BostitchPalm Nailer, Mini Impact (PN50)

I bought this for a shed project, and I've been driving a variety of nails. I'm going to share the good and less-than-perfect.First, read the directions. I'm as guilty as anyone of skipping the directions. Read them. The two parts that are notable:-Like any air tool, use a little oil each day.-It frequently goes into a free-flow air mode where it blows air but doesn't do anything. This is common and no big deal. Tap it and it stops. It's no big deal. This is a function of how the inner valve works. The directions talk about it at greater length.This inexpensive nailer comes with a high quality swivel quick disconnect. It's great. I can hold it with the hose leading away in a variety of directions. I actually bought a swivel, not realizing I wouldn't need one, but I'll use it on some other tool.Use of the tool is trivial. Insert the head of a nail in the end, position, and press. The tool does the rest. There is a magnet built into the tool that holds the nail for you, so it won't drop out. The only trick: it's possible to accidentally fire the tool while inserting the nail. I did this just often enough to learn to be careful. It didn't seem particularly dangerous. It didn't shoot nails at me or anything. But it did bang my fingers a few times. It didn't hurt half as bad as getting hit with a hammer.Driving speed appears to be similar to that of normal nailing. The advantage, however, is that you can get into much tighter locations, although there are some restrictions. I've never enjoyed pounding nails sideways between 16-inch-center wall studs or floor joists. That's just a little tight to swing a hammer, and it makes it a pain in the ass. With this tool, it's great. Also, tapping my fingers, especially with shorter nails, happens far less often.On the flip side, you need a little more clearance from the face of what you're working on. I built the decking of my shed first and the walls on top of that. When nailing the walls together, this little hammer tends to bottom out against the floor while doing the lower of the nails. No biggie, but I wanted to mention it.The process is probably noisier than hammering. I wore ear protection. But you get noise from your compressor (and mine is really loud, although I kept it in the garage and ran a long hose). The tool makes a bzzzt sound, as it's doing a lot of little taps rather than a few big ones. Earing protection was nice.Note that movement of the work piece is lower than hammering. See the previous paragraph, but basically it's like a really fast baby hammering the nail rather than a grown adult. If I didn't weight my walls while hammering, they would still slowly walk across the deck, but at nowhere near the rate as when using a standard claw hammer. I thought this was nice.Note that some people said you can't counter-sink nails. That's not true. They tend to end just slightly raised, but it took me about 3 minutes to learn a technique to sink them a little lower. Or just keep a hammer handy to finish that last bang.I definitely recommend this tool. It's very inexpensive and can drive any framing nails. It won't work on large-head nails like roofing nails, but that's what a roofing nailer is for. I didn't feel like I saved time, but I might have saved my arms for the number of nails I was driving, and I didn't have the frustration of swinging a hammer between 16-inch centers.And who can have too many air tools?

This little nailer was a huge time saver while doing some framing for my bathroom remodel. It was so easy to use and it worked just fine with the 16d nails I had (Grip-Rite 3.25" coated sinkers). It's able to get into tight spaces and drive nails in and around plumbing, wires, etc. Even toe nailing was super easy. I just drilled pilot holes to get it started. I considered a full framing nailer initially, but for the small amount of framing I was doing, and high cost of a framing nailer, this impact nailer made a lot more sense for me. I wish I had it the previous weekend when I was bending nails left and right with a hammer when nailing into some of my existing framing.One thing I noticed is that the nailer spewed air when I first started cranking up the air pressure on my regulator. None of my other air powered tools do this so I thought I received a defective product. I checked that all the connections were tight and tried again. I found that you need to just keep increasing the pressure up to the recommended 80-100psi. At a certain pressure it will stop spewing air and hold the air pressure.

Fits nicely in your hand and works well with a small compressor.

I have this and a "full-sized" palm nailer, the Factory-Reconditioned Ridgid 3-1/2" Palm Nailer ZRR350PNA (purchased new from HD). I think that I expected this to work as well as the Ridgid. In retrospect, that was an unrealistic expectation; the Ridgid is more than twice the price and 3 times the weight of the Bostitch. The Ridgid is silky smooth and drives a 10d nail in maybe a second or so with minimal vibration. This Bostitch mini-nailer will do the same in maybe two or more seconds and, due to it's light weight, seems to vibrate and bounce quite a bit.Those negatives aside, I really like this nailer. It is compact, light weight, and gets the job done. It is small enough to get into even tighter places than the larger palm nailers, like the Ridgid, and light enough to keep in your belt. That allows you to switch to this from a framing nailer as necessary without having to go back to your tool box.My advise would be that if you are a homeowner looking for something to replace a framing hammer, get the Ridgid; you won't be disappointed. If you have already a full-sized palm nailer, or you normally use a framing nailer, or even if you prefer a hammer, you can't go wrong with this Bostitch mini-nailer. Keep it on your belt and it is always there when you need it. Keep in mind though that this mini-nailer is not as fast as a regular framing hammer, it just allows you to get into tighter places.One more thing. I've found that this nailer seems to work better at higher pressures. When I use this at 80 psi it is slow and vibrates a lot. When I up the pressure to the max, 100psi, there is noticeably less vibration and, of course, it is faster too.Overall, for the price of a decent framing hammer, you've got a good backup in your toolbox that can go places you never thought that you could go.

It's been a long time since I've been this impressed after using a new tool. Plenty of experience with pneumatic nailers, just never used a palm nailer before. I'm doing some reframing and sistering of some porch floor joists so I picked this up to make nailing hangers easier. It's just so easy. I can't believe it. Sends the nails into 2x pressure treated like butter.

I bought this to help finish my oak floors close to the walls, which it works so good. I can’t imagine doing floors without one. Now I have used it for so many other things