This was my first attempt at installing hardwood floors. Purchasing a nail gun was a top priority. The market is limited but the few nailers out there all come with high marks. I chose this particular model based upon the few excellent reviews on this forum and the quick change option from floor to face nailing. The gun sits easily and quickly each time. The different types of nails/staples/ cleats receive their own praise but my personal choice was the porta nail. The nail itself appears to be stronger and heavier compared to the others. Your local Home Depot carries the porta nails, but not this particular nailer. This nailer is a tough find and have not been able to find anyone that stocks it, other than Amazon. The gun has worked flawlessly, and comes in a complete package. You have to purchase other shoes to fit flooring outside 3/4 inch. Since I will only install that type it is not a big deal, as of yet. Just tapping the gun is enough, no need to slam. Works great each time and have installed about 800 sq feet without a single problem. Makes a novice like me, into a more experienced novice in short time. Great purchase and was not jumping for joy at the price. Still, I was not forced to buy it and I do believe you get what you pay for.

After much investigation into a very limited market of pneumatic floor nailers, I finally decided on Porta-Nails 421P Hammerhead 2. My first ever flooring project involved installation of 400 square feet of 3/4 inch by 2-1/2 wide tongue and groove finished oak strip flooring at my home. A significant time and money saver of this versatile nailer is that this single tool can do both straight-up face nailing and hidden-angled nailing - as you'll quickly learn both are equally time consuming phases of floor installation. Switching between the two configurations was straightforward and only involved three screws and a few minutes of time. Flooring nails were driven to their proper depth and the nailer was very forgiving in that it was not sensitive to exact placement. Nails easily loaded into the tool, fired with little effort after tapping the firing head while squeezing the safety latch in the handle, and I only encountered one jam after inadvertently nailing on top of another nail. Fixing the jam was confusing at first based on the limited description in the manual, but once I figured out the mechanics of opening the jam latch, the jammed nail was quickly removed and work proceeded. I especially take comfort in the 2 year warranty period whereas the competition offers 1 year or less. I also like the strong carrying case containing the nailer and its accessories. Flooring nails come in strips and load easily, but for the most part don't expect intact strips of nails to survive the mail order shipping/handling process. Make sure you take into account the nailer's requirement for an air compressor that can deliver 90 to 100 pounds per square inch of supply air pressure. Overall, an immensely durable, powerful, and versatile floor nailer that provided for a wonderful and impressive first time experience.

I have been looking at floor nailers for a while since I started this project. Either buy one or rent one. First thing comes to my mind is that I don't want to use a manual nailer even the floor I will be doing is only about 300 sq. feet. Not that I can't work hard, just the thought if you use a tool, let the tool work for you. That narrows down to a few. I went to local rental stores to find that most of them carry Bostitch and Porta-Nail (manual nailer). When I compare the nails, Porta-Nail really stands out and makes Stanley/Bostitch nails look weak. 1000-nail box is heavier and the mean looking shape of the nail gives you some kinda of insurance that it will secure the floor for good. Then after some research, I ended up getting the Porta-Matic Hammerhead2 air-powered nailer kit. It comes in a 30"x20' black plastic case, weighs about 35 lbs. It has a few allen wrenches and a screw driver with hex socket on the handle for changing the shoes. Pair of safety glasses and face nailing shoe. Rubber head hammer with comfortable handle. The nailer itself is well built with nice red finish and aluminum magazine and safety trigger pull. One screw from the bottom and two bolts on front hold the shoe in place. Head heavy hammer feels nice in hand. By that time, I already read the manual (downloaded from Porta-Nail's website in PDF format). Since I was not ready to put the new floor in yet, I tried the face nailing to stop the squeaking in my old floor. I will be putting new floor on top of the old one, so it is a good idea to get rid of the squeaks first. Changing the face nailing shoe is a breeze. The nailer only fits in the case with the regular shoe on BTW. Hook it up to compressor and set to 90 PSI. Load the nails, sit the nailer on the spot, depressed safety trigger and tap the ram with the rubber head hammer. (Note: you tap this thing not strike as you would do with a manual nailer.) This thing fires like if there is no tomorrow and the nail is set about 1/8" beneath the surface. I was totally impressed and of course the squeak was gone. I can't wait to put my new floor in now. It will put a test on this nailer since it is Brazilian cherry we are talking about - one of the hardest wood floor available. I am confident that this nailer will fullfil the task as I expected it would. I think it's well worth the extra (price) over the Bostitch nailer. I will be back with the result of the installation of my new floor.

this is a great nailer vs. hand nailing. i've installed many floors with this nailer and it has proven paid for itself many times over. the only thing to be careful for is that you MUST not nail over joists. i sheared the driver on the first job that i did. unfortunately, you must mark your joists, but it's a small price to pay...just be careful. the driver is approx. $40 directly from pni.

I just finished installing hardwood floor on two houses (~4000 sq ft) with this nailer and I am telling you if you want a floor nailer, this is it.
br /The floor in the first house is oak hardwood, no problem. The second house is Brazilian Cherry, one of the hardest wood floor ever. This is when this nailer shined. Without the 420P, I don't think I would even attempt Brazilian Cherry. I really like the combination of face nailing and edge nailing. Pneumatic is great, especially when getting close to a wall without a lot of room to swing a hammer. I also like the available shoe height for different wood thickness. I got one jam and one double nailing so far. The jam was really easy to clear. Make sure that you have a really good and stable air compressor constantly around 95-105psi. Play with the pressure a little bit to adjust to the nail depth you want. I am very happy so far. The price is higher than other nailers, but worth every penny.

I purchase this nailer based on the reviews on Amazon.com so I thought I give my own review.
br /
br /This nailer performed without any problems and made the job of putting down 800 sq ft of hardwood floor very sample. I had not used a air compressor tool before and never put down a hardwood floor but the job came out professionally done. The nailer is light weight and very simple to use, it seem so simple to use and place the hardwood floor down, I felt that I was missing something, but knew it was not the case.
br /
br /

I couldn't have been happier with this nailer! I bought it to put a hard maple floor in my house, and it worked great. It is very heavy duty and is rugged enough for daily construction work. The big benefit to this nailer is that it can face nail. That saves a huge amount of time by not having to face nail by hand.
br /
br /The one problem I had with the nailer was caused by not paying attention when it ran out of nails. If you hit the button on top of the nailer without any nails in the nailer, there is a chance of the spring which holds the nails in place getting jammed. I had to use pliers to get this unjammed. This is more my fault than the tool's, but be aware of this so you don't let the tool run out of nails.
br /
br /I bought this tool when I put in my floor because it is cheaper for me to buy the tool and then sell it than it is to rent a second rate nailer for as long as it took me to finish my house (1500 square feet in 6 months). This is a great nailer.

I was very hesitant to invest this amount of money into a nailer when I could rent one worry free from my local shop. When renting, planning was a nightmare between face nailing and angle nailing. Having to finish the job in time, rushing to get to the end to get the face nailer back. So I was excited after doing my research to find two tools in one.
br /
br /I'm very impressed with this tool thus far. I've only installed about 300 sq/ft, but I'm blown away by it's ease of use and flawless performance. I'm still getting used to the tool, but it's very easy to align and fire away. All it takes is a modest tap and the nails are set perfectly. When face nailing, i've noticed that when you are over a joist you have to give it a little more umph! Changing from face to angle nailing only takes a few minutes. If you are in the market for a nailer, you are definitely getting what you pay for here. Worth every penny.

I really wanted an air driven floor nailer, but the porta nailer got my attention beacause it was convertable from floor nailer to face nailer. I waited 3 months for delivery but it was worth it. What a great machine. very easy to put down a floor using air and switching to a face nailer is so simple,I was really supprised. I put down 600 Square feet and not one single jam. A delight to operate and well worth the money.

I think this nailer has the potential for being very good, albeit in its current model it falls very short of what I expected. All too frequently it jams or the nails are not recessed correctly if at all. I find that using a manual nailer is much simpler, safer and if you factor in the time needed to fix all the jams - is much quicker (and a heck of a lot cheaper). I would give this current model two thumbs down and would not recommend it to anyone who lays hardwood flooring for a living.

Did a lot of on-line research and this nailer did both face and grove nailing for the best price. I received the product within a few days after ordering. I've never used any pneumatic powered tools or done any flooring before so had help from a friend who had some experince. We put down about 700 sq ft of 3/4" thick plank hardwood flooring. Nail gun was very easy to use and didn't jam once. My friend thought the nails used in this nailer would leave to big of a hole during face nailing, so he used a brad nailer for the strips up against the walls and manually hammered in nails into the groves for the first couple rows until pneumatic nailer could be used. The web site for Porta-Nails had a very good video clip showing the operation of the nailer and really sold me to buy this particular nailer.

Save yourself the cost of hiring with this tool. If you know how to cut wood and measure, this is all you need to put in wood floors. I am very impressed with the quality of the tool and ease of use. The PortaNails used for the tool are excellent specialized cleat nails specifically designed for this tool. I've heard complaints from professionals about air powered flooring nailers. But I think they are blowing air themselves. Everyone likes to defend their job. But this is a job any builder or knowledgeable homeowner can handle with this tool.

I can't make comparisons to other nailers since I bought this nailer for my first flooring project (about 180 sq. ft. of 3/4" walnut flooring). My primary reasons for getting this one was the included face nailer and the heavy duty nails.
br /
br /Switching out the face/angle shoe takes just a few seconds and requires only one simple tool that is included in the kit. The nails were hard for me to find, only Lowe's had them, fortunately in the 2" length needed for my project. The included mallet is also handy for setting boards.
br /
br /Another reviewer mentions the size of the hole left by face nailing. This does seem to be one drawback of this system, and not just because of the hole size. You must be very careful early on to get your air pressure for face nailing correct, and be consistent with your striking force. Since the nails don't have a recess in the head, it is very easy for the nail setting tool to slip off and gouge an even larger hole. For nails that stick out from the surface slightly it's even more difficult to set them without slipping. On prefinished flooring filling these holes is a headache.
br /
br /Aside from the face nailing headaches once these nails go in they don't let go. If you end up having to pull up a board it will most likely get destroyed in the process.

So far so good. Got this pneumatic nailer a month ago and I am still pounding this nailer without any major problems. There were two incidents that made me jumped. I was holding down on the ram cap as I inserted the hose and it fired a nail into the floor. The safety trigger was not depress and it still drive a nail. So much for safety feature. Right after that incident, the gate clip popped out and ejecting all of the nails on the next strike. The reason why I bought this nailer over the others was because of the wide head design of nail it use. The nails are serated with a heavy gauge. Once the nail is seated to the floor, forget about removing it. You will destroy the wood before getting the nail to come out. I just finished about 800 sq ft of nailing and still got more to do. I can tell you this nailer is very simple and straight forward to use. You don't even have to tap too hard to get the plank close together, it will close the gap for you as it drive the nail into the wood plank and floor. This nailer has the great flexibility of changing shoes between Face nailing and Tongue nailing. There seem to be one draw back of the nailer that I will soon find it limits. The nailer is rated for regulated pressure 90-95 PSI and warned not to exceed 110 PSI. This kinda limit the wood you may want to use for your flooring. I am installing Brazilian Cherry that has a Janka hardness of 2820. It does a great job at Tongue nailing, but struggle to counter sink when Face nailing. Other than that, I believe this nailer is hard to beat. Especially the design of the nail they have engineered for flooring.

Not everything works the first time. We had problems with jamming out of the box. I called Porta-Nails and they sent a replacement part for free. I installed it and was up and running with no more jams. I have used their hand nailer (good) and the Pneumatic and the Pneumatic is a back saver. Highly recomended. Only negative is I would like the company to provide more detailed instructions. Thanks for a hard working product and a reponsive company when problems occur.

Well, I have had this nailer now for over two years and thought I would give a progress report on it. So far I have nailed over 3000 square feet of flooring from brazilian cherry to maple to walnut and it has never let me down. The nails have a special serrated quality that ensures the flooring once it's down stays down. Even on super hard woods, such as the Walnut, it seats the nail in perfectly so no punch in is required. You may have to compensate for this by adjusting air pressure but once it's set you're good to go. The quality is good and it's built to last heavy but in a good way that it won't move when you are setting. I think this one is going to last a long time . just take care of it by making sure you drain your comp and i just replaced my o rings and greased so it will last forever.

I bought this nailer and the 16ga finish nailer.
br /
br /I just laid over 900 sqft of 3/4" brazilian Cherry hardwood.
br /This was my first time ever putting down harwood flooring.
br /
br /I bought some nails off an auction site that must have been seconds or something.
br /I was having jam issues regularly. I bought some fresh ones from a home center and I can't remember having a single jamb.
br /
br /I used the finish nailer to nail the first and last 3 rows.
br /Using this nailer seemed like overkill and the nail head is pretty large to try and fill, especially with pre-finished wood.
br /
br /My original intent was to buy the nailer new and sell it on an auction site after I was done.
br /I like it so much, I'm hanging on to it.
br /
br /Amazon shipped out the tool right away. Very satisfied.
br /
br /Oh. if you buy this nailer, get the setting tool to counter sink any nails that don't go in all the way. Sometimes you hit a sub-floor nail and the nail stops short.

I have been placing hard wood floors for years. This is the best nailer I've used to date. It's high in cost but you get what you pay for.

Recently purchased Porta-Nails 421P kit. Nothing but trouble with jamming. Contacted Porta-Nails and they sent an update kit which I installed. Gun would work for about 10-12 nails and still jams. Re-adjust, it would work again for a few more nails before jamming again. Continually needed to be re-adjusted. Totally dissatisfied with this product. All this in less than 2 boxes of nails.
br /
br /Ended up purchasing a manual nailer which never let me down.
br /

I had to complete 900sf of hardwood flooring. I researched lots of floor nailers and the Porta-Nailer according to the product descriptions seemed to be the best. Conversations with several other again the pneumatic Porta-Nailer came out on top. I purchased the pneumatic 421P. I have completed one room and the nailers works as advertised. I am very happy with the product and would purchase another one. I would highly recommend this products to others.

As a professional carpenter I've probably run over 10,000 feet of flooring with this nailer without a major problem or rebuild. Even works great on harder woods like Ipe. One thing you absolutely have to have is a good compressor (4 cfm or better) and a 3/8" air line. I tried running mine off my smaller pancake compressor with a 1/4" line and it gave me nothing but problems. It continually jammed and didn't set the nails flush. I switched to my bigger compressor and a bigger line and haven't had a problem since. I also prefer the serrated nails to staples as I think they hold better and split the tongue less. I still prefer my old manual porta-nailer for those stubbern warped boards.

Recently purchased Porta Nailer 421P Pneumatic floor naler and could not be happier with purchase.
br /Have just installed 400 square foor of exotic flooring (Brazilian Redwood) and minimal problems with splitting.
br /The angle nailer shoe works beautiful- but face Nailer attachment did not countersink into this hard wood
br /so I used a finished nailer for face nailing.I have been using Porta Nailer manual nailers in the past- but this
br /tool is night and day above these nailers.

This is the best flooring nailer on the market. Certainly, it is not a home owner tool, Awesome product with robust performance at each and every use.
br /Users claims nail jamming, they are simply using an after market nail in this professional grade tool. By the way i am a License utility Mechanical contractor for over 20 years.
br /I have used many other flooring nailers and fastening systems. If you're seeking an industral grade tool with performance and robustness with every use....May i suggest looking no further.
br /Personally, we purchase HILTI tools and accessories for our shop....You get the message.
br /

This hardwood flooring nailer ,i think, the best of the market,but be carefull- if a loader have less then 1/3 capacity of nails- it start jamming nails.So dont forget reload nails.I think problem is-too weak spring loader mechanism.Anyway, this nailer wery accurate-not damage a tonque of hardwood planks,unlike staplers hardwood nailers.

When I check out the review on this product before I ordered I was unsure about my decision. I rolled the dice and ordered the Hammerhead 2. I am a professional contractor specializing in upper end work. We spare no salt in having the best equipment on the market. This tool has well out performed my expectation and then some. If you have ever used other brands you will know that it is easy for first time help to accidently nail on the surface instead of on the tongue. I just finished a floor with 600 feet and my new helper only had one accident. This nailer has front resting pads that set on the subfloor. This makes postioning the nailer a snap. Other nailers on the market don't have this and that is why I went with this tool. It is big but not heavy. The tool being tall keeps you from bending over so far. It comes with a case and a hammer that you will simply love. I would recommend this to anyone. The extra hundred dollars was money well worth it...

I do general carpentry and finish work. I have used the Porta-Nail 421P to install 14 floors (approx. 300 sq.ft. each).The majority of the floors were 3/4" oak, four were 3/4" Brazilian Cherry. I have had three jams caused by hitting nails in the sub-floor.
br /The nailer is light-weight for its' size--a bonus.
br /A lite tap does the job.
br /Its' easy to clear a jam.
br /Follow the instructions on setting up your compressor,probably the main cause of problems.
br /This tool is expensive, but I feel that its' worth the cost.
br /

I bought this nailer based on a culmination of many reviews read from many websites. Additionally, this appears to be the only nailer that has the ability to shoe and face nail. My bother installed wood floors for ten years and he said Porta-Nail is one of the best nailers out there. I haven't used 421P yet, but I am impressed with the build quality. The plastic case leaves a lot to be desired, and for the price of this product and for the quality and reputation of the product I would think that Porta-Nail would include a case with a steel pin hinge instead of the highly susceptible to breakage molded hinge. Just a suggestion Porta-Nail, and you may contact me if you wish to send me a new and improved case to replace this semi-crappy tool holder.

I bought this nailer next to the other three nailer I already have, all the information about this nailer telling you that this nailer is one of the best, in fact I,m not lucky or this nailer is no better than any of average nailer on the market, in the first 100 nail been set the nailer jambed also miss fire after one houre, I know it need to clean the gate for not to miss fire but it keep do it very ofen that is not bad the bad news is I could not open the gate after the driver jamed for about 1 hour only the gate open with a screw driver to insert between the gate and the body which is not a simple thing to do this nailer keep jambing for about 7 time for a 600 sf of hard wood floor I do flooring every day and been working with nailer for about seven years this nailer is not a super one like they talke about

This is the big daddy of speciality nailers. The moment I pulled the trigger I was blown away. With only minor modifications to the fuel and firing mechanisms, this hyper-accurate nail rifle can pin down a piece of pine through three inches of solid concrete. Also, with very little angular bias, it is highly suited to medium and long range applications on any biomass. It should be noted that firing produces a very clear and clean pneumatic thunk, which will impress both experienced hardware worshippers and neonates alike.