Bostitch N88RH-2MCN Industrial High-Powered Round Head Framing Nailer and Metal Connector
- 1,000 inch pounds of driving power
- Lightweight Magnesium housing for durability
- Includes Metal Connector trip installed on the tool, and a standard framing trip, with aggressive teeth for toe nailing and a no mar tip for decking
- Trips change tool from metal connector nailer to standard framing nailer in seconds with our patented push button control
- Equipped with Sequential Trigger
Product Description
Combination Framing/Metal Connector Nailer, Drives 2″ To 3-1/2″ Round Head Framing Nails, Also Drives 1-1/2″ To 2-1/2″ Heat Treated Metal Connector Nails, 1000″ LBS Of Driving Power, Sequential Trip Operation…. More >>
Bostitch N88RH-2MCN Industrial High-Powered Round Head Framing Nailer and Metal Connector
I’ve had this for about a year and am very happy with it. I’ve used it for roof and wall framing, sheathing, and siding. It has good power, light, comfortable, anti-slip pads, and the depth adjustment is very convenient, just push a button on the nosepiece and it moves in and out, very nice when you go from framing with 16d to sheathing with 10d so you don’t drive through the plywood/OSB (face it, if you needed to get a tool to adjust the depth, you wouldn’t do it!). This feature is also nice when you are doing exterior trim and siding so you don’t just blow through the material (it comes with a rubber cover to cover up the toenailing teeth for finer work). But the real beauty of this nailer is that it converts to a positive placement gun. Push the same button that lowers the nose for depth adjustment and you pull the whole nose out and replace it with a positive placement nosepiece that allows you to shoot teco nails in metal connectors. (I’ll agree with other reviewers that these nails are difficult to find, I got the sku from Stanley’s webpage and did a special order at Lowes, price was fine, to dispel another reviewer’s rant). With todays building codes, they want metal connectors on everything, I have joist hangers, rafter hangers (LSSU2110) and holddowns, this nailer really made this work bearable. There are better dedicated framing nailers (this doesn’t have a bump trigger option) and positive placement nailers (this is big and sometimes can’t reach in a corner) but this is a real nice combo unit if you want one that can do both. I have a gripe that it doesn’t come with a bag/case, but I guess you can buy one separate. I also attached a rafter hook to mine available here at Amazon: Toolhangers Unlimited 21087T, it says it is for a wormdrive saw but it fits this nailer fine.
After using this nailer on numerous projects, I can now submit what I feel is an objective review of this product and hopefully dispel some of the incorrect information that is contained in other reviews. Based solely on some of the reviews located here, I hesitated for quite awhile on purchasing this tool…but now I am very pleased that I chose to do enough research to be fully confident in my purchase.
I am by no means a full-time professional framer, but I do enough construction work to separate junk tools from the good stuff. Since purchasing this gun few months ago I have sent around 50,000 framing and sheathing nails through it along with 10,000 metal connecting nails (MCN). In those 60k or so nails, I have had 0 – yes ZERO – misfires. I have has basically no maintenance out of the ordinary on this nailer. Additionally, this is a very fast and easy nailer to reload and to change from a framer to a MC tip (this can be done in under 10 seconds). The metal connecting ability of this tool is ‘phenomenal’. It literally cuts the amount of time required by …well I don’t know exactly, but it’s a lot … and produces a superior result to hand done clips.
The weighting and balance does take a little getting used to if you are not familiar with an N88 style nailer, and can be a little tiring compared to some of the substantially lighter Hitachi’s I have used. This is especially true when using it as a metal connector as much of the time you are working above your head. This issue is minor enough that I do not feel that it should factor into a person’s decision to purchase this tool.
Other reviewers complaints seem to fall into three categories: durability, lack of a bump or contact trip trigger, and the availability of MC nails. As for the first issue – durability – I can only assume that they have received “lemon” nailers or have unnecessarily abused them. I know a few contractors/professionals that only use Bostitch nailers because of the company’s long term reliability. In fact, I was working with a professional building a garage recently who was using a Bostitch N88WWB (the WWB and the RH mechanically similar tools) that he has had for a few years with very few problems. He was blown away by the versatility of the RH and will be buying one soon. He never could justify the expense of a dedicated metal connecting nailer and he needs to change nailers to meet many new local codes that ban clipped headed nails in framing.
Bostitch does not officially support using a bump trigger with this nailer, probably because some “genius” would use it while shooting MC nails. Though, as another reviewer noted, the contact trigger is available through Bostitch parts if you look under the N88RH (not 2MCN). The part you are looking for is CNTK1. Unfortunately, this part is not currently available through Amazon.com.
Finally onto the availability of the connector nails. I do feel that it is unfortunate that Amazon.com does not stock any of these nails, but I have come to understand that Bostitch makes it hard for all retailers to get their hands on them. With a little Internet searching they are definitely findable. Also, make certain you plan ahead and give yourself enough time to receive the nails, the best source I have found still takes around a week to deliver. As other reviews have noted, all of the big box retailers can special order them for you, though they probably will have no clue what you are talking about, just ask to see their Bostitch price sheet and look for the section that has model numbers that start RH-MC and you will be set.
Sorry for being so long winded, but I really feel that this is a superb tool that gotten a bad rap. It is unfortunate that it is not easier to find this information, which is certainly a fault of Bostitch. It becomes even more baffling when you take into account how much marketing Bostitch is putting behind this nailer.
I just bought this as my first nail gun and I’m really happy with it so far. Seems great as a framing nailer. The 21/22 deg nails are cheap and easy to get. But it truely shines as a metal connector gun. True, the 0.148 x 1.5″ nails are tricky to find (I had to order them through Numax) and they are pricey, but you save so much time that it is worth it. It is easy to align the tool and it sinks the nails beautifully. Even if you don’t do that much with metal connectors I don’t know why you wouldn’t get this nailer over other full head framing nailers. It makes joist hangers almost fun.
I have owned a lot of nailguns in my career as a general contractor. Before purchasing this gun I was a little sceptical about bostitch guns, especially a 2 in 1 positive placement gun. After using this gun for the past three months and installing nearly 10,000 positive placement nails with it I am 100% sold on this thing. I would never even think about doing a serious faming project without it. If you are even considering buying one of these do it, you won’t regret it. This gun can install a full range of framing hardware nails, from 1 1/2″ to 3 1/2″! And with a quick change of the nose, it converts to a normal nail gun (single fire, not bounce) in 3 seconds. This is such an advantage to every other positive placement gun out there.
Just an update. I’ve now put upwards of 30,000 nails through this gun, and my opinion has only improved. If it wasn’t locked, I’d change my rating from 4 to 5 stars. I love it. (March 2006)
I couldn’t justify a separate framing nailer and a positive placement nailer, so this appealed to me. I was a bit worried by the two one-star reviews here. Both seemed a bit extreme, so I bought it, and haven’t been sorry. It’s well made and does what I need without annoying me. Favorite features are easy depth adjustment and framing to positive-placement changeover. I’ve done a good amount of both now, with frequent changes back and forth. My main issue is that it won’t shoot a 16d nail when in positive-placement mode.
I’ve had none of the problems in the negative reviews. Yes, it’s somewhat heavy, but no more than other framing nailers (same as the Hitachi NR83A2 recommended in the Alex Crowder review). Compared to other framing nailers, it may be a bit bulkier at the top, but the grip is standard, not “weird” in any way I can see. It seems no louder, and loading nails is extremely easy.
Finding nails was not a big problem. Lowes and Home Depot had framing nails (mostly off-name brands). I went to a pro supply place (Manor Hardware) for the connector nails, and I ended up buying all my nails there. I’m sure the high quality nails I used, Halsteel Trackers, are partly responsible for my good experience.
Being single-purpose, a dedicated positive-placement gun is most likely superior in some ways. All I can say is my combo Bostitch has worked great for me.