[Brian FRF]

Looking into volumill and other things, and it seems helical on end mills is becoming the standard, as opposed to what Id call "traditional" drill a hole for the end mill, then run an endmill in to open out the hole/cavity.

Obviously this saves tool change time. Im just thinking more chance of burning up/wearing out the tip of the end mill, not sure it would be worth it.

[Glacern]

If it's a matter of cycle time, then it'll depend on how steeply you can ramp. If you're cutting aluminum with a 2-flute endmill, you can program a coarse helix, cutting down the cycle time.

Harder steels requiring shallower ramping angles could benefit from drilling. Cycle times could be faster, and the dirt-cheap stub-length drills would help prolong the life of your endmills.

In a high production environment, it would be difficult to beat an indexable drill with thru-spindle coolant to hog out the bulk of the material.