A rotary hammer drives a piston into the back of the bit thousands of times a minute, and that impact is most of what you hear. It is also a tool you hold at head height or above, often in a room someone else is working in. Every hammer in this survey declares at least 90 dB(A) at the operator's ear under the current standard. What the declarations show is a six decibel spread, from 90 to 96, and it follows the design more than the brand or the battery.
Sixteen rotary hammers sold in the US carry maker declarations we could read. Fourteen of them form the main group below, with figures under EN 62841 or, for Milwaukee, European figures that name no standard. At the ear they run from 90 to 96 dB(A). Sound power runs from 98 to 104.5. Two more DEWALT hammers are declared under the older EN 60745 and sit in their own group.
The test behind the numbers
Makers selling in Europe declare rotary hammer noise under EN 62841-2-6, the part of EN 62841 written for drills and hammers. It gives two quantities. LpA is sound pressure at the operator's position. LWA is sound power, the tool's total noise output. Each comes with a K value, the uncertainty, which is 3 dB for every hammer in the main group.
We rank on LpA and show LwA beside it. The two come from the same test but measure different things, and never belong in one ranking. The sound power vs sound pressure explainer covers why.
The standard declares vibration separately for hammer drilling into concrete and for chiselling, and most makers here print both. For noise, each maker gives one figure pair per tool. DEWALT labels its pair hammer drilling mode, and Makita, Bosch, Hilti and Milwaukee name no mode. So we rank the one pair each maker declares and say where each comes from. Makita names EN62841-2-6, Bosch and DEWALT name EN IEC 62841-2-6, Hilti's manuals point to the EN 62841 standards in their declaration of conformity, and Milwaukee's European pages name no standard.
SDS-max hammers are bought for bigger holes and demolition, so we list them apart from SDS-plus.
SDS-plus, main group: Hilti TE 4-22, Bosch GBH18V-26DN and DEWALT DCH133B at 90; Makita XRH01Z and Bosch GBH18V-26K25 at 91; Makita HR2641 and DEWALT DCH263B at 93; Milwaukee 2613-20 at 93.5; Hilti TE 6-22 at 94; Makita GRH01Z and Hilti TE 2-22 at 95; Milwaukee 2912-20 at 95.6.
SDS-max, main group: Makita XRH07PTUN at 94 and Makita HR4013C at 96.
EN 60745, kept apart: DEWALT DCH273B at 86 and DEWALT DCH172B at 87, with a K of 4.
Sound power mostly follows the same order, with one exception. The three hammers at 90 all declare 98, the lowest in the main group. Milwaukee's 2613-20 is mid table at the ear but declares 104.5 sound power, the highest in the group. If other people share the room, read that column too.
Hilti prints it, the rest do not
Hilti is the only brand here whose US product pages print noise figures. For all three Nuron hammers here, hilti.com and the manuals agree. Hilti's UK pages differ on sound pressure for the TE 2-22 (92 against 95 in the manual) and the TE 6-22 (91 against 94), so we quote the manuals, which the US pages match. Hilti also prices on hilti.com: $319 for the TE 2-22, $379 for the TE 4-22 and $471 for the TE 6-22, each as a tool body.
Not one US product page we opened for the Makita, Milwaukee, Bosch or DEWALT hammers prints a noise figure. The figures come from each maker's European documents, and we match each US tool to its European twin with the evidence in its listing.
How we matched the models
Makita sells the corded HR2641 and HR4013C under the same names in both markets. Its cordless hammers change names. The US XRH01 is the European DHR242, the GRH01 is the HR001G and the XRH07 is the DHR400, and in each pair the manuals agree on capacity, speed, blows per minute, length and voltage.
Bosch's matches rest on part numbers. The US GBH18V-26K25 page gives 3611J09012 and the European GBH 18V-26 manual covers 3 611 J09 0..; the GBH18V-26DN page gives 3611J16012 and the GBH 18V-26 D manual covers 3 611 J16 0... One wrinkle: both US pages list 0 to 890 rpm, while both European manuals say 980.
DEWALT sells the DCH133, DCH263, DCH273 and DCH172 under the same model numbers, and the UK manuals and US pages agree on impact energy and speed. Milwaukee's names differ. We tie the 2613-20 to the M18 BLHACD26 and the 2912-20 to the M18 FH by speed, blow rate and handle design; the impact energy figures differ a little between the US and European pages. Milwaukee's M18 FHX, the same 26 mm hammer with a FIXTEC chuck, lists 92.6 at the ear, three decibels below the M18 FH, but we did not find a US version of it to match.
Two maker documents show why we never mix standards. Makita's US manual for the HR2811F prints 90 dB(A) at the ear and 101 sound power under EN60745. Its current European manual declares 96 and 104 for the same model under EN62841-2-6. DEWALT's US manual for the DCH263 prints 85.7 at the ear in hammer drilling mode and 89.2 in chisel mode, naming no standard, while its UK manual declares 93 under EN 62841. We rank the EN 62841 figure for the DCH263 and left the HR2811F out.
What the spread means
With a K of 3 on every figure in the main group, hammers a decibel apart may sound the same in use. The three at 90 and the two at 91 are a group, not a podium. The bigger gaps are real: Hilti's TE 2-22 declares five decibels more at the ear than its TE 4-22, and a dust extractor adds two to four decibels on some Makitas.
A declaration is one standardised test, not your whole day. Bit size, the concrete, how hard you lean on the tool and whether you are chiselling all change what you hear. Use the figures to compare hammers, not to predict your exposure.
The silent aisle
Metabo's US site returned server errors every time we tried it, so we could not tie a Metabo declaration to a US model or price. Makita's HR2631F and XRH12Z are marked discontinued on makitatools.com, so they stay out. Milwaukee's M12 FUEL 2416-20 lists 0 to 900 rpm and 6,200 blows per minute, which do not match the European M12 FHAC16, the only M12 FUEL hammer page we found there, so it stays out too. Milwaukee's 2915-20 matches the European M18 ONEFHP on speed and blows, but the US page calls it a 1-1/8 inch hammer and the European page gives 32 mm in concrete; the 2916-20 lists 810 rpm and 4,650 blows against 800 and 4,600 for the nearest European page. We matched neither. Bosch's corded GBH2-26 shares a part number stem with the European GBH 2-26, but its US page lists 5,100 blows per minute against 4,000 in the European manual, so we left it out. These hammers may be quiet or loud. Their makers' US documents do not say.
We did not measure any of these rotary hammers. Every figure is the maker's own, quoted as published, with the standard, K value and document identified wherever the maker identified them.
