Side by Side Comparison of: Hitachi vs DEWALT

Great quality and functionality at a good price, brads go in effortlessly and sink to the depth set on the nailer, although so far I've only used it on relatively soft woods. FYI, the combo kit that includes the compressor and brad nailer does NOT include a case for the nailer, I was a bit disappointed by this.

You cannot beat the price of this nailer. I've used mine for dozens of projects and it's rarely had issues. It's high quality and does exactly what I need it to do for my wood projects. Easy to maintain. My only complaint is that after a while, one of the black sides came off that was attached with some kind of glue, but doesn't affect the nailer's performance.

I bought this to replace a cheap old CH nailer that came with my air compressor. This is one of the nicest finish nailers ive ever used. Easy adjustments. I will definitely buy the framing nailer in the future. For this price, you will not find a better deal.

I bought this on the strength of a review by a guy who makes his living with it. He claimed that, on the job, they treat these nail guns like dirt... dropping them, abusing them, and generally defying them to fail. He claimed that this one won't.
I'll never intentionally mistreat this one, but it's good to know it will forgive me if I do. It's been a great tool for me and I'm very happy with it.

Love this nailer! Very easy to operate, runs well, built well, light weight. Accurate to, in the ways of if you set your pressure you know it will go however far down you have set it in the past. I have used it on trim, crown, quarter round, cabinets you name it. All my nailers are Hitachi. I thought they had no business making such tools, but they make awesome nailers.

This is a fantastic tool! I wish these had been around years ago when I was a trim carpenter. I have been putting down base-shoe and it is so much faster and easier than a hammer. It is very lightweight and has not jammed yet on me either. Pneumatic nail guns are far superior.

Even though the directions for this were weird, it was a great purchase and it works great. My husband used it all the time.

My husband purchased this to remodel our kitchen cabinets. He always demands to buy kobalt or dewalt products but mainly dewalt as theyare known for their high quality long lasting products and this lives up to the name is easy to use not awefully loud but it is loud what do you expect it also came with Brad nails which was a plus. I would definitely recommend

Gun works great! It's a dewalt. To the 1 star reviewer that said the pneumatic brad nailer did not say it needed compressed air. Look up the word pneumatic. It means by compressed air or gas. I don't think you should rate a product if you have not even used it !!!

I have had this nailer for about 1 year, and it has worked flawlessly. The built quality/fit & finish are very nice, and all the moving parts feel solid and of high quality. The weight and balance are also good; it is nice to pick up and handle. It is simple to load, simple to access in case of a jam (which I don't recall having any so far), and overall I have nothing bad to say about it. Dewalt tools are a mixed bag these days, but each item should be examined on its own merits rather than under a brand name umbrella, and this one is top notch in my book.

OK

I've been using it now for 6 months. I've put in trim, door casing, cabinetry, etc. Mainly using 1.5" and 2" brads. Put it through oak and pine with zero jams. The plastic hitachi hi-light black plastic trim fell off, but I just glued it back on. Good power and adjustability as I have set my gauge from 70 to 110 PSI. Never had need to go higher.

Works well with 100% pin insertion. I have had no misfires and the unit is quiet and easy to use. I am unsure of the longevity due to the amount of plastic used in the construction but it keeps the tool very light to use.

This little brad nailer has worked great. It's nice and light weight but still feels well built.

The magazine release is plastic, which I was worried about, but has held up just fine. I don't know if it would stand up to everyday abuse but for diy/hobbiest use it seems fine. My Porter-Cable finish nailer has a nicer metal magazine release (actually the entire magazine is metal whereas the Hitachi brad nailer magazine is mostly plastic) but it is also heavier and more expensive.

The drive depth adjustment works fairly well and is easy to set. The window to check the amount of brads is small and not the easiest to see but once you get used to it it's simple enough to check and reload before you start firing blanks.

The safety is not located directly over where the brads come out, which can be a little awkward when working with small pieces that have a profile or when you're trying to fire a brad close to the edge of a workpiece. It's not a deal breaker but it does require some thought from time to time. I've never used a brad nailed before so for all I know they're all this way but I prefers the safety location on my finish nailed.

Overall this has been a fine tool and hard to beat for the price.

Was uncertain about purchasing because I thought this might be good to put a bird house together, but not suitable for heavier work. I was wrong. Had no problem putting the Hitachi 2-in nails through old wood during bathroom remodel. So far I've shot 2-in and 1 1/4 in nails through it. No need to adjust the depth gauge when switching between nail sizes, a real plus. Only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was that it was a bit finicky in having to depress it absolutely all the way before it would fire. Given the cramped work space you sometimes have when working with a brad nailer, this caused several mis-fires until I found an angle which would allow me to fully depress the nailer before pulling the trigger. Very easy to change between different nail sizes, and I like the view window which shows you have at least 5 or 10 nails left in the gun. Very happy with purchase.

Very nice tool.

Saves me so much time during project building I would never again be without one. No more hammering nails.

The unit replaced my grissly unit that I purchased 20 years ago. It works great, but it's much bigger and heavier than my only one.

Use it around the house for different projects, meets and exceeds expectation. Perfect for home handy man

Never once jammed, works great for my needs. Only reason I took away a star is it seems to leak oil from time to time...

I don't buy it

Love the gun but the safety is horrible. I had a porter cable forever but they changed there design so I bought this one. I build cabinets so I use thus gun for 10 hrs everyday. The safety goes all the way around the tip and is so loose you can't tell where you are going to hit. I am going try something else

This is a decent gun but the nail magazine is made of plastic so when I was useing it hard for a few weeks of trim work the mag broke and renders it useless but at the price it was worth it

While I like Hitachi products, the two problems I have with this gun is that you can't really shoot from an angle. It has to be pretty much a straight shot, or it won't fire. The other problem is that you don't know when you've run out of nails. Some guns won't fire when it's empty. This will continue to fire until you finally figure out that you've been shooting blanks.

I usually buy more expensive tools, but a friend talked me into buying this gun instead because it does not have the obtrusive head design (guard) and can nail close to the wall. So far it seems to work fine. If I had to complain about anything, it would be that it will "dry fire" when out of finish nails, so you have to watch your clip to see when you are running low. Also, the ram head does it's own damage to the surface. My high-end finish nailers leave nothing but a hole from the finish nail. Other than those two negatives, the positive is that it is very light and works in tight spots. Easy to load and seems dependable at this point. Time will tell. Price is right.

Had to take this to a service center after a short use. Hammer sticks in the down position.

Depth adjustment setting seems to change with use at times.
Trigger safety sometimes requires repositioning the tool multiple times to allow trigger.
loading is very easy.
Removing jammed nail is quick and easy

I bought two of these and use them every day firing 1000s of nails and they are starting to jam up after a couple months. I expect this problem after a year plus

First gun jammed up and broke after about 100 nails. Prime replaced it and the second is going smoothly thus far. Kind of hard for a Dewalt product to break so quickly but this is the home owner version.

i like dewalt tools and have many of them but this nailer is not on top of the list about half way through a strip of brads it will jam up in the slid, and it has a really bad air leak that i cant find,took to repair shop the guy told me that it was normal the nail gun i have does not leak air at all nor does my other dewalt air tools

When this nailer is working, it works great. However, it constantly jams with the 3/4" brad nails I've been using. The spring loaded part of the magazine that keeps tension on the nails ends up sliding over them and the nailer stops working. Guess it's a common problem with these. Spend a few more dollars and get one that doesn't have this problem.

I picked this gun because of the wonderful reviews, maybe I got a lemon. The nail cartridge is made of plastic and just keeps jambing, gun has little time on it, nothing like the performance of my bostich. I will be getting a bostich again regardless that the reviews were not as good as this one.

This nailer jams up often - reliably. The slide that presses the nails to the front is too loose. It has small indents intended to keep nails from sliding behind or in front of it, but they're not enough and nails slide pass the slide, jamming the nailer. I have found a cheap nailer from Harbor Freight costing $20 to be reliable and it also handles staples. I'm very disappointed with Hitachi.

I purchased this product because of my Hitachi history with their other tools. Some are favorites. My Porter Cable nailer went on me after 10 years. and i needed another that day. I went to Amazon and was going to order the same nailer but i opted for this hitachi because of the best buy rating. i received it the next day and used it for about a half day when it jammed and did not make it back. i don't think this tool can be a dependable one for a professional. Probably a good stand by.

I bought this nailgun almost two months ago, and just used it for the first time. It seems to work just fine, and though right out of the box i was concerned about the durability of the plastic parts (the nail storage area in the gun is made of plastic, and it has a bit of flex in it, and I wonder if it could withstand a dropping like the old senco i used to use can).

So the durability was the issue right out of the box. But the real actual problem is that when I used 2" nails designed for the gun, they jammed the gun twice in less than a half hour of use. Just to add, I read thoroughly the instructions.

Not so happy with this nailgun.

Worked for about 30 nails... now every nail slides off track..

I own a lot of dewalt brand tools and they work as great most of the time and they are my preferred brand. This tool was no exception when I started using it. I like the overall function of this a lot better than my older bostitch one. The reason I'm giving this a 2 star is because the oring on the cylinder broke after 7 months in the middle of a project. I use this tool moderately and I expect a higher standard from dewalt's tools.

This is not a final review. Used the new nailer once and it jammed twice. Will see how it preforms and add to this evaluation.

Purchased this August 15, 2015. Have used it about 3 times since purchase. The last time using the air gun the plunger will not raise back up after shooting the nail out. Having to see about warranty fixing or replacing. Not such a good thing when you're in the middle of a building project. Really do like/love the DeWalt brand.

Not very happy. The post said I get the gun, case, a box of nails, and safety glasses. I got everything but the nails, and the glasses had a scratch. I do like dewalt brand, but this experience wasn't great. Two star might be a little high.

The nail follower jams up all the time, all the time. It feels like less than half the quality of the Hitachi 16ga straight finish nailer, I and several other guys have used the 16's for years without a single problem. This 18ga gun is junk right out of the box

Brad nails slip behind spring loaded plate causing the jam. My nailer was 2 years old, or roughly 2000 nails, before encountering this problem. Since the nailer has a 5 year warranty, i called to see what could be done. Was told to mail it in with no promises.

**update 11/4/2013:
Nailer was received to Hitachi on 10/20/13, back in my possession on 11/1/2013. Only the plastic feeder piece being pushed by the spring has been replaced, with the same OEM piece. Only a matter of time before jams return.

The first one of these tools I owned lasted me for 3 years with no problems. The second one lasted 2 months, this one I recently purchased lasted 12 days before it malfunctioned. All three of the guns had the same issue, the nails jammed in the clip and while you think the gun is shooting it will not allow the nails to feed up. It didn't even seem to matter that I was using the Hitachi brand nails or another brand, all resulted in the same problem. I'm not sure what changed with the quality of these guns, but I would not recommend them to anyone, homeowner or professional.

I purchased this in 2010 for some finish carpentry projects and have used it very lightly. Like many others, the slide doesn't advance the nails. Hitachi framing nailers enjoy a great reputation, but something went wrong with this product.

The spring that pushes nails toward nail hole stopped working the second time I use it. Even though the mannual states that chek and tighten all screws before each use, there is no approproate tool included.

Very disappointed in Dewalt and Amazon!! The tool was not working!! Apon further inspection I discovered the piston/driver was installed wrong (grooves up not down) which caused tension on the piston/driver! It works fine now Dewalt quality control is lacking!!!

Stopped Working after a year for no reason at all. I took it apart to check the O-rings and seals and nothing was broken or leaking. Spring was just fine while holding the nails in place.. Just decided it didn't want to shoot nails anymore. Can I send it back? I know DeWalt is supposed to be guaranteed products.

Piece of junk broke the first time I used it. Dewalt should be ashamed for putting out this piece of crap.

Only lasted a few days into my DIY project and the driver seized. Same failure as other customers have described-I should have paid attention and passed this by. It tested out OK when I received it, but it seized a few days after the Amazon return window, so I am out of luck for returning it to them. I only shot ~200 nails before it died. DEWALT offered to repair it, but the nearest authorized repair center in 75 miles away, so the best I could hope is a several week turn around on the repair-and I would still wind up with same unreliable nail gun. So, I will pitch this this in the trash and purchase another brand from Home Depot or Lowe's-at least they will take defective products back. This is my last tool purchase from Amazon!

I read the reviews and purchased this unit as I like Dewalt products. The first one stopped working after about 3 strips of brads. The trigger would not reset. Amazon did a great job in replacing the unit with another Dewalt. I received it and to my amazement it stopped working after about 3 brad strips With the SAME problem. Again Amazon is wonderful on returns as this is my second return in 6 years. I will be purchasing another brad nailer but it will NOT be a Dewalt.