I have a finish nail gun that use 15 gauge 35 degree finish nails can I use 15
gauge 34 degree finish nails without damage to my nail gun

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On Sunday, April 3, 2016 at 8:44:04 PM UTC-5, Dennis wrote:
I have a finish nail gun that use 15 gauge 35 degree finish nails can I use 15
gauge 34 degree finish nails without damage to my nail gun

NO. You won't believe the jams you will have. Not to mention that each type of nail (no matter how small the difference in specs might seem in writing) has some pretty specific requirements for a reason.

Learned the hard way on this one. Buy the EXACT nails required by your gun. If you can't find what you want at the local lumberyard go to a pneumatic nail gun supply/repair place, or order online.

Robert

Dennis wrote in
roups.com:

I have a finish nail gun that use 15 gauge 35 degree finish nails can
I use 15 gauge 34 degree finish nails without damage to my nail gun

Did you mean to say your nail gun uses 25 degree nails? If so,
I agree w/ nailshooter.

If you really meant 35 degrees, then yes - the spec for "DA"
style nails seems to cover 34-36 degrees (if Bostitch is to be
beleived). 25 degrees is the "FN" series. You need to use
the series (DA or FN) your gun is designed for.

John

On Monday, April 4, 2016 at 2:19:47 PM UTC-5, John McCoy wrote:

Did you mean to say your nail gun uses 25 degree nails? If so,
I agree w/ nailshooter.

Hey... the proof is in the name!! (Just kidding...)

If you really meant 35 degrees, then yes - the spec for "DA"
style nails seems to cover 34-36 degrees (if Bostitch is to be
beleived). 25 degrees is the "FN" series. You need to use
the series (DA or FN) your gun is designed for.

John

A good point there is that he didn't specify the maker of his gun. So who knows?

Over the last 40 or so years of contracting I have used just about every kind of gun out there and still have about 15 or so in constant rotation. Finish guns of all types, roofing nailers, insulation staplers, cardboard staplers, framing guns, siding guns, utility guns, etc. If I need them I buy them, and they get used.

Different guns have different tolerances and when combined with the Chinese nails we get a little different nail combined with gun that may have close (or missed) tolerances can create nightmares. I have purchased the right kind of nail for a gun, only to have it fail in a quality gun. Change the nails, no problems.

For me personally, I only buy Bostitch, Senco or Hitachi nails. Always, Bostitch is my first choice as their nails are "cleaner" (less glue) and they are made to tolerances that my guns like.

I shoot only Bostitch large nails out of my Bostitch framing gun and it never jams, even at 30 years old. My Bostitch Hardie nailer likes Bostitch and Hitachi nails. My Hitachi framing nailer and my Bostich roofing gun will shoot just about everything. My Bostitch and Porter Cable 18ga guns shoot Bostitch nails with no problems, a but don't like Senco nails that they sell at HD, and after a couple hundred nails will start jamming up. I don't use Porter Cable nailers (except a great little trim gun they make) as they are too flimsy, but when I borrowed one for a job, I tried THREE different kinds of nails and finally got one to work so I could shoot off some Hardie while my gun was having new seal put in it. Oddly, the nails the Porter Cable liked were the cheapest brand on the market at the time, "GripRite".

Some nails I have bought over the years are off such a small amount that I can't see it unless I put the nails side by side. In the case of an angle nailer, over the length of a 2 1/2 inch nail, a degree or two wouldn't seem like much, but it can cause the driver to strike the nail off center and chip the heads of the nail, or worse, have the driver slide over the top of the nail and cause the driver to become lodged over the nail in the nose of the driver carrier tracks. Or it can strike off center and wad your nails up in the end of the nose and you have to pull out pieces of nails with pliers.

All of those things I have had happen with the right nails and it ****es me off to no end.

My point is you never know about different guns and different nails. That's why I only buy the exact nails specified.

I miss my old Stanley (the father of the Stanley/Bostitch guns, then just Bostitch) as it was a really heavy tank of a roofing nailer, and it would shoot anything I bought. I had that gun about 5 years, and only had seals put in it once, and the driver replaced once. It was a few years old when I got it, and no telling how many nails it shot before it was in my hands. We had a lot of hail damage around here one year so the roofing footrace was on, and I was in it. My head, working crew chief of roofers loved that gun and it was in his hands all the time. We figured it shot just under 50 boxes a year for about 3 years, then about 25 or so for the next couple. He moved on, and he liked the gun so much I gave it to him when it left. When I saw him a few years later, he said he used it a couple more years, the driver broke and it was so old there wasn't a replacement.

So think about this... when I had it, it shot 50 boxes a year for three years, that meant 50 X 7200 = 360,000 for one year. Now times three, or 1,080,000. Add the last two years were about half that, but still in at another 360,000. For those five years you have 1,440,000 nails! Remember too, I was the second owner!

I was really impressed with that number, and was talking/bragging to the Bostitch rep at a contractor luncheon, and he said something like "well, you sure got your money's worth! That's an awful lot of nails. But we have guns out there with 5 times that many nails shot out of them, and even more. Think of how many nails they shoot in a pallet factory, or crating/palletizing small machinery over a few years. They load those guns up and shoot and reload them as fast as they can get the nails out of the gun".

Then I remembered shooting decking down when I was framing (personally) and we shot 2 1/2" staples, about 10,000 per house. Wow... then a house a week... sometimes more. The numbers add up quick.

I think my old Bostitch guns will outlast me, even though a couple of them are now about 25 or more years old. But my newer guns from any manufacturer, no way.

Just reminiscing a bit at this point...

Robert