly.

Another trick I'll share is to consider bringing a reciprocating saw. Last weekend when camping in a much more remote area, we needed to scrounge for firewood. Being a mature forest, there was plenty of downed trees. In the past we've brought along a chainsaw but that it's not working right now so I brought my reciprocating saw. It did a fine job of cutting through 3-5 inch diameter limbs on downed trees which were just about the right size to dry out and burn well. One word of caution though is that these saws go through the battery real quick - I have 2 batteries but needed to save one for the leveling jack. Next time I will bring along the charger so I can cut a bit more wood.

 

I will go with cordless drill, more uses out of it