it goes back way further than you think! in 1892 the Pearson nailer was invented. It was a hand held nail feeder, that was struck like a flooring gun to set roofing nails. From the 1900s-1950s hand held & pneumatic staplers and brad guns were being designed & produced. The three major US companies were @bostitchtools @sencobrands and @itwpaslode there were no pneumatic solutions for framing until the mid 1950s when the Nu-Matic walking sub floor nailer was created. This enabled carpenters to nail 40-60 nails in under a minute! In the ‘60s @itwpaslode came out with the GN-212 the first hand held, pneumatic gun to fire 8d’s. Soon after the SN-312 was released. It was the first gun to fire 16d’s but Larry Haun says it was unreliable, often jammed, and was quicker to hand nail. In the 70s the SK-312 came out and changed the framing game forever. The first super reliable gun that could fire up to 16d’s. Up until the 2000s carpenters could still be found using these guns. In the 1980s @metabohpt released the NR83A which many Framers still swear by. The major development since then has been cordless guns such as the ground breaking piston driven @itwpaslode impulse guns and in recent years the electric guns made by @metabohpt @sencobrands @dewalttoughand just about every other brand! So what’s your take? Still have some relics hanging around? What are your guns of choice? If you’re old enough, when did nailers breakthrough on your sites? My father says that it was well into the late 70s when they first started incorporating nailers into their work. & you can tell he’s from the hand bang generation because 1 nail is always enough! Lol. Feedback, questions, comments about these posts? HMU! Thank you!