The Best Nail Guns for Fast, Easy Nailing

The Best Nail Gun Buying Guide

Nail guns come in a variety of shapes, types, sizes, and power ratings, which are all designed for a specific demographic of users. For professionals and DIY enthusiasts alike, a nail gun shaves off a lot of time and effort required to get things done. Contrary to popular belief, it’s also very safe to use as long as you’re practicing nail gun safety guidelines, especially if the tool is equipped with specialized features for additional protection. 

In this buyer’s guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to make it easier for you to navigate the market and make an informed purchase decision. Whether you’re a complete newbie or a seasoned pro, keeping the following factors in mind will help you spend your money in the right place. Let’s take a look! 

What Are the Types and Designs of Nail Guns?

Let’s start with nail gun types and designs. You’ll find a variety of options to choose from, with the most common ones being brad, finish, and framing nailers. Here’s a brief rundown of each of them.

Brad nail guns

If you generally work on detailed wood-like trims, brad nailers are your best bet. This type of nail gun is the go-to choice for professionals who work on cabinetry, moldings, and similar tasks. As you can tell by the name, this category of nail guns is designed for firing brad nails, which are meant to be especially thin and light, making them suitable for intricate projects. They’re made out of small-diameter steel wire, often between the 18 to 20-gauge range and up to 2 inches in length. 

Unless you’ve got super heavy-duty projects to worry about, these nailers are versatile enough to handle all your home or yard repair needs, as well as some light furniture building and construction.

Finish nail guns

Like brad nailers, a finish nail gun also uses thin and light nails which do not damage those finely detailed pieces of wood and trims. These nail guns aren’t just limited to these fine nails. They can also handle larger-diameter nails if you ever have to work with large logs or thicker planks of wood.

This type of nail gun is versatile, which makes it an ideal choice for a wide range of carpentry work. You can easily perform crown molding and install baseboards using no other power tool besides a finish nail gun. That’s because you can fire 15 or 16-gauge finish nails with it, ranging up to 2.5 inches in length. 

Framing nail guns

Framing nailers are specially built to handle all your heavy-duty building and repair needs. You can easily build fences, fasten wood pieces, and construct bigger pieces of components for large-scale projects. If you’re a casual DIY hobbyist, then you don’t necessarily need to invest in a framing nail gun as you probably won’t be able to take advantage of its maximum potential. 

These nail guns are designed to fire thick and long, 3.5-inch nails, which are commonly referred to as 16-penny nails by carpenters and woodworkers. Professionals use this type of nail gun to secure tar paper, shingles, and insulation boards, and only a framing nailer can handle that sort of workload. So, if you plan on building a new room altogether, framing your deck, or fencing the house, this is the one for you!

What To Know When Choosing a Nail Gun

Power source

You can find two common power sources in nail guns, pneumatic and battery. The former involves the use of an air compressor to continuously fire nails, as long as you’ve loaded them inside the tool. These nail guns are often less expensive and more powerful, but they rely on an external air compressor to function. This means they’re more difficult to use than their battery-powered alternatives. 

If you can’t deal with the additional set-up time and effort required in air-powered pneumatic nail guns and don’t care for their additional power either, we recommend choosing a battery-powered nailer. This is an ideal choice for casual DIY-ers as they don’t need heavy-duty specifications, but an easy-to-use tool that gets the job done. It’s cordless and doesn’t rely on a hefty air compressor attachment, which means it’s way more mobile. Keep in mind that this type of nail gun is considerably more expensive than a more powerful air-powered counterpart.

Customizability

Nail guns also differ in terms of the firing modes they offer. Some don’t have any options to choose from, while advanced ones allow you to customize everything about the tool. Some models have the option to fire nails just by bumping the gun’s nose, while others are equipped with safety features like having to engage its tip before you can pull the trigger.

Nail capacity

Depending on whether you’re a professional or a casual hobbyist, you also have to consider the nail capacity of your new handheld power tool. There’s no right answer here, as it mostly depends on the level of workload you usually have, and whether or not you mind having to reload your gun after frustratingly short intervals. If you’re looking for a nailer for occasional repair jobs around the house, nail capacity shouldn’t matter since you’ll only use the tool for a few nails every time. 

On the other hand, if you make and repair furniture for a living, you need a tool with the maximum amount of nail capacity so that you can get through your work day with the least amount of reloading interruptions.

Firing mechanism

Not every nailer is built on the same type of firing mechanism. They can be divided into two broad categories: sequential firing and contact or bump firing. Sequentially fired nailers require the user to activate the trigger for every nail. This might slow you down, but it’s considered to be safer than contact or bump firing since there’s a much lower chance of accidentally firing a nail.