No. It's the way the bit is made that's the problem. Torx drivers and screw heads have a torque limit: Exceed the torque limit and bad things happen. However, this table assumes that the bit and screw head are perfectly mated fit, with no air gap anywhere on surfaces perpendicular to the direction of applied force. If there's an air gap, the force (torque) will be applied to a much smaller area than with a perfect fit. It doesn't take much of an air gap, especially small screw heads which don't have much mating area anyway. That's why the tapered sides of the new and not-so-improved Husky bits are a problem. There is quite a reduction in contact area near the too narrow tip, and quite an air gap due to the tapered fit.
I beg to differ. Look at the max torque specs at the above URL and test your ability to apply torque with some kind of torsion torque tester. This one should cover T2 to T10 screws: I just tried it with a small torque wrench and found that I could do about 8 ft-lbs or about 11 newton-meters. That's sufficient to hit maximum for a T20 screw head far more than necessary to strip out the tiny screws found in cell phones.
Maybe. If the bit was a good mating fit for the screw head, then yes, it's probably junk. However, if it was a sloppy fit and/or had air gaps, I could also blame the screw or bit depending on which one was poorly made. There's also a question of metallurgy. If the bit were properly heat treated, only the outside surface would be hardened and annealed, while the core would be softer steel. That would give the maximum hardness to protect the surface from gouging, and a somewhat flexible core to give the bit strength. However, as the bit becomes smaller and smaller, more of the material becomes hardened and annealed steel, until the tip becomes very hard and very brittle. Do anything wrong while driving this type of brittle bit, and it's going to break.
I have a collection of screw extractors and center drilling jigs. I rarely need them.
Most of the bits are electroplated with some kind of chromium anti-rust compound. In the past, screwdriver tips were hardened giving them a darkish color. This was the symbol of quality for Proto, SK, and other quality screwdrivers. Now, every manufacturer does this, except there's no hardening and the darkish color is either an acid etch or paint.
Hint: If you feel the need to use an impact driver to remove a screw, it's probably a left handed screw thread. (e.g. early Motorola DynaTac and MicroTac).
Suggestions:
- Don't use driver bits. There's nothing really wrong with them except that the handles are too large for smaller size Torx screws.
- I have a few of these "precision" Wiha Torx tools: which I use for working on smartphones. They work very nicely.
- Test the fit of whatever driver you purchase against the screw head before applying main force. There are some really weird screw heads out there.