mlv wrote:
Does anyone know where I can buy some traditional #12 x 2.1/2" zinc-plated
steel c/sunk woodscrews?

Everyone (and I do mean everyone) seems to only stock these fancy hardened,
twin-threaded, gold-plated, reduced shank, pozi-headed, etc. screws that may
be just wonderful for screwing into wood, but are (IMHO) quite inadequate
when used with plastic wallplugs. They simply don't give the firm, reliable
grip of the traditional woodscrew and seem rather prone to ripping the
centre out of the wallplug.

I've got hundreds of ScrewFix Goldscrews and Turbogold screws (both of
the type you seem to dislike) in plastic plugs all around my house and
my experience is that they seem to stay in better than old fashioned
tapered screws.

I find that I tend to use slightly smaller drills than recommended for
the plugs and slightly smaller plugs than most other people seem to
use. I now use far more yellow plugs than red and rarely use the
bigger ones at all.

I drill 4.5mm holes for yellow plugs, sometimes you can get away with
4mm, it depends on the type of wall you're drilling into. The plugs
should be easy to just tap into the hole.

I then use 3.5mm or 4mm screws in the yellow plugs and, as I said,
have had no problems at all with their security.

I really can't imagine what I'd want to fix with big plastic plugs.

Even one of those monitor shelves on a flexible arm is only fixed with
red plugs and 5mm screws and seems perfectly sound even with a
heavyish monitor on it.

--
Chris Green