Parts of a Nail Gun – Outside and Cut Open, Labeled

All 15 parts on the diagram

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On the outside 11

Trigger The lever pulled with a finger to drive a nail.
Magazine The long rail that holds the nails. It feeds them to the nose.
Nose The front end of the tool. The nail leaves through it.
Handle The grip the tool is held by. The air fitting is on its end.
Nail strip A row of nails joined side by side, loaded into the magazine.
Pusher Slides along the magazine and presses the nails toward the nose.
Contact arm The arm pressed against the wood. Makers also call it the contact trip.
Depth adjustment Sets how deep the nail is driven into the wood.
Air fitting The plug the air hose snaps onto.
Exhaust deflector Used air leaves the tool here. It turns to aim the air away.
Cap The lid on top of the body, over the cylinder.

Inside the body 4

Cylinder The tube inside the body that the piston slides in.
Piston Air pushes it down the cylinder, and it drives the nail.
Driver blade The thin bar under the piston that strikes the nail.
Bumper A ring at the bottom of the cylinder, under the piston.

How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-10-01 and kept only where two sources use it. The manuals of five makers' air-powered framing nailers, read as page text: https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-642583 (trigger, magazine, pusher, nose, nail stick, depth adjustment, air fitting, exhaust port, piston, cylinder, top cap, driver), https://archive.org/details/manuallib-id-2608344 (trigger, magazine, pusher, contact arm, adjuster, air fitting, driver), https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-635170 (trigger, magazine, pusher, nose, contact arm, depth control adjustment, air fitting, exhaust deflector, driver, bumper, cylinder cap), https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-665902 (trigger, magazine, pusher, nose, exhaust deflector, head cap, cylinder, piston, driver blade, lower bumper) and https://archive.org/details/manualsbase-id-657505 (trigger, magazine, handle, exhaust, depth-of-drive). Wikipedia, Nail gun (the piston that drives the nail, the nose contact element, depth adjustment, nails collated in strips). Licence: own work

The drawing: Own drawing from plain geometry; nothing traced. Licence: own work

How it works

A nail gun, or nailer, drives nails with a burst of air. The drawing shows an air-powered framing nailer from the side with its body cut open, and fifteen parts to name.

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On the outside

The handle runs out from the body, with the trigger under it and the air fitting on its end. The magazine slants up from the nose to the handle and holds a strip of nails, with a pusher behind the strip. Beside the nose is the contact arm, with the depth adjustment on it. The cap and the exhaust deflector sit on top.

Inside the body

The body holds a cylinder with a piston in it. A thin driver blade hangs from the piston and runs down through the nose. Air pushes the piston down, the blade strikes the first nail in the strip, and a bumper sits at the bottom of the cylinder under the piston.

Other names: contact trip for the contact arm, nail stick for the nail strip, driver for the driver blade. The quiz accepts each.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a nail gun called?

On the outside: the handle, trigger, magazine, pusher, nose, contact arm, depth adjustment, air fitting, cap and exhaust deflector. Inside the body: the cylinder, the piston, the driver blade and the bumper.

What is the tip of a nail gun called?

The nose. The nail leaves through it. The bar beside it that touches the wood first is the contact arm, which some makers call the contact trip, the contact element or the safety yoke.

What is the part that holds the nails called?

The magazine. On a framing nailer it is a long slanted rail. A strip of nails slides into it, and a pusher behind the strip presses the nails toward the nose.

What pushes the nail out of a nail gun?

The driver blade, a thin bar fixed under the piston. In an air-powered nailer, air pushes the piston down the cylinder and the blade strikes the nail.