I use step drills quite often and this one doesn't seem any worse than anything else I've used . So far I've only drilled holes in the bottom of plastic pots with this tool, but the holes were clean and almost effortless. For those who haven't used a step drill before, if you know what size hole you want to make, use vernier calipers to measure the steps and then wrap a small piece of masking tape around the next larger step so you can easily tell when you need to stop drilling. It is a sharp and aggressive drill and is easy to enlarge. hole if you're not careful.