Over my 30-year career in the trades, I’ve used many different air-powered and cordless nail guns, so I was excited to try Metabo HPT’s new 36-volt MultiVolt 3 1/2-inch cordless framer and see how it stacked up against the others. The first thing I noticed when I took the Metabo out of the box was the weight, which is almost 11 pounds with the battery installed in it. Though that’s at the high end for battery-powered nailers, the tool felt balanced when I picked it up and held it for a little while. Pneumatic nailers are lighter, of course, and if they are coil-style instead of having a straight magazine like this one, they can sometimes feel lopsided when they are loaded with a full coil of nails. This nailer comes in both a round-head 21-degree version (model NR3690DR), which is the one we tested, and a clipped-head 30-degree version (model NR3690DC).
We were in the middle of framing a kitchen and had a triple LVL beam to install, so the timing was perfect to try out the tool. It took only eight minutes to bring the 36-volt battery up to a full charge, but with the MultiVolt system, we could have plugged the tool into an AC adapter and fired nails all day long, even with a discharged battery. The adapter doesn’t come with the tool, though, so I appreciated having the four-bar battery life indicator on the back, which I checked from time to time to see how much charge was left. There is also a power button on the gun itself to turn it on and off, which could serve as both a safety and a power-saving feature. The gun will automatically turn off when it hasn’t been fired for a half-hour, and there is a lock button on the side of the handle that was easy to switch to the unlock position when I was ready to use it.
The framer will take nails as small as 2 1/2 inches, but we were doing some wall and beam framing, so we used the bigger, 3 1/2-in. x 0.131-in. plastic strip nails, which we picked up at our local lumberyard. The magazine on this gun has a 37-nail capacity (the magazine on the clipped-head version accepts up to 47 paper-collated nails). The nails slide in on the left side of the gun; after pulling back the pressure slide, we were good to go.
Both clipped-head and round-head versions of Metabo HPT’s MultiVolt cordless framing nailer are available; the author tested the round-head version.
I started out nailing 2×4 studs up and was impressed with the power the gun had. For this kind of work, the weight of the gun is an advantage, as it helps to minimize any bounce or push back from the pressure. Another advantage of a battery-powered nailer over a pneumatic is that there is no air blowback. This is especially nice for inside work because I don’t end up having floor dust or ceiling insulation blown back in my face. The nail gun was easy to maneuver between a conventional stud layout, and it has the option for single fire or continued fire when the trigger is squeezed.
The biggest test was nailing up the three LVL members that we had to install for a structural beam. The nail gun had no problem sinking the 3 1/2-inch round-head nails flush every time. I was even able to consistently countersink the nails about 1/8 inch by adjusting the depth with the quick thread adjustment at the tip of the gun.
It’s a pleasure to work in a smaller place without dragging a hose around or waiting for a compressor to catch up. We didn’t have to wait for the motor to ramp up either and found that the ability to drive three nails per second was plenty fast enough for us.
According to Metabo, the included 2.5-Ah battery will drive 900 nails per charge. After a few weeks of using it inside to frame walls in a kitchen remodel and outside to frame a sunroom, it still has half a charge left.
The nailer comes with a pivoting belt hook and a nicely sized zippered storage bag, so we can easily take it along to our next framing job. Price: $450. metabo-hpt.com
Photos BY Andalee Powers/courtesy DBS Remodel
