I do most of my own household work except electrical, a mistake with electricity is not like a mistake with hammer and nail.

I have an electric brad gun which works fine out in my home in the boondocks. I recently took it to a different boondock and rather than a bang and nicely set nail I got an anemic fart and a nail halfway out of the chute. All other power tools work fine there.

Anyone know why that would happen? I assumed that power at the meter would be the same everywhere.

If you're in the loonies like me the power fluctuates all of the time. I have a meter on my desk and have often seen it go below 150vac, brownout. You might have just tried it at the wrong time. Do you have a meter so that you can measure the incoming power? I assune that you have tried the nail gun elsewhere after your incident and it works fine.

The only logical explanation is low voltage - which could mean a poor mains supply, or a power circuit with inadequate sized wiring for the load, or just bad wiring. Probably a combination of all.

Yup to the above.

Nail guns take a large power surge when you pull the trigger, do the lights flicker when you try the beast?

Thanks for the replies gentlemen.

May have been momentary fluctuations, I haven't tried at that location again. It worked fine back at home.

Poor wiring is an understatement, it's the rule rather than the exception in that area.

There were no lights on at that moment, so no flickering.

I'll just forget about using the nail gun out there.

Thanks again.