Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Ok! it's heavier. There, I got that out of the way. As a professional trim carpenter, and someone who has only used Paslode cordless guns over the last 16 years, the weight increase and cumbersome profile of the Dewalt DCN680D1 is the first thing I had to get used to. I use a 3ah battery with it and this seems to last fine throughout the day so far. The balance of the gun, or lack there of is the hardest thing for me to get used to. By comparison, the Paslode feels compact compared to this gun and is much more comfortable to work with when using the gun upside down or at odd angles compared to the Dewalt. I saw someone on YT suggest using a bigger battery to balance the gun out. I'll take the lopsidedness over added weight. The Dewalt gun fires incredibly smooth and to me feels like you can actually position the tip more accurately on narrow work surfaces where accuracy counts, like when nailing mitered corners on 7/16 casing from the sides and you can't afford a misfire that blows out the face. The tip on this gun is smaller and more precise unlike the chunkier tip on the Paslode. I prefer this smaller tip. Driving multiple racks of 2" nails into pine casing was never an issue as you would hope it not be considering the lack of resistance. I have yet to put it through its paces on hardwood, although that is on the immediate horizon at my current job. Thousands of feet of poplar and red oak baseboard to come. That should be a pretty good test. I have noticed when a nail finds resistance against metal or concrete that the gun seems to go into a shutdown mode and will not fire, as per the manual the dual blinking lights indicate either a jamb, or in some cases it seems to be telling you, "I don't like what you just fired that last nail into" In these situations, the magazine must be cleared and re engaged and the there is a reset lever that needs to be activated to resume firing. Cool feature, has worked well so far. I also like that this gun will not allow the gun to fire when your nails get low. Maybe Paslode has updated their newer guns to do the same, but my current ones do not, and in a noisy environment I sometimes can't pick up on the sound difference of when the gun is dry firing. One of the obvious benefits of the Dewalt over the Paslode is not having to buy fuel cells. They're not cheap and unlike some people, I actually didn't mind the smell. One of the biggest complaints about the Paslode guns that I've heard from other carpenters is that they are too finicky. Yes, they are. If you don't clean them often. I guess I'll find out over time how easy the Dewalt gun is to service. I can practically break down my Paslode guns with my eyes closed and buying replacement parts has never been an issue. This gun has a bump fire mode. I've been doing trim carpentry for the last 24 years and never once in that time have I ever though that a trim gun needed bump fire capability. This is an 18g brad gun. Finish work is mostly about accuracy and limiting the number of nail holes to fill. That's all I have to say about that. If you are one of those die hard pneumatic nail gun purists who finally gave up your kinked up dirty hoses and noisy compressor (although I do keep one of those small whisper series 1HP for my pin gun) and this is your first cordless gun, you'll probably love it, with the exception of the weight thing, and you should. This is a nice gun that runs very efficiently. There is little to no wait time between fires (unlike the old cordless Senco guns from years ago) and the composite materials used on the exterior seem to be capable of withstanding daily use and abuse on a job site. Something that you would automatically expect from any Dewalt tool. The only reason I didn't give this five stars was because of the weight. I regularly hook my cordless guns to my tool belt, and this additional weight is not something I care for. I'll still keep my Paslode guns running, but I'm glad I added this Dewalt to the collection. It will still get used a lot.