20 Best Pocket Hole Jig For Beginners (2023 Updated)

The Kreg 720 pocket hole jig worked great for me on a project i was working on. It required a lot of pocket holes abs i wanted an upgrade from the small Kreg pocket hole jig. I’ve seen some reviews stating that there wasn’t a mounting option built into this jig however that must have been addressed as there were mounting holes in the one I purchased with instructions on mounting it to plywood.

The chip collection on this jig worked flawlessly hooked up to my dust collector, better than i expected. The only negative i experienced was that the clamping mechanism that clamps the board and is also the drill guide didn’t always set on its own.

I’d have to press it all the way down to seat it with one hand than clamp it with the other. Not a difficult task at all but was expecting better. I have to say that it may have been the large pieces of sheet goods i was working.

Not a deal breaker but something to be cognizant of All in all I would recommend this tool.

I recently upgraded from the most simple of Kreg pocket-hole jigs to the new 720Pro and, wow, what a difference it made in my pocket-hole-drilling life! First off, this particular set comes with everything you need to drill the perfect pocket holes for any project.

And, whether or not you have any experience, this device is relatively intuitive and user friendly. One of the things I love about this, other than the ease of use, is that it comes with multi-functional/multi-purpose components such as the right and left supports than attach to the jig itself and not only serve to support your wood, but also can be used for storage of the various accessories and parts.

One of the side pieces also included a guide/marker to help make sure your piece of wood is in the right place. Under the jig, there are place to store and hold some of the attachments included in the set to help when placing your device on the shelf.

One of those included parts is the drill bit itself, which includes an adjustable depth collar that is marked for 1/2, 3/4, and 1. 5, which I totally love! The set also includes 1. 5 and 2. 5-inch pocket-hole screws, and a super-cool dust collector attachment that can really help with the cleanliness of these often-messy projects.

I could go on and on, but, overall, this is the set to beat! Kreg hit a home run with this 720PRO and I can’t wait to see what all I can make with it.

I used the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig to construct a small bookcase. I found using the jig to be one of the most flexible, convenient and easy to use tool on the market. I needed a significant number of pocket holes and I was able to stage and clamp the wood frames in preparation for the drilling.

Although tedious, it was very simple and uncomplicated to clamp and drill. I was able to effectively drill holes that were consistent throughout the framing of my bookcase. I’m a novice at doing minor woodwork, yet this jig made it very easy to work with and assemble my bookcase successfully.

I found the depth guide extremely useful to maintain the consistency of my pocket holes. I was able to drill holes that were consistent in their depth. I like the features, capabilities and measurement functionalities of this product.

I needed to make various depth adjustments and it was easy to make those adjustments. The quality of construction is very good and felt it was sturdy and durable to support many projects. This jig will last a very long time and will be a valuable addition to your tool chest.

I highly recommend this product for your everyday woodworking projects and give the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig a 5-STAR Rating.

I used the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig to construct a small bookcase. I found using the jig to be one of the most flexible, convenient and easy to use tool on the market. I needed a significant number of pocket holes and I was able to stage and clamp the wood frames in preparation for the drilling.

Although tedious, it was very simple and uncomplicated to clamp and drill. I was able to effectively drill holes that were consistent throughout the framing of my bookcase. I’m a novice at doing minor woodwork, yet this jig made it very easy to work with and assemble my bookcase successfully.

I found the depth guide extremely useful to maintain the consistency of my pocket holes. I was able to drill holes that were consistent in their depth. I like the features, capabilities and measurement functionalities of this product.

I needed to make various depth adjustments and it was easy to make those adjustments. The quality of construction is very good and felt it was sturdy and durable to support many projects. This jig will last a very long time and will be a valuable addition to your tool chest.

I highly recommend this product for your everyday woodworking projects and give the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig a 5-STAR Rating.

I’ve always wondered how woodworkers made furniture seem so seamlessly; in particular where exactly the nail or screw disappeared to. Now I know. Furthermore, I’ve always wanted to get into woodworking and now I can.

The pocket-hole Jig 520 is the most versatile jig yet. The unique design of the pocket-hole jig 520 makes the jig adaptable to any workspace. You can use it on a work surface or clamp the jig right on the material you are working on.

I like how the VersaGrip makes clamping intuitive. Just squeeze the handle until your material is clamped securely. It also rotates 360° so you can always find a position that is comfortable and easy use.

I believe this jig was built to last. The pocket-hole Jig 520 comes with a 2″ face clamp for holding and assembling parts of your project. You also get 100 Kreg pocket-hole screws, and a free project plan so you can start building right away.

I’m still getting the hang of putting wood into position, clamping the wood securely, and making pocket holes. I want to master this before doing any screwing. For my first project I hope to make a frame and then a shoe rack.

Wish me luck.

I’ve had Kreg’s smaller mobile Pocket Hole jig for a couple of years, and it’s pretty great. It has a couple of niggles for me, it can be a pain when pocket hole drilling big sheets all round, as holding the sheet steady for drilling means a lot of manoeuvering and re-clamping.

The K4 is a bit of a revelation by comparison. Screw it to the bench (don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be) and it’s super sturdy. Once the clamp is set up for the thickness of your panel, you can simply clamp/drill/repeat very easily.

The integrated vacuum port is excellent – literally no sawdust escapes during the process. There’s a really nice little hole to store the Allen key for adjusting the collar, so you can keep the whole thing together really easily.

Absolutely brilliant, and worth the money. Having used it quite a bit now (approx 60 holes), I can see the advantage of the K5’s system with the auto adjust clamp operated from the front, but for me it still wouldn’t be worth the extra cash, the K4 is a great balance of function and cost.

I don’t think I’ll ever use my mobile jig again, I’ll probably e-bay it now, as the K4 can be broken down and used in exactly the same fashion.

A carpenter will tell you that a good jig is worth its weight in gold. This is a terrific jig. It’s a new system called the Kreg System and it is great for carpentry and especially furniture building and repair.

It comes with drills, screws and jig attachments that makes drilling, joining and pocket hole drilling easy and effective. Now, if you’re a carpenter you would probably know all it does if I listed the many projects here.

If you are not than you won’t understand and you must read the manual to find out. I can tell you, as a carpenter, that this is a wonderful way to join parts, pocket drill and various repair applications made easy by this new system.

It’s not hard to use and you just need to know how to go about using the jig and attachments. It joins solid wood and plywood. You can purchase additional items like a quick change kit, key clamps and various other items that will make your projects and repairs a lot more fun and ensure solid joint connections.

The Jig is well made and fun for all. Read the enclosed manual, purchase the many items available for this jig and your projects and go at it. What you really want to know is if it’s worth buying. It is and I recommend it and submit a very positive review.

Bought this thinking I could expand later with the K5 Jig only to learn that the K5 has been discontinued and there is no replacement compatible with the HD. HD jig works well but kind of a pain without the K5 or similar Jig system.

Especially when you have 30 t0 40 pieces to drill out. Glad I don’t have use this on every project. I’d return if I did. Won’t use it again after this job unless it’s a small project.

I love pocket screws and have used the regular jig extensively in cabinet construction and remodeling. I bought the HD jig specifically to use to replace a picket fence, fastening the runners to posts.

Worked like a charm. The fence is extremely solid, and the heavier exterior screws are just what the Doctor ordered.

I have the more ordinary sized Kreg Pocket screw joiner for face frames and the like. I added this to my arsenal. My wife started this project without a clue of what she was going to do and got me involved after a lot was done (my stepson’s house).

The jig works pretty well similar to my experience with other Kreg pocket jigs. A couple of issues, the drill is 1/2″ dia and is necked down to a 1/4″ hex to fit a quick change chuck. Not too long into it the drill and bit were knocked on the floor and the drill got bent at the shank and this make it run out while drilling making clamping the jig problematic.

The second problem is that the shipping box is kind of feeble and the #3 square drive bit fell out and disappeared. So both the drill and driver have had to be replaced. Because of the overall dimensions of the lumber making square and accurate cuts become more of an issue and a little out of the ken of folks doing construction with a portable circular saw.

Even a usually reliable chop saw should be checked daily.

This was my entry level buyin to pocket hole joinery. Strictly home DIYer. Already used it a bunch of times. Works better than any video Ive watched. Outperform the bigger bench top units because its so versatile and small it fits everywhere and its modular so you take it apart to do single holes if necessary.

FYI!! Hillman cabinet screws are identical from Lowes for half the price and the $6 C clamp visegrip from Harbor Freight works just fine in leu of the $35 Keegan clamp. I also ground one jaw of a HF C clamp visegrip to mimic the end clamp and its perfect.

Great little pocket hole jig kit! Made my first attempt at building a cabinet super easy and look very professional. Comes with everything you need other than a clamp to hold it in place; I ended up using a Quick Grip which worked alright.

The jig itself can be configured to fit the width and thickness of the wood. The included drill bit is great as well. Price was decent considering how much time I saved if I was to do the same without it.

I highly recommend it.

After wasting money on a cheap Chinese jig, I decided to buy the Kreg 320 model. It does the job efficiently and is easy as I only needed to set it up once for the job I was working on. I gave it 4 stars as there is still a little movement of the jig, even thought it was clamped down, but that can be overcome by being more careful about how to apply pressure correctly.

The drill bit supplied does a very good job. The square bit doesn’t sit as tight in the screw heads as I would have liked, but I did manage to drive in the Kreg screws with it. Torx or star head screws may be more secure with the correct bit.

This thing is made of fine quality materials. It works fine. But its much slower than similar jig systems. Its a good value with the screws,fillers and bit. The carrying case is cheap. It doesnt hold the items in place well at all.

Overall its a decent jig but you can get the blue brand for just a bit more and I think its worth the extra cost.

Although Ive only used it a few times so far, it seems very good for the money, with a decent selection of screws and bits, although I dont understand why theyre star-drive instead of pozidrive or philips, which means buying special screws To use with it, or buying extra long bits for the screws I already have.

However, the jig is good. No instructions though for first timers – youll have to find a YouTube video to see how to use a jig!.

it is a good product it does what i needed it to do looks good. Im still getting use to it the price is great. the con is when i clamp it down with a regular clamp the other end slides around but the clamps they show them using which is vise grip clamps i just found mine so i will use them and see how it does and let yall know.

New wood worker’s experience; The connections made possible by using the Kreg Pocket Hole maker were super fast and efficient. The learning curve is near instant. I was able to do some fairly complicated framing work (for me) with it and couldn’t imagine what complicated tools I would have need if I didn’t have it.

They pocket holes reinforced the strength of every connection made in my project. Definitely an essential tool for any woodworker. I would recommend purchasing at least the next level up (3 hole). This way the ability to expand its application is greatly increased.

Having holes at the ends of 2×4’s are ideal in that it would allow the placement of lag bolts if the build required them. Con. The pocket hole drill bit locking collar struggled to stay in place on a number of engagements even though it was more than adequately tightened down.

This led to the screw assembly slightly gouging the top of the drill shaft making it impossible to adjust the collar freely along it any longer. I’ll have to purchase another bit because of it. Over all I’m super thrilled to have such a great tool added to my wood working kit.

This worked much better than I thought. It is great for joining planks to make a work surface, I also used it to make a table frame using CLS timber, this was much better than my sloppy mortice an tenon joints.

I already had a quick release ratchet clamp which speeded up drilling holes along a plank. The drill bit is of good quality, I think it will last a while, the whole lot comes in a useful little case too.

I didn’t realise initially that I would need special screws, so it comes with a few to get you going but you will need to buy lots more to make anything – the screws are not countersunk so they are sort of pan head which stops then pulling through soft timber.

I added small 9mm washers to countersunk screws because I had loads and this seemed to do the trick but I will get some proper screws for the next project.

It does do what it was described to do. The question is, how long will it last with this ape using it. Just the amount of plastic used to manufacture this product lends me to believe it’s a disposable tool.

The price point drew me to purchase it and based on the price the tool is not all that bad. I wanted to give it 4 stars, but I cannot see it being above average. I do recommend it for hobby type use.

I’ve used it building shelving units and it worked fine. I’m just waiting for me to drop it on the old shop floor and sweep up the pieces.

I bought this jig after reading a great many reviews. Now I’ve been doing woodworking for just under 50 years, and I have used other pocket hole jigs for literally longer than I can remember. Over the years I’ve used (of course) a Kreg jig, another (borrowed from a friend) whose brand I no longer remember, and 2 different jigs which I made myself.

Now I know that HF has many inexpensive tools (several of which I use almost every day) and some of them are – despite the bargain price – are excellent. So when I wanted to get a metal jig, my first thought was to try the HF offering.

It looks very nice, but the included drill came in the box along with its tip which was completely broken off. So returned it and bought a second one and its drill was intact. 🙂 I liked the jig a lot: it was sturdy and the finish was great.

I also liked it because it allows the user to put the holes EXACTLY where he or she want them. That’s a very strong positive point. Sadly however I ended up returning this one too, because it has a design flaw, a serious one if you’re building anything other than shop-grade projects.

On every other jig I’ve used, the body of the jig presses directly onto the area where the woodworker is drilling the pocket hole. The result is therefore not plagued by excessive tear-out around the hole.

(The results were the same whether I use the included drill bit OR one from a Kreg jig. ) On this jig, that is not the case, and after trying MANY different approaches (around 70-75 holes before I gave up) I was unable to create a single pocket hole which did not suffer from excessive tear-out, and some of them actually tore out huge chunks of wood around the hole.

(The worst one was in birdseye maple, and the “tear-out” included a chunk about 1/ 2″ x1/4″ x 1-1/8. ” This was a scrap piece used for testing only, but the tear was so bad that the chunk could not reasonably be glued back in well enough to hide the damage.

) UltimatelyI returned it, and I bought something which cost about the same but which was far superior in manufacture and performance. I cannot recommend this product as there are many other choices, and many of them can perform their task without ruining the piece they are used on.

I bought this a few weeks back. I used it to make around 60 pocket holes for a platform I was building. Previously, I bought a cheap one from the smiling company, which was horrible to use. At the same time, I did not want to use the overpriced high end pocket hole tool from the blue company as well (especially, it looked like cheap plastic).

I liked this tool because, of its heavy duty aluminum/steel construction that can take a lot of jobsite abuse. Needless tosay, this tool saved me a lot of time. Creating pocket holes is a breeze with this tool.

Adjusts to all thickness upto 1. 5″. I fixed this to a 24″x 8″ board and with two clamps, it stays rock stable for large boards or pieces of wood. My only issue is that it does not handle thin boards well.

I guess I would have liked it better if the hole guide could be moved up and down to adjust for the thickness of the board. Please remember to use some dry lube on the guide holes and the drill bit, it helps a lot to reduce wear and tear.

thanks for this awesome tool, HFT. Salute!.

I like it better than the Kreg jig in that its bettet to set and with the magnet its easier to clamp it to place. Also is much cheaper than the Kreg jig system.

Material quality is good for the price but longer term durability may be questionable. I had no problems whatsoever.

For the price I expected a little better fit into the jig and a better handle. When inserted into the jig, it has some slop to it and, in my opinion, the head should penetrate further into the tool than approximately 1 1/4″.

The handle is ok but could have been made to have the ability to use a wrench to help tighten the screw.

The clamp works best attached to a bench top with ample space underneath, but it’s nothing fancy and it doesn’t promise anything, it just works!!! Go figure!!!

Super fast and consistent! Crazy strong joints..

731 Woodworking (YouTube) did a review on the new Kreg Series pocket hole tool and concluded that the K5 was much better. I trust his opinion and thought that with the new series being available there ought to be some deals on dated tools like the K5.

I found this one and was not disappointed. Not only is this the K5 it is the K5MS (Master System) which makes the deal even better. It comes with everything you need including the AutoClamp. This was my first experience using an autoclamp and I was amazed at ease of use.

I will be getting more of them as deals come along. Must say that at retail, autoclamps aren’t affordable for me. Instruction book was good and I would recommend that user either read it or better yet watch Kreg’s Skill Builder Videos for the K5.

For the most part, using the K5 is fairly intuitive but setting the jig up for board width isn’t or at least is wasn’t for me. I would highly recommend the K5 and especially the K5MS to anyone interested in using pocket holes in their projects.

There are, perhaps, better systems out their. But for the hobbyist/entry-level woodworker, I have no doubt that this product is best bang for money.