Bostitch BT200K 18-Gauge Brad Nail Gun Review

I put off getting a nail gun for years, even after I borrowed one from a friend to do a quick trim project. Then, faced with a big ceiling and trim installation in a basement room, I decided to get a nail gun to speed the work. I got a Bostitch BT200K and it has been excellent. I forget the exact price but think it was around $100... and it was money well spent.

What it is

The Bostitch BT200K is a smaller pneumatic nail gun that can handle brads from 5/8 inch to two inches. What are brads? Brads are thin nails made from wire. Due to their thinness, brads are not good for holding weight but they are fine for attaching lightweight things such as trim boards. You wouldn't want to use brads to hold a window in place, for example. However, they are perfect for holding the window's trim in place. Because brads are so thin, they are less likely to split wood and they make a smaller hole that is easier to fill in for a perfect surface.

The Bostitch BT200K holds a pack of 100 18-gauge brads in its easy-to-load magazine. The comfortable rubber-lined handgrip lets me hold the tool for hours at a time and the entire package weighs much less than it looks. The tool is so lightweight that it surprises me almost every time I pick it up. The pneumatic connection is at the heel of the handgrip and I use a quick-disconnect to make it easy to attach the air hose.

My BT200K came with a 1000-pack of 1 5/8-inch brads, which were fine for my ceiling installation. However, I needed the full two-inch length for trim work. (A pack of 1,000 nails costs around $10 at Home Depot.) The tool also came in a sturdy blow-molded plastic case, which you can see in some of the pictures.

The BT200K will work with any compressor that can make a pressure of 70 pounds per square inch (psi) or so. I find that the tool works best when I set my compressor for 90 psi.

Using it

Using the Bostitch BT200K really speeded my work along and it also made for a neater finished appearance. With the BT200K, I could drive four nails in less than 10 seconds, including setting the nails to the correct depth. Nailing manually would have taken me a minute per nail to get them set to the right depth, and I would run the risk of the nail set slipping off the head of the nail and dinging the wood.

I occasionally had a nail that the BT200K failed to drive properly, either because it hit another nail or a knot in the wood. The mis-set nails often veered off at odd angles and almost shot into my hand a couple of times. When you use a nail gun, be very careful where you place your support hand -- don't get it too close to the spot where you are nailing. Also, wear eye protection. It's far too easy to get a splinter in the eye with a tool like this.

A nail gun like the Bostitch BT200K has an advantage for trim work, too. It nails much faster and more smoothly than a human hand could ever drive a nail, and this eliminates the drift that trim boards have when hand nailing them. Thus, using at nail gun results in a neater, more professional job. And it's MUCH faster, too.

Some angles are difficult to get with the BT200K and it can be tricky working in a tight corner behind a toilet or cabinet. However, that's true of any powered nailer and also true of hand nailing. There were a few nails I just had to do by hand on my recent project, however.

The biggest downside to the Bostitch BT200K is that it didn't come with a belt hook of some sort. I looked for a generic belt hook at Home Depot and Lowes but couldn't find anything. Therefore, I made my own out of a piece of strap metal -- a picture of it is posted with this review.

Summary

Now that I've sampled the pleasures of using a nail gun, there's no going back. If your project involves driving more than 50 finish nails, a nailer like the Bostitch BT200K will save you time and give your work a neater appearance. It's worth it and I recommend the Bostitch BT200K.