I think you hit the nail on the head(pun intended) , about this being to compete with Hitachi.
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Upon close inspection of of the Milwaukee roofer I cant help conclude that its the same as the Menards brand Masterforce Nailer.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-1-3-4-in-Coil-Roofing-Nailer-7220-20/205984681
Other than the cosmetic differences in the body they share the exact same load and feed system
While the framers use different nail types the guns use the unmistakable same head:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwaukee-3-1-2-in-Full-Round-Head-Framing-Nailer-7200-20/205984678
Anybody see Estwing is now selling pneumatic nailers as well? Most likely a rebrand of someone elses, maybe Freeman.
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I just think it’s funny as snot that most folks would just dismiss the Menard’s gun as a cheep knock off when in reality the Milwaukee is the knockoff.
I don’t have a Menard’s down by me, but I guess the closest thing might be a Kobalt or maybe Craftsman.
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I’d be kind of surprised if either Menard’s or Milwaukee had opened up a factory to produce just a few different kinds of nail guns. I’m guessing that if we scoured Alibaba and the China/Taiwan trade links on the Internet, we might find the OEM’s for these and a lot of other tools that bear both “house” and traditional tool company brand names. My take has always been that the company or retailer that stands behind the product and how well they do that is very important. One would hope that when a reputable company affixes its brand name to a product and offers a decent warranty - they have done their due diligence in selecting the OEM and insuring that an appropriate level of QA/QC has been applied along its design and manufacturing chain. The costs of providing QC/QA, warranties, quantity discounts and maybe an extra feature or two - naturally along with other company costs, markup and profit margin are what goes into the price we pay. I have no Menards near me - but maybe they have lower overheads and large enough volumes to offer the discounts that I often hear about - and hopefully their house brands represent a combination of high quality and good value.
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It’s kinda difficult to figure out who Menards uses as the OEM, I’ve tried. The quality of their tools is all over the place. I was surprised once though, I needed a tile wheel for some quick cuts and grabbed one of their Performax branded discs and as I was installing it I noticed on the back (non printed side) was a large Bosch lable that had been “washed” off. It was 1/4 the price of the Bosch hanging next to it in store.
The body itself also has differences(not just cosmetic). For example the bulge where the screws that hold together the actual nailer screw into on the Milwaukee it seems to be more streamlined than on the Menards brand. Maybe I’m not seeing what you’re seeing but personally it looks about as similar to this as any nailer
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Are you referring to the roofer or the framer? The framers are different guns as I noted they take different nail types, Milwaukee uses 21 degree plastic bonded and the Masterforce is 30-34 paper tape, BUT they share the same head. Now the roofers are virtually the same, pick up 10 different roof nailers and you’ll see 10 different load and feed system designs, these are the SAME. Menards has no tool manufacturing of their own so naturally they have sourced to an OEM for their brand and I highly doubt its TTI which conversely suggests that TTI has outsourced the Milwaukee nailers as well. I’m definitely no expert in the semantics of tool sourcing, but I do get paid to frame and put roofing on houses and I generally only use my hammer to pry old nails out…
“but I do get paid to frame and put roofing on houses”. Can’t say the same about myself, I rarely use a framing nailer and probably never touched a coil nailer.
That said it’s possible both companies used the same design self feed mechanism, licensed from a third party. Beside the fact that you can use the same design but the quality (and qc) can be different ie. better materials etc. The reason I think the Milwaukee is better quality is simply that they have a five year warranty
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Another Menard’s brand roof nailer with the same feed system on sale for $70… Cost to manufacture be damned!
http://www.menards.com/main/tools-hardware/power-tools-accessories/air-compressors-pneumatic-tools-accessories/nailers-staplers/tool-shop-reg-1-3-4-coil-roofing-nailer/p-1444448125137.htm?utm_campaign=20A-2016&utm_content=Race-To-Savings&cm_mmc=flipp--flyer_mobile--20A-2016-_-Race-To-Savings&utm_source=flipp&utm_medium=flyer_mobile
I’m guessing cheaper materials used for the body to save cost but $200 less for essentially the same tool as the Milwaukee.
It was not getting my MBA that taught me the relationship between price and cost.
As a kid - I guess that I thought that an item’s price was set based on the cost to manufacture and then all the added costs (including sales tax and profit margins along the way). Simple right? The workers need to earn a living, the manufacturer has to pay for raw materials and his overheads, the raw material suppliers need to cover their costs, the shippers need to get paid, the warehousing adds its cost and so on. Then I heard about retailer mark-up and how that might be set to cover things like the costs of borrowed money to maintain inventory, costs of advertising and so on - all sounding reasonable - but how are all the costs spread over all merchandise sold? Do brick and mortar merchant’s sell some things at or even below cost - to get folks in the door and entice or bait and switch them to buy higher markup products ? I think that happens. What about the new online marketplace - do merchants sometimes have to unload excess inventory at lower price - rather than continue to pay carrying charges on warehousing items ? How are online prices set by merchants who have no real inventory - but cross-dock or drop ship from the manufacturer? The price versus cost “game” is no more evident than when buying a car - where no one believes the sticker price or MSRP ( perhaps with the exception of hot selling cars) - but what about the so called invoice or tissue price? The car sold at or near invoice price may be a good deal - but may not be as good a deal as touted if you knew the true dealer’s cost after carmaker incentives. The analogy in tool buying is that manufacturers may also offer retailers incentives to unload certain merchandise at attractive prices. Then there is currency exchange rates (e.g. Yuan to $) and potential governmental incentives (not that China would ever dump merchandise) - and add this all up ad you may get a bargain or not - depending on how you look at things.
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I live in the home town of Menards corporate and the general knowledge from former buyers is that Menards power tools look like the competitors and in most cases are made by the same manufactures as the others.
Menards in house brand is all about costing less than the competitors. Sometimes that means better buying deals but other times that means different internal components. It many cases they look exactly the same except for color and it’s impossible to tell the difference without tearing apart the products.
In other words if you are willing to buy a container load just about all of these manufactures will put your name on the tools.
On the positive side Menards has quietly added name brand tools that you knew and loved over the years but have disappeared from the big box store shelves. Yes, they still have their in-house cheap brands like Tool Shop but they have also have “old” name quality brands like C.M.T., Vermont American, and made in America tools that you can’t find anywhere else.
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Well I almost thought I wouldn’t see the day that the shinny new Milwaukee roof gun would show up on my jobsite… every hinge, spring, latch, point for point lined up exactly to my cheapo albeit nicer machining and the back end caps differed ( Milwaukee was angled and mine was not) they where the same… just a $200 difference. So this cheap gun has layed over 3000 sq so far and I’m not retiring it soon. I get about $90-130 a sq LABOR do the math!
No one gets $90 a sq to install shingles. You are crazy. I’ve been roofing sense 1993. I’ve used lots if nail guns. Bostitch is the best it’s less then 5 lbs. The Milwaukee is a good gun and not a knockoff or copy. It’s also light just over 5 lbs. The knockoff guns weigh 8 to 11 lbs. Due to the cheap materials used on the housing. No one can roof all day with a 10 lb. Gun. That’s just crazy. A magnesium housing is the only way to go. Putting on 3000 sq of shingles is just an easy week. That’s nothing. I have been using my Bostitch sense 2003 and I have put maybe a million squares on with it, only had to take it apart and clean it twice. If you want a good gun get a Bostitch, and get a Milwaukee as a backup. Both are great guns.
Your right, sometimes I make a lot more, You must know that insurance companies pay quite well, my next roof is 17sq with 2 layer tear off, total price is $5800, less aprox $2000 in materials/permit/dumpster leaves $3800, comes out to $223 and change per sq labor. Sure I’ll be paying a couple guys to help with tear off and clean up but as you can see I’ll be getting well north of $90 a sq.
Oh and yes I’ll be using my old cheep nailer. It’s still going strong, and I stand by the FACT that it and the Milwaukee are twins from birth.
I really can’t really weigh-in on this - since we only did small bits of roofing - leaving the big jobs to dedicated roofing subcontractors. Our typical in-house roofing job might be a small addition, garage/shed building, gazebo or bay window. We had one Hitachi and one Bostitch gun. I don’t recall complaints (or praise) about either - but they were used infrequently.
But we bought a Paslode Impulse roofing nailer. that got returned after the first use. We had high hopes for the Paslode.- We thought it might be good for the type of small jobs that we did. But the guys said it constantly jammed - and they had to come back in to get a compressor and one of the pneumatics.
who at TTI makes pneumatic tools - or thereabouts I would assume that’s the primary maker of this.
Otherwise I don’t see it being a competitor to the Hitachi at Lowes but rather the red competitor to the yellow at Home depot. There are other products even a ridgid I believe at home depot - which is another TTI company name. So is the Milwaukee not similar to the Ridgid product?
Since I don’t use pneumatic nailers much of the ones I do use and eventually bought I will say I’m a bostich fan so far.
The RIDGID brand name is licensed to Home Depot by Emerson Electric Company. Emerson owns the Ridge Tool Company - maker of the Ridgid brand plumbing tools.
TTI is the OEM for most (probably all) of the Ridgid brand power tools - and these tools will bear UPC codes with 051667 as the company prefix denoting TTI.
But the Ridgid brand pneumatic nailers appear to come from a different OEM - and bear UPC labels with 648846 as a company prefix - denoting Emerson’s Special Products Division.
Some Ridgid brand garden tools that I’ve seen at Home Depot are made by Ames (UPC prefix 049206)
Some Ridgid brand extension cords that I’ve seen at Home Depot are made by Cerro Wire (UPC prefix 048243)
Some Ridgid brand holesaws that I’ve seen at Home Depot are made by RAF Industries (UPC prefix 035781)