Bostitch Pneumatic Stapler BTFP71875
Bostitch BTFP71875 – Heavy Duty 3/8″ Crown Pneumatic Stapler
I got tired of hand cramping after using a regular hand actuated stapler, and hammer tackers have an unfortunate tendency to chew up your work-piece and put tears in things that shouldn’t have tears in them, like house wrap and asphalt felt paper. So when Bostitch came out with the Bostitch Pneumatic Stapler BTFP71875 that shoots ⅜” crown staples I was psyched to see if it were job-site worthy.
First Impression
This is a pneumatic powered version of a light gauge flat wire stapler. It’s got some decent weight to it and feels like a durable tool without being too heavy.
Unlike most manual staplers of this type it has a bottom load magazine -like an 18g pneumatic stapler- which is much easier to use than rear feed. The stapler includes the stapler and a ¼” industrial air hose fitting and a manual.
Features
- Dual safety trigger
- Shoots T50 Staples and 18g brads
- 100 psi max
- Oil Free
Dual Trigger:
The dual safety trigger is like that of a 23 gauge pinner. There’s a longer safety trigger behind the trigger that actually fires the staples. You have to depress and hold this trigger with your middle finger and then you can use the front trigger to fire staples. This allows a safety mechanism without having to put a safety on the nose of the gun this helps keep depth of drive consistent.
Bostitch BTFP71875 In Use
I used The Bostitch BTFP71875 to staple 30lb felt paper to PT deck framing to prolong the life of the deck I’m building.
It set staples consistently but did misfire a few times during the course of stapling down the felt. But I found that just firing another time or two would get a staple out and
operation would continue as normal. To be honest I’ve never used a ⅜” stapler that didn’t have some kind of misfire problem.
So this is really no better or worse than any other stapler I’ve used. The profile of this tool is similar to that of your basic hand actuated stapler so it handles similarly. However the hose sticking out of the back of the tool is going to make it a little more cumbersome. I may swap out the stock ¼” industrial air fitting for a swivel fitting to make it a little easier to get the stapler into smaller spaces. I’d also recommend using it with a polyethylene or other lightweight hose.
Overall Impression
If you have compressors setup on a regular basis this is a great tool to have in your arsenal. It’s significantly less tiring to use than a hammer tacker or a traditional manual stapler and once you get used to using the tool (which takes almost no time) it’s faster to use than either of the other options. The only downside is the hose but this is the trade off for faster easier stapling.
