I need to staple thin aluminum flashing to pine. I have an old Arrow
T50M gun, which doesn't quite have enough oomph to sink a 3/8" long
staple flush. I could try using 1/4" or 5/16" long staples, but I'd
prefer to go with a wider crown, and I know that staple gun technolgy has
improved a good bit since the T50 was designed. This will be used
outdoors, and electric or pneumatic is overkill (& over-$$).

The T50's use a 3/8" width (presumably OD). My research shows that there
are two flavors of "wide crown". Ace Hardware sells staples as either
"Wide Crown I" or "Wide Crown II". The Wide crown I's fit various
flavors of Ace, B&D, and Craftsman. I think that these are 14mm wide,
which is ~ 0.55". The Wide Crown II's fit some Master Mechanic, Stanley
and Swinglines. I think these are 1/2" wide. I also found an indication
that Bostitch uses 7/16" wide staples, which I consider too narrow.

From the Googling I did, there aren't a lot of _manual_ wide-crown guns
around anymore. Swingline appears to be out of the manual gun business
entirely. Stanley & Bostich appear to have merged, and don't seem to
have much for sale that still uses the wide crown staples. Craftsman's
stuff is mostly re-labled B&D, and the B&D Powershot's have gotten a lot
of bad reviews (although a lot of them are from idiots who can't deal
with the "backward" design).

I can wade through all of the specific model numbers that Ace claims use
the wide crown staples to see if any are still sold. In the meantime, I
figured I see if anyone has any recommendations or warnings.

Thanks!

Doug White