Scew Nails or Ring Nails

[dan76n]

Hi all,
When nailing hardwood decking to treated pine I should be using stainless steel dome head "ring nails" in my coil gun which I have done previously, but I have heard the "Screw nail" although designed for hardwood joists, may work better in treated pine joists.
Should I stick to the ring nails or is the screw nail actually better?

[scooter]

Haven't heard the last bit, AFAIK ring shanks into softwood, twist shanks into hardwood.


Cheers.................Sean

[Burnsy]

You are correct in your initial statement however I have been using screw shank for hardwood over pine in the last few jobs as the last batch of ring shank I bought (Airco) could not handle the hardwood. The rings had compromised the strength of the nail and they tended to fold up in the gun like a spring (this was into new batu). Swapped over to screw shank and I have not had one nail fold. Been using the remainng ring shanks for pine on pine picket fences.

In relation to your second comment, the screw shanks appear to hold just as hard if not harder than the ring shanks in the pine. The supplier I now use told me that I was not the first to experience this and they had had a few guys make the same observation and all had changed over to screw shank.

My advice would be to ask your supplier about it, if they say the ring shanks will work, make sure they will take back the remaining box of 1400 nails if your first coil gives you grief. That many nails is alot to have sitting around if you don't have some other project to use them on.