Ryobi PCL500B Review

Our Ryobi PCL500B Experience

The Ryobi PCL500B felt perfectly tailored for framing projects, thanks to its 5 1/2-inch blade that quickly slices through framing materials. We really like that it can be connected to a vacuum cleaner, which was convenient for keeping our work area cleaner and simplified cleanup when we used it inside the workshop.

Our Analysis and Test Results

Bevel

A thumbscrew on the front of the saw is loosened to adjust the blade angle (bevel) on the Ryobi PCL500B. When loosened, the saw base maintains a desirable stiffness, preventing it from flopping around during blade angle adjustments. There are stamped markings for commonly used bevel angles, like 15, 22.5, 30, and 45, but it lacks any positive stops. All told, it does not inspire confidence when making bevel cuts with little margin for error, but it remains useful for DIY projects, rough cutting, and work that does not require high precision. Although this saw can't cut a 2"x4" completely through at 45 degrees, we still recommend it for cutting sheet materials at an angle, like plywood.

Depth-of-cut adjustments are made using a thumbscrew, but it lacks the desirable stiffness of the bevel adjustment. Once we spent some time with the tool, we got a feel of how much to loosen the thumbscrew to keep it from flopping around when adjusting the blade cut depth, but it takes some practice. The depth-of-cut adjustment doesn't have any measurement indicators, but it's not a big deal to set the blade depth the old-fashioned way, using the material you'll be cutting. There are two channels on the front of the saw base to indicate your cut line at 0 and 45 degrees. In testing, we found the 0-degree indicator to be off by about 3/32 of an inch, which made it hard to make consistent cuts.

Cross Cuts

The 5 1/2-inch blade of the Ryobi PCL500B is well-suited to its level of power and does surprisingly well on crosscuts, allowing us to push it pretty hard before it begins to slow down. It was particularly slow to cut across our 12"x6" header beam, but only by a couple of seconds compared to the competition. All told, if you're working on a backyard project or crosscutting framing lumber, this saw is a great fit.

The Ryobi PCL500B can cut up to 1 11/16 inches in a single pass, making it ideal for working with 2-by lumber, DIY projects, and small-to-medium household projects homeowners might encounter. Surprisingly, this saw kept up quite well with several other larger, higher-power saws in our test group, so if its cutting capacity fits your use case, it's likely up to the task.

Ripping

Ripping isn't a strong point of the Ryobi PCL500B, so if you do a lot of ripping, this isn't the saw for you. It's capable of steady ripping but is quite slow at it.

It took 55 seconds for us to rip through 10 feet of a 2x12 with the Ryobi PCL500B, which is around 30-40 seconds longer than most other saws we tested. Although it is slow at ripping, it remains a useful, affordable, and capable saw. If you only occasionally rip material, we would still recommend this saw, just know it won't be efficient.

Metal Cuts

Similar to the ripping results, metal cutting with the Ryobi PCL500B proved it to be a capable saw, provided you have the time and patience to let it complete the cut.

We cut through metal reliably but slowly with the Ryobi PCL500B, but it isn't a saw we'd recommend if you see yourself cutting metal often. We made it through 2 feet of 16-gauge sheet metal in an average of 40 seconds and through a 2-inch galvanized steel pipe in an average of just over 9 seconds.

Blade Change

We like the conveniently located spindle lock that we could comfortably depress with our thumb while loosening or tightening the blade bolt. We also appreciate that the bolt that secures the blade in place has markings to indicate which direction to tighten. One thing to keep in mind with the 5 1/2-inch blade on the Ryobi is that the smaller blade size is less common, but we were able to find a few blades for cutting common materials easily enough. Just remember that they are much less readily available than more common sizes like 7 1/4.