Ramsets use .22 blanks, not bullets, and would have the same issues being used as a pistol at range as any other powered hammer. Even if you override the safety, and either modify or practice with it enough to be reasonably accurate, you're just not going to do much damage if you're more than an arm's length or two away.

Nails have terrible ballistic performance, and there's nothing in a nailer meant to keep the nail going straight for more than 10cm or so. A nail launched into air (rather than a hard surface) from a nailer would start to tumble almost immediately.

You'd literally be more effective throwing the nailer at an attacker than trying to shoot them with it.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Pssst, the "bullet" is called a "nail" in a "nail gun."

37mms and 40mms also use a .38 blank (or a shotgun primer, depending) to launch, that not "gun" enough for you either just because the propellant and projectile are independent? What about flintlock?

And who says "gun" needs sub-MOA accuracy to be "gun?" The Liberator (both the George Hyde FP-45 produced by the OSS and the Cody Wilson 3d printed one) is notoriously inaccurate, meant to be basically pressed into a nazi back and fired to steal their firearm (or to simply exist as a working proof of concept for Cody's, really). Both still very "gun."

[–] JustinTheGM@ttrpg.network 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I took the time to watch some videos of people testing this.

A pneumatic roofing nailer couldn't stick a nail into the board from even 2-3cm away.
A pneumatic framing nailer couldn't stick a nail into a pine board from 5m; the nails all tumbled badly past about 15cm.
This guy then proceeded to weld a freakin' barrel, almost a meter long, onto his framing nailer in hopes of improving accuracy. While it did achieve that goal, he only got about 1cm of penetration from ~3m.
A PA nailer with green blanks stuck a 1.5" nail into a railroad tie about an inch deep from 2m, and a 2.5" nail about 1cm deep from 3m.
More interestingly, the above nailer only got about 5cm of penetration in a ballistic gel block with a 1.5" nail and a green blank from 15cm away. A yellow blank from the same distance got about 12cm of penetration.

Aside from all that, we're talking about a tool designed to push a fastener into material while in contact with said material. A gun is a tool designed to push a bullet into a target at a distance with some level of designed-in accuracy. These are not the same thing. A power nailer can certainly be used as a gun, but it can also be used as a step stool, a ruler, or a door stop. Usage outside intended purpose doesn't change the nature of an object.

Hey, if you want to call your PA nailer a nail gun, that's fine. There's no law requiring accuracy in speech, and of the entire power hammer category a PA nailer is probably closest.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 22 hours ago

Pneumatic != Powder Actuated. The former is propelled by air, the latter by smokeless gunpowder.

Besides, your video guy just had skill issues. These guys did fine with just a pneumatic, was your guy using a Ryobi or something lol? While that might not be as bad as a real bullet it doesn't look like the clay pigeon 25yd away had fun.

If you want more penetration, increase the powder load from 2-3ish grains to something appropriate for your "bullet" weight (mind weighing some of those nails in grains for me?) Green and yellow aren't even the strongest, let's see what a purple can do (and also can someone weigh those powder charges for me in grains too?) Hell, let's see what a 5.56 blank can do.