# Nail gun degree question



## metaldazed (Jul 15, 2015)

I see they sell angled magazine loaded guns and believe I understand straight vs angled but what I do not understand is I see they sell various angled guns for instance a 34 a 21 and a 15 just as reference point to my question. Do these guns all shoot at the angled mentioned or is it the magazine they are referring to. I firstly need to know why someone would want a gun that shoots at an angle vs a gun that shoots true and straight into the material. I believe I would want a gun that shoots true and straight down and I know exactly where it is going without having to ponder how far out at the angle it will pop out. Hopefully you guys understand my question. I am old fashioned and like a real hammer and nails that you hammer straight into the material I want a gun that does the same and not shoot at any degree into the material beside a zero degree.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

None of them shoot at an angle, it's just the magazine.
All my guns are 30 deg. because that's the most commonly avaliable angled nails.
The more angle the tight quarters you can fit the gun in.


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## mako1 (Jan 7, 2014)

The angle only refers to the angle of the magazine and the angle the nails are collated at.The nails shoot out straight 90degrees from the body of the gun.
The only real benefit is that the framing nailers are rather large and bulky and the more angled the magazine is the tighter the spot you can nail into.At least that is the only benefit I have found .I'm sure someone here will find others .That's why I have Sencos with a 32 degree mag.
Same thing with finish nailers.Some have straight mags and some are angled allowing you to nail into tighter spots or steeper angles.


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## metaldazed (Jul 15, 2015)

*nail guns*

Thanks for the words but still I am confused as to why they sell 23, 18 & 16 gauge nails by gauge size and length, why do they not sell all the nails like that. How come you have to buy 21 or 30 degree angled nails and not just by the gauge size if all the degree does is tell you the angle of the magazine. Should they not just sell them by say 8, 10 & 12 gauges and not by the degree? Why are the little ones sold straight and by gauge size and not the larger ones?


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## mako1 (Jan 7, 2014)

All of the smaller gauge nailers like 22 and 18 only come with straight magazines.!5 g and larger come in straight or angled.Say I wanted a 3.25inch nail for my 32 degree framing nailer.What good would it do me to just buy a 3.25" nail without getting the correct degree for my nailer?They may be 21 degree and work in another nailer but not mine.
Why when buying tires for your car do you just not order a 15" tire.


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## landfillwizard (Feb 21, 2014)

Like Joe said, the higher the angle the easier it is to get into confined areas. I have a 21º nailer and when trying to nail between studs it gets to be cumbersome to get the nail gun where I want it.


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## ratherbefishing (Jan 13, 2011)

Not sure, but I think the angle of the magazine has to do with whether the nails are clipped head or round head, too. Clipped head nails aren't permitted by code in some areas. Plastic collated nails leave little bits of plastic laying around. Paper collated nails are a little more fragile when they are out of the mag. there are wire collated nails, too. The gauge and length are selected in respect to the job being done. Most nailers only shoot one gauge, but different lengths.


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## A Squared (Dec 19, 2005)

ratherbefishing said:


> Not sure, but I think the angle of the magazine has to do with whether the nails are clipped head or round head, too. Clipped head nails aren't permitted by code in some areas. Plastic collated nails leave little bits of plastic laying around.


That all is true of framing nailers. But, it not a factor in finish nailers, which don't really have a head on the nails.


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## A Squared (Dec 19, 2005)

metaldazed said:


> Thanks for the words but still I am confused as to why they sell 23, 18 & 16 gauge nails by gauge size and length, why do they not sell all the nails like that. How come you have to buy 21 or 30 degree angled nails and not just by the gauge size if all the degree does is tell you the angle of the magazine. Should they not just sell them by say 8, 10 & 12 gauges and not by the degree?


They sell them "by the degree" because there are nailers which have magazines of different angles. A stick of 15 gauge, 24 degree finish nails will not work in a 15 gauge finish nailer with a 34 degree magazine. 

The 23, 18, and 16 gauge nails are almost all straight sticks because thos sizes of finish nailers almost all have straight magazines.


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## scyarch (Oct 20, 2011)

It also has a lot to do with maximizing nail capacity. Try and put the same amount of framing nails in a straight mag- you would have a TON of wasted space due to the heads unless they clip them, which- as someone said, is not always permitted. 15's are basically all angled as well because they generally have heads as well. 

All finish nails have heads to a degree. All brad nails have heads to a degree, but they are typically smaller and all 23 ga pin-nails do NOT have heads. The easiest way to make the brad nails are basically t-shanks because they are easy to stamp out. It's the 15 and larger that generally are collated (and potentially 16, however I don't see 16's as much around my area and they are typically not angled).


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## jeff1961 (Sep 13, 2015)

i use a interchange nsc83-34 34 degree pneumatic framer , but i shoot hitachi 30 degree galvanized nails in it just fine . it shoots round or clipped head nails . i chose 30-34 degree paper tape because i'll be focusing on small home repair jobs and such . i didn't want to possibly need to clean up plastic fragments from 21 degree clips or be hit in the face by them . i also didn't want to be concerned by rust stains from wire collated nails . for my use the angle difference isn't really a concern and the difference in nail prices isn't much in my area and is certainly worth a few extra bucks for my peace of mind .


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