Originally Posted By: jzmtl
If a square drive strips when you try to remove it what chance do you have with a phillips?

I actually just tried to remove some phillips that's probably in the deck rail for over 10 years this past weekend. First it just slips, then I pushed on the driver hard while cranking it, the bit exploded instead. Luckily the heads aren't all the way inside wood so I ended up using a small pipe wrench to remove them.


The depth of the hole is less with square drive where a phillips goes about twice as deep. Sure I've had plenty phillips strip bit have had just as many square strip and they are used much less often so the % that strip out is much higher.

I've had better luck with Torx.