The best thing about the Metabo HPT NR83A(Y) 3 1/4-inch 21-degree pneumatic framing nailer is that it is almost identical to the Excalibur aluminum-bodied Hitachi NR83A that went to work on American job sites in the 1980s. Here’s what you need to know about the best framing nailer.
Review Results Below; First Some Fun History.
The best part of this tool review is that while this tool may be new to you, it is hardly new. Not by a long shot.
The then Hitachi NR83A 3 ¼-inch pneumatic framing nailer came up at roughly the same time as I did. While it was making its debut on jobsites in the 1980s, I was making my debut in college cobbling together bars and loft beds, and trying to figure out what life was all about.
Buying tools from catalogs
Fast forward to the 1990s–I have rugby jerseys older than some of you people!–we bought a lot of our tools from catalogs. These, like magazines, were paper stapled together. They weren’t even digital! They came in the mail and reading them was so much fun!
My favorite was Tool Crib and as luck would have it, a younger, way less handsome Me bought a Hitachi compressor/hose/nailer kit for my small home improvement concern. I always liked the tool and it never gave me problems. Back then we gun-nailed decking. Screws? Are you kidding?!
Testing tools
In the early 2000s, as I worked my way through being a magazine editor running the Tool Test Program for Tools of the Trade, I learned that the NR83A was revered in the trades. It was a relentless work horse, rarely breaking down. Always ready to run.
Tool brands enter pneumatics
It was also around this time that other brands that weren’t in pneumatics started pushing the industry in new directions. Lead by the swarming DeWalt teams, it wasn’t long before all the majors were trotting out spikers with this claim to fame or that. Aluminum housings gave way to magnesium. Modest pawls on the nose gave way to great big spikes. Pull-back slides on the nail carriage gave way to bypass slides and plastic parts.
Even Hitachi itself–now Metabo HPT–changed their line-up to meet market evolution.
I think the OG NR83A went away while new models with tweaked model numbers came and went. At one point, Hitachi had a running shoe designer doing their industrial design, as I recall. Lots of rubber over-molds, chrysalis colors for the shelf, but there were some real misses for us on the job site. It was a grey time to search for the best framing nailer.
Tool Review Results: Metabo HPT NR83A5(Y)
Oh, it’s good. It’s probably the best framing nailer I’ve ever used. I had another brand of spiker for a while–magnesium housing, big pawls, other–but it was a boat anchor. I’m SO GLAD to have the NR back on the truck.
The Test
When testing the Metabo HPT framing nailer, we looked at power across a range of materials from soaking wet, super soft pressure treated building a deck, less soft fir 2×4 framing fitting out a basement, driving nails into older, fully dried out fir and LSL.
What do we look at when trying to find the best framing nailer? We looked for balance, recoil, trigger-friendliness, nail-loading and jamming. We also looked for basic feel in the typical and awkward framing situations we face. While we are not framers, we frame.
We also thought about users other than ourselves and what they might need and experience.
Results
The only thing I didn’t do to this thing was drag it behind my truck to work. We built a deck in single digit temps. That same site flooded and filled the tool with mud slurry that shot out during a subsequent use.
Power.
Gobs of it. Not only could I control where the nail head sunk to with an easily adjusted, easy to understand depth of drive dial, it easily countersunk into engineered lumber.
Balance, Air, and Grab.
Of the zillions of tools I’ve used, Hitachi and now Metabo HPT designed a sublime tool that requires relentless repetition of a difficult task.
The aftermarket urethane hose Metabo HPT sent with the tool is trash. It’s multi-dimensionally tangled on anything but a wide open site. The best hose I’ve ever I’ve ever used is the Ridgid.
The pawl–that spike on either side of the nose intended for toenailing–works, but I wished from Day 1 they made it more aggressive. They didn’t, but it is aggressive enough.
Upgrades.
Unlike NR83A, the NR83A5(Y)’s trigger is bump/sequential fire adjustable. Having seen a 3 ¼-inch nail sticking between two metacapel in my right hand after my then boss’s NR83A double-tapped, I know double firing is a thing if the unit can’t recoil.
However, it is hard to know when the unit can and can’t recoil and double taps–even decades ago when this happened (and I was SO lucky)–are rare. It’s a good “new guy” feature, I think.
The nail slide is aluminum now instead of steel. OK. Aluminum is more expensive than steel and lighter, but what I really care about is loading nails.
Metabo’s load system is still the same, 40 years on. Pull the follower back, rack in nails, ease the follower back. Go to town.
Jams.
The OG NR83A almost never jammed. The current version jammed more, but–-and this is no engineering genius on my end, just my gut–-I think the collation bears some brunt of this. I loaded the tool like I’ve loaded the tool forever. Strips need head-under-head between strips.
For NR OG, they told us to ease the follower back to keep everything in alignment. For this unit, I did the same thing and experienced some jamming anyway and they were easy to clear. The tool is SO the same as it was, I’m not against blaming the collation. Maybe I got a bad box. I’m not a lab, but I don’t have enough good evidence to blame the tool.
There is no dry-fire lock-out. But you’ll feel it when you’re out of nails.
Rating
Outstanding. I know there’s an emotional connection, but I’m ruthless with tools and bear very little sentimentality. (Just ask my wife Theresa.)
Metabo HPT delivers an entirely well-balanced, powerful, easy-to-use effective framing nailer that’s gonna last. Long live aluminum!
What do you think of the Metabo HPT framing nailer?
Is there a framing nailer you’ve used that you think is better? What’s the best framing nailer out there, past or present? Tell us in the comments so we can check it out.
Check out more of Mark’s favorite tools.
