I've had the Bostitch MCN-150 for just about a year now. In that time it has paid for itself two or three times over. One house, with lots of straps and hangers and one deck rebuild with a couple hundred joist hangers is all it took. This tool can do in an hour what it would take a person all day to do by hand. And it saves your fingers in the process. Anyone who has tried to set tico nails in tight spaces knows what I mean. I really can't stress the time savings enough. The size of this gun is great, you can get into some amazingly tight spots and because of the innovative tip design, you can shoot at less than ideal angles.
That being said: There are two cons to this tool. It only holds small clips of nails (24, i think) so you are constantly reloading, but even with a clip of 50 you would be reloading often because of the speed that you can shoot. When nailing off long Simpson type straps, you really notice this. The other con is the fact that you can only shoot 1.5" nails. Which is a bummer here in California, where longer nails are often required. But apparently they now have the MCN-250 which addresses both of these issues. I will be ordering one of those also.
I have also used the Hitachi NR65AK, which is good, but I really think the Bostitch is better and for the price of the Hitachi you could order both Bostitch models and still be in the same ballpark.
One last thing. You can use other companies nails in a pinch. The manual stressed using only Bostitch Nails, but I was forced to use Senco at one point. They work OK but jam in the track occasionally due to burs on the nails. But they'll get you through. Bostitch MCN-150 StrapShot Metal Connector Nailer
we love this little guy...makes quick work of decks, roof ties, hurricane straps, and the like...you will never want to frame without it....we got ours through HD Contractor services for $219...so far the unit is flawless and durable..and the case keeps her ready and clean between jobs.
Quality tool. Used it for a couple deck jobs and I must have hung 100+ joist hangers, it made the difference between making and losing money. Payed for itself the first day in speed and effectiveness. I used a swivel air hose connector for the tight areas. Great addition to my air tools.
If you're in a trade long enough you start getting excited when new, well thought out and engineered tools appear. A while back, the JLC reviewed the Bostitch StrapShot metal connector nailer. After reading the review I knew that there would be a job in my future that would be THE job that would be the perfect excuse to purchase this nailer and put it to use.
Oh Baby!! Where have you been all my life! During the age of dinosaurs we used to beat in teco nails with rocks. That was kind of hard on the rocks and our fingers. Then during the middle ages we would beat in those blasted nails with our 24 oz. serrated face framing hammers. Did you ever notice how the holes in the metal connectors were always just a little bit tinier than the loose (not collated) teco nails? If you didn't hit that frickin' nail with just the right amount of blast the hammer would home in on the nearest thumb and index finger - usually yours - and scrape off a nice thick layer of skin.
Then came the last decade of the 20th century. Homo Constructus Almosterectus, evolved to the point where we actually could nail those pesky metal hangers with our pneumatic framing nailers. The only thing you had to worry about was placing the tip of the nailer near the hole the nail was meant to go into. For those who had difficulty achieving this, numerous jokes involving hair were coined.
Along came the Bostitch MCN-150 StrapShot nailer. If there were a Nobel prize for innovative tool development, I would nominate the boys at Bostitch. It fits in tight joist spaces, it actually uses the nail point to locate the point of aim and after 1 week of daily usage, installing many hundreds of Simpson connectors, I can honestly say we had not one misfire.
If you're in the building business and your crews aren't using this nailer chances are they're not making you any money either. The only complaint I have is the local lack of nails for this gun. Until they become available I'll just keep on ordering them up on Amazon.
I originally purchased a Porter Cable palm nailer, thinking that this was going to be the best [and only] option for hammering home the hundreds (ok...thousands) of nails required to fasten all of the hurricane ties and joist hangers for my 500+ square foot deck.
Thankfully I was wrong and happened to come across this nailer which I was more than happy to add to my collection of pneumatic tools.
My joists are 12" on center and this gun fits as promised in that tight space. Yes - it would be nice if the magazine held more nails than it does, but if that were the case, it wouldn't fit between the joists. I've shot over 1,300 nails so far, both 10d and 8d, and haven't had a single jam...which is good because the nose of the gun doesn't open to clear jams similar to my other porter cable nailers.
I'm a 1-man operation, and using this gun has allowed me to do 75% of the framing for the 2-level deck in less than a week of working only at night after I get home from work.
Overall, I couldn't be happier with the gun - with that said, I still haven't even used my palm nailer - I guess that I'll save that little guy for another project. The only downside to this nailer is it's versatility after the project is over...unless you're going to put a few decks onto friend's houses, it's not an 'around-the-house' nailer, since it won't fire if it doesn't detect a metal strap that you're trying to shoot through.
If you build decks or use a lot of hangers like hurricane clips that are required nowadays, this gun is a must. For the price you can't beat it, it does exactly what it's supposed to do and the size is perfect. I purchased the larger gun that does the same thing with replacing the tip and liked it but the gun is huge, didn't work well between joists so I broke down and bought this gun and love it. The other gun will only be used if I need two guys going together with hurricane clips, but the MCN-150 will do all of the grunt work. If you have the Rap-A-Nail gun the nails will work in this gun.'
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