in today's exciting episode we are reviewing the milwaukee framing
nailer so nail guns have been uh changing quite a lot over the last few years for years here in new
zealand we use passload which was a combination of battery and gas cartridges now over the last
few years we've been trying these battery ones so we started with the koki framing nailer that's
battery with like a compressed air chamber in the top here this is similar to the koki in that it's
battery but i think it's got nitrogen in the top may be wrong about that maybe comment below
if you know more than me it's extremely likely so we're getting more power out of these battery ones
and we're not worrying about gas cartridges and the bonus of a battery is that we've got these
anyway for our other battery tools these nail guns are fitting a lot nicer into our tool kit overall
so the hakoki gun was my go-to and to be honest it still is my go-to
and they're not country miles apart from one another they're pretty damn close
just a few minor things that i prefer with the hikoki so let's start with the positives what
i really like about this gun the power i would say it might have a bit more power than the koki
this isn't a scientific review i don't know the actual facts of this stuff
but it feels like it has a bit more punch to it but it's still very very close it's not different
enough to worry about the other thing i like about it is that milwaukee made it uh milwaukee
make a lot of tools so if you're on a milwaukee battery system this is a bit of a no-brainer for
you i also like the depth adjustment it's not complicated at all it's just turn that
in and turn that out also the tip on this i actually prefer over the hikoki it has a bit more
of a claw to it it's a bit wider so when you're putting it on an angle it doesn't slip as much um
another great benefit of the milwaukee and maybe the other ones do it but i'm not sure is you can
extend the magazine so you can add more strips of nails and you'd have to change them as much
now the areas where the nail guns do compare is two key areas number one that belt hook there if
you're a builder you'll probably see the problem already that magazine is in the way of that hook
so when you try and hook it onto your tool belt i mean i've dropped it off a ladder before it's not
this doesn't go directly in full comparison there we go see that freedom that hooks nicely on your
toolbar so hikoki do that right they don't have a rafter hook that comes automatically with the nail
gun you can buy a rafter hook and put it on the other side whereas milky they include the rafter
hook on the other side like that this rafter looks great that's not so great and the second
thing that makes me choose the hikoki over the milwaukee is the weight this is a bit lighter and
it seems to be balanced better i better give one of these spiders he's trying to nail some studs
there it is there you go mate so the depth adjustment on the koki is kind of similar as well
but you can see that smaller nozzle at the top that's why i prefer the milwaukee nozzle we slip
a little bit more often when we're nailing on a 45 degree angle with the koki but other than that
they're very comparable oh another key thing the milwaukee has longer standby time so what i mean
by that is once you've turned this on this will only stay on for a few minutes the milwaukee stays
on for longer so more often than not we have to turn this thing back on every time we go to nail
oh yeah and this might be uh this might be a little bit trivial but
when we put the nail gun down
this one stays up whereas with the milwaukee you put it down no matter how hard you try and
put it down no matter how carefully you put it down no matter how well you try and balance it
it tends to fall over what do you think of the milwaukee framing gun powder i like it though
it's good yeah yeah you're a fan it's pretty powerful yeah it's a little bit annoying this hook
about it yeah the weight to it yeah it's good for rich because it's got plenty of these batteries
that brings me on to my next point battery systems ultimately i mean you can probably tell
by the review ultimately the guns are pretty much the same and i'm sure as they work on the next
generations and they're only going to get better what it comes down to is your battery system
if you have to spend you know thousands of dollars on your tools you probably want to stick with one
battery system so if you're already on milwaukee i would suggest getting a milwaukee framing gun
and maybe you're on hikoki then get the hikoki framing gun i'm trying to
make my drop saw and my framing guns or one battery system so that's why i have this milwaukee
drop saw out here so for me that that's like an ideal system having a drop saw
and the framing gun all taking the same batteries and uh having multiple batteries
one cool thing uh is where they put the battery button here that's a bit better it's not in
there like the cookie i think if they put that on their next generation that would be a good idea
the extension is all framed up so why do we stick with these battery guns you may ask
certainly if you're in new zealand there's a good chance that you don't use this framing gun
you might use this framing gun the paslo framing gun this is the gun that i use for maybe 10 years
the only reason i didn't use it from the start of my apprenticeship is because i had one
for four years as an apprentice and then it got stolen and then i had that one ever since
until fairly recently when i got this one and then this one appeared as well the air bow
so why do i not continue to use the peso well basically it's a strength thing and
this gas cartridges as soon as you buy a box of nails that has gas cartridges in it you pay
i have to double check but it's probably an extra fifty dollars for the box and nails
much cheaper to buy collated nails without a gas cartridge to power this you don't need
gas cartridges you just need the battery like i said earlier in the video the koki's
exactly the same and the airbo well you don't need a battery you don't need a gas cartridge
you don't need anything except for a large air compressor that you have to take to site
every time you need to fill this tank up with compressed air
and you may be able to tell that i have not been using it there's this this is the air compressor
this is the air compressor here so the elbow story is a bit of an unfortunate story they decided to
pack up and stop making nail guns they're still making the nail gun technology though and last i
heard they were in talks to license the technology i don't know much more than that but i do know
that they stopped making guns this is a concrete gun for concrete nails no gun powder no just air
so the inconvenience of the air bow and the air compressor that you need to take around with you
was the reason i stopped using that the reason i stopped using the pass load
was the gas cartridge and a lack of strength
so here are a few pieces of timber that we're likely to use here in new zealand the middle
stuff is pine pink timber you'll probably see in some of my videos and if you're wondering
what the pink is it is treatment it's basically the lowest grade of treatment
and it's color-coded pink so the inspector knows that it's pink and not green stuff
which is more treated anyway occasionally very occasionally i've only done it once in this video
in a recent episode is alveolar timber laminated veneer lumber layers of glue and pine usually
and it forms quite a strong timber and notoriously hard to nail into this is rimu this is a native
timber here in new zealand quite tough to nail into so up first the pink pine walkie
no problem and they're cookie oh we got a flashing battery
so the pass flow has a lot less power
but generally speaking it gets through the pinup but generally speaking the pine is not a problem
for the pass load it gets through it laminated veneer lumber on the other hand milwaukee
no problems no no the battery
i've only got one battery for the hikoki and it's uh it's currently flat the rest are at
the job trust me when i say that the hakoki shoots about as good as the milwaukee it
shoots into the lvl and also shoots into the native timber so now the pass load into lvl
that's the dip set all the way in now a very important thing to mention and i
should have mentioned it at the start of this comparison this isn't the latest pesto again
like i said i've had this many years the new ones probably have more power um from
what i've heard they still struggle with things like lvr so take this with a big grain of salt
then let's test it with some native timber for a life
oh not too bad
look at that go on pesload
now the milwaukee
see the difference in the recoil
i must have had an old soft piece of remo not the
hard workers that peso did the job usually it really struggles
like i said uh my review isn't very scientific um that battery is running a bit flat there it's
an older model of passload and um my koki hikoki battery went flat but you get the idea there's a
bit more strength than those battery-only nail guns that the uh the gas ones don't really uh
don't really compare with the pastel is far more comfortable far easier in the hand
and i think that's why they're still a favorite here in new zealand yeah so light and another
thing that i don't miss about using the gas nail guns like this one is the maintenance between
the gas and the natural wood dust on a standard work site there's a lot of residue that builds up
inside the motor so far and i've only had this six months so far this has been okay the guys
at hikoki in particular said that they go a long time without needing to needing to service it and
they're completely serviceable i can't speak for the milwaukee i don't know enough yet and that's
the difficult thing about reviewing tools is that you know a tool is good after years not months
so this is it's almost like a first impressions video because yeah it takes a good few years for
a tool to really show itself and show how good it is you uh buy this in new zealand there's
a good chance you'll get one of these boxes with it that's that's what i got and inside the box uh
it comes with a little rubber tip and that clips over the nozzle so it's like a noma tip if you're
nailing into something that you don't want extra dents in you clip that on the end there
look at that if anyone from milwaukee is listening keep doing that that's a great idea
free noma tip inside the box so who should buy a milwaukee framing game
well if you're a builder like me um i would recommend it if you are on milwaukee tools
if you have milky impact drivers circular saws and all the rest of it
um and you just want one battery great nail gun if you want to buy a nail gun purely just for the
nail gun you don't mind what system it's on what battery it uses then my preference is the hikoki
for the reasons i said before but in terms of a few months of usage they're pretty comparable
you