Robert, I have owned 2 Hilti's, a TE 10 and a TE 12 and while the Hiliti's held the number 1 position for years in my mind, the ability to get them and pay for them was difficult. At a construction company I worked for we built thousands and thousands of feet of "snap tie" walls, all of which require cinch nailing, a way of holding down the bottom plate to the foundation using a 1/4" bit, drilling a hole throught the wood plate and concrete and locking it with 2- 16 penny nails. The company used Bosch Bulldogs which contrary to your statement were fantastic. The workers treated them so incredibly bad, dragging them in sand, dirt and mud. So fantastic were the Boschs that after my last Hilti, I bought a Bosch Bulldog. (my last Hilti was stolen and while may be ever so slightly better then the my Bosch, was 1/3 more in price) These are all small roto hammers, no more then 3/4" holes, after that we would use a Hilti TE 72. While all the electric hammers are nice and fairly conveniant, none of them come close, not even the tiniest bit to using air. A 1.5" hole in concrete with the TE 72 took many minutes, the air rock drill was measured in seconds. The air tools be they hammers or drills have a very disinct advandage over electric but then, a very big disadvantage as well, huge air requirements. It will depend on what your doing. Even the small and much lighter air operated hand chiesels easily out do the largest electric hammers. These hand chiesels are about 15 lbs or so but the power to break up dirt, rock, or concrete is incredible.
The anchors you used are called wedge anchors. Hilti designed so many great fasteners, I still have some big 1" anchors left from some jobs that cost about $7.00 a pop but worth every penny. The epoxy anchors are second to none. I did the entire light rail job in Sacto, building those stations with the blue roofs. I've put in thousands of Hilti's there. Even when they were'nt made by Hilti we just called them Hilti's. All of the companies are making much better electric hammers/drills these days. The key to using one successfully is NOT, I repeat, not to put your weight on them. Since they use opposing pistons which have an air gap between them and use this gap as the means of developing the impact, once you close it, you effectively remove most of the tools impact power. In most cases, just hand/arm pressure is needed. In fact, when you drill concrete and hit a rock, you will be suprised at how effective it is to back off even your arm weight and let a few hard, bouncing impacts fracture the rock.
If you ever use a jack hammer, especially the air operated type, the same pricncipal will apply. Pay no attention to those Hollywood movies or TV commercials where the guys resting his gut and leaning on the jack hammer, it just doesn't work that way. Rat...
