Drilling .043 holes in A-2

[MPI chris]

Hello, Im hoping someone on here could possible help me with selecting a drill for a job weve got here in a shop. We are drilling about 300 .043 holes about .500 deep thru into A-2 Steel. we have used Guhring and Walter Titex carbide drills so far with some success but would like to find something with better life and durability. We are using Blazer bc40 soluble cutting oil mixed at about 6-8 percent. The machine we are using is a Haas vf3ss mill with a 40 taper spindle and standard er16 parlec collet holders. Any opniions or helpful advice would be appreciated. Thank you

[PixMan]

Let me start by asking just which Titex drill did you select, how did you choose it and how did you did determine the cutting parameters?

The Walter "Tec + CCS" software I have (v10.0) suggest this:

A1547-NO57 Alpha X-E HSS-Co

Run @ 2040 rpm, .814 ipm

1st peck .260" deep, 5 pecks @ .040" each, then .030" pecks.

It should take 39.28 seconds per hole, and do 275 holes per drill.

If you had coolant through the spindle AND you could go to .0433 diameter, this would be the one:

A6588TML-1.1 Alpha 4 Plus 12xD Micro K30F carbide

Run @ 9985 rpm (I'm assuming that your machine's max is 10K), 8.0 ipm feed, no pecking.

It should take 4.01 seconds per hole, and do 1959 holes per drill.

If you do not have coolant through the spindle, you can still benefit from using that solid carbide drill if you back down on speed and feed by 30%, do the hole in 3 pecks.