It might just be my own experience but seems like HSS from China has been crappy. End mills, reamers, drills, even stock material for cutters. My hunch is carbide is available to us mortals from Asian sellers because that's what they are using for real world tooling for manufacturing & this is a sideline sale. Maybe their HSS is more for hardware stores and woodworking. N-Am HSS from reputable places is great quality. Its all I use for drills for example, unless its a special application.
Unfortunately, like lathe cutting tools, the price of HSS is approaching or exceeding the price of carbide. But its not as simple as that because there are many applications where HSS is preferable as a cutting tool material, never mind re-sharpening & custom shapes. HSS has toughness & can be tweaked or dressed (if you know what you are doing) which is more in the domain of home machinists. A brand new razor sharp carbide that becomes micro fractured after the first hour of use will look chipped & serrated under magnification. That doesn't do you any good as a long term tool & will show up in the finish & dimensions. That's why some people have a hate on for carbide & swear by HSS. But then you see their setup - maybe a loose worn machine, a spindly toolpost, eyeball centering, nasty mystery material, rotational runout, vibration, interrupted cutting, incorrect nose radius, incorrect or limited speed & feed... you know, our everyday hobbyist stuff LOL. But that's not carbides fault, its an application mismatch. Look at the exact same tool in a controlled, rigid CNC environment & its spraying perfect steel chips like a woodworking machine goes through lumber. Day in & day out before replacement. HSS would not have a chance which is why it was replaced (industrially) decades ago. So my advice is just ease into it & try a few of this & that. Your machine & jobs will likely vary vs someone else.
