Picking the Right Nail Gun for You

Unlike many tools, nail guns are not meant for general purposes - there is no all-purpose nail gun that you can use with all your work. Nail guns are intended to carry out specific jobs, so prior to acquiring a nail gun it's very important to know the jobs for which it will be used.
The sorts of nail guns available are:
- Roofing and Siding nail guns: These nail guns are intended for the specialized task of installing either siding or roofing. They store high numbers of nails that are designed specifically for the job at hand (siding or roofing). These are most-often coil-type nail guns.
- Framing nail guns: These are intended to drive bigger (1-1/2" to 4") box-type nails into larger pieces of wood. These nail guns tend to be heavy and big and are usually stick-type nail guns, they there are some coil-types available too.
- Finish nail guns: These nail guns are often also called pin or brad nail guns. They are designed for fastening small finish-type nails into smaller pieces of stock. These nail guns tend to be smaller and lighter than framing nail guns, and they are usually used for finishing or trim work. These are usually stick-type nail guns.
Once you decide on the variety of nail gun you need, some other attributes that are helpful to have and which you should consider are:
- A directional exhaust output. When nails are driven in, air is expelled from the tool. It's very nice to have this adjustment so that this air is not ending up into your face.
- An easy-to-use depth adjustment. Almost all nail guns have some sort of adjustment to control the force with which the nail is delivered. Using this adjustment, your nail is not sticking out of the surface, or sunk in too deep far in. Many nail guns require tools to perform this adjustment, others can be set by hand and these are almost always much quicker to adjust. If you suspect you will want to be changing this adjustment fairly often, the easier and quicker it is to set, the the happier you will be with your nail gun.
- A good-sized gun trigger. If you are going to be using your nail gun in frigid weather, you will likely be wearing gloves. In this case you will want to make sure you have a large trigger so that you can use it with gloves on.
- If you are planning on nailing a lot of nails, should consider the capacity of the nail gun as well as the ease with which nails can be loaded into the gun. Buying the correct nail gun in this regard can save you a lot of time, or lose you a lot of time if you make a bad choice.
- A swivel on the air connector to the nail gun. If you move around often with your nail gun, this will help reduce the tangling of your air hose.
Lastly, be sure you research the reviews for the nail gun you are looking at. Researching a tool in a store or on the internet, it is really hard to be sure how well it will work in the field. By consulting the reviews of people that have used the nail gun, you'll get a much better feel for how this nail gun will work for you.