Metallics RSDS4V 8 x 2 in. Bugle Head Star Drive Deck Screws - Steel Yellow Zinc - Type 17 - Threads - Each

A T20 star bit. The RSDS4V uses a star (flat six-lobe) recess, so a T20 Torx-style driver seats fully and keeps the bit from camming out when you are sinking the bugle head flush.

No. The RSDS4V has a Type 17 point, the chip cavity / auger point lets the screw drive even in denser woods without a pilot hole. In very hard or brittle stock near a board end you may still want to pre-drill to avoid splitting.

Yes. At 2 inches long, a #8 RSDS4V passes through nominal 5/4 decking (about 1 inch actual) and leaves roughly an inch of thread biting into the joist. The 9 threads per inch coarse UNC form with a deeper thread profile is what resists pull-out as the boards cup and dry. For full 2x decking you want a longer screw so you keep adequate penetration into the framing.

The RSDS4V is carbon steel with a yellow zinc dichromate finish. That coating is a light-duty corrosion finish suited to general exterior wood framing and interior work, not to sustained wet exposure or direct contact with modern ACQ-type treated lumber or salt air. For a wet-service deck, coastal job, or cedar and redwood where staining matters, specify a stainless or heavy polymer-coated deck screw instead.

The bugle head pulls itself flush in softwood without a counterbore, that is the point of the tapered bugle profile. Head width runs 0.285 to 0.331 in. with a head height of 0.108 in., so the recess it leaves is shallow. In dense hardwood or composite, counterbore or pre-drill so you are not crushing fibers to get the head down.

These ship in a jar of 500 count, and 500 is the order minimum, so you are buying by the jar rather than by the piece. Each jar weighs 4.35 lbs. Other lengths and counts in the RSDS series are available by request.

Metallics lists the RSDS4V as both ARRA compliant and Buy American compliant, which is the documentation a government, school, or federally funded project submittal usually asks for on fasteners. Country of origin is listed as multiple.

Carbon steel to AISI 1018 through 1022, case hardened in the usual way for a Type 17 point so it can cut its own hole. That is standard low-carbon wood screw stock, not stainless, so the yellow zinc coating is doing all the corrosion work.

Yes. A #8 x 2 in. coarse thread screw with a self-drilling Type 17 point and a flush-seating bugle head works for subfloor sheathing, fence boards, furring, and light wood framing just as well as deck boards. The limit is the environment, not the geometry: the yellow zinc finish suits dry or sheltered locations better than constant weather exposure.