DeWalt’s DW304-PK reciprocating saw seems to pack a lot of power, but its cutting performance ends up being very underwhelming.
The bright yellow DW304PK is a well-built, compact saw with three standout features: First, its unusual dual blade clamp allows the blade to mount in either of two positions: one with the blade in the usual orientation, the other with the blade horizontally set, close to the top edge of the saw. This is very useful for cutting flush with a surface — say, sawing through the nails in the top and bottom plates of a wall you want to remove. Next, instead of a pivoting foot, the DW304PK has a sort of steel cage that encases the entire area around the blade shaft.
DeWalt’s reciprocating saw has a very unique two position blade mounting system that allows you to set the blade horizontally at the top edge of the saw.
Although no foot adjustments are possible, once I got used to using the cage as a foot, I found the saw stable and solid during cutting.
Finally, unlike the blade-shaftmounted blade clamps found on other saws, the DW304PK has a lever on the side of the cage that unlocks the dual clamp during blade changes. The lever works well regardless of the position of the blade shaft.
Despite the DW304PK’s 10-amp motor and 1-1⁄8″-long blade stroke, the saw’s cutting performance was underwhelming, taking 19.5 seconds — the second slowest in the 2×8 cutting test. Vibration wise, it wasn’t quite as smooth running as the Bosch. It also lacks selectable blade orbit.
