Dear jheem: to earn money for college, I worked in a foundry in the days of wooden flasks, which I had to make. It called for very many long screws to make the flasks strong enough to be lifted full of sand, flipped, and dumped. I used to drill a small pilot hole, then use bit in old fashioned bitbrace to drive them. One day the superintendent saw me drilling pilot holes, and gave me hell for wasting time. He took a screw, and with a hammer drove it in one third of the way, then finished it with the
bitbrace. It worked very well, and screws got plenty of grip. But I still preferred to drill a pilot hole and countersink for the head of the screw.