Don’t Buy the Dewalt P1000 Powder Actuated Hammer!
The Dewalt P1000 powder actuated hammer is a perfect example of just how important it is to read reviews before making a purchase. I picked up the tool to build a raised floor on a concrete slab in my mud room. I grabbed it because it was the most affordable solution in the store, and because it was a Dewalt product I assumed it would be built to high standards.
Sadly that’s not always the case as this tool has proven to me. It has a one star review on Lowes.com with most of the customers complaining about an experience similar to my own.
Why It’s Junk
I don’t know how the tool was built, but it wasn’t designed to last. After reading through the manual to make sure I was using the tool right, I loaded up a yellow charge, a shell with enough power for a concrete slab, and proceeded to bash the living heck out of the top of it until it finally fired about six strikes later. I did this another seven times down one of the 2×4’s on the slab and it never fired again.
At first I thought it was because of faulty charges in the box, but after going through about 10 charges I decided it had to be the tool itself and after reading through all the reviews for it on the site I’m almost certain.
I wouldn’t recommend the tool to anyone. It’s just a poorly built product that seems almost designed to fail. If you do need a powder actuated tool to handle work on concrete and masonry in general, I urge you to take a look at the reviews before making a purchase. Even a quality brand name doesn’t mean the product is going to work well.
*Update – Though I haven’t used the tool personally, the Ramset Mastershot has really good reviews and looks to be a much better tool than the product created by Dewalt. It’s quite a bit more spendy compared to the $25 that I dropped on the first tool though. This ITW single shot tool is another option worth considering, and it’s pretty affordable with good reviews as well. I finished my project using a sledge hammer and the concrete nails that I bought with my Dewalt tool so I haven’t had a chance to test another tool out yet. I’ll post another update when the opportunity arises to give the tool a shot.
About The Author
Ben
Benjamin is a writer of more than a decade, a DIY handyman and a tinkerer of all things technological and electronic.
I too had a disappointing experience with this tool. In my crawlspace bashing away with a hammer, trying to get the thing to fire. What a disappointment! I will be looking for a quality tool from Ramset, Simpson, anything but Dewalt.
Yeah it’s frustrating when brands like Dewalt known for releasing quality products come out with something so shoddy. From reading around I think it’s an issue with the firing pin. Sure I only paid a bit over $20 for the tool, but I still expect it to work for more than a few nails. Let me know if you come across a tool that gives you better results Bill, I’d love to let my readers know about a an actual quality product to fill the role. I’ve heard good things about Ramset Powershot, but it’s pretty spendy in comparison.
Exact same experience. Fired once after multiple strikes. Never fired again. Returned it.
Same problem with the T1000, which is a similar tool from Dewalt but is trigger actuated rather than by hammer blow (and costs about twice as much). I bought one from my local Lowes, took it home and loaded it up. Pulled the trigger and ***click*** no pop. The firing pin had a gone off but just left a dent in the .22 load rather than firing it. Went through another 5 or 10 cartridges of various types with similar results and finally determined I had a defective tool. Returned it to Lowes and got a replacement and a fresh box of cartridges and — you guessed it — got the same result. I called Dewalt and got tech service from an engineer who specializes in these powder actuated tools, and he told me I’m doing everything right but normally these tools are very reliable (but he admitted they have had problems with the hammer-triggered version, which he attributed to people not hitting them squarely). Finally returned the tool and got a Ramset equivalent from Home Depot. It works flawlessly.
Save your time and money on this piece of junk. Shame on you, Dewalt.
POS!!! The one I just got to do a small job, doesn’t have a firing pin
at all… Where there should be some type of pin is just a black
flat cylinder.. Smack the heck out of it with a 3lb sledge and it will
leave a small witness mark on the shell, and that’s it, won’t fire.
Update.. How to get around the NO FIRING PIN problem..
A tiny little dab of grease on the back of the shell, and a tiny
little pebble, about 1/16th of an inch on the grease.. The
grease is to hold the pebble in place. Instant Hill Billy
backwoods firing pin..
Worked a treat, a little slow since you have to reapply the grease
each time, and get a new pebble, but it got me through what I
needed to get done right now.
Hi Bob, it sucks that you got stock with a defective tool as well. It’s crazy how many of the Dewalt powder actuated tools just aren’t functioning properly. It’s awesome that you found a workaround for it though, I picked up a more reliable tool since, but I have the old one lying around and I might have to try the grease and pebble trick, or try to retrofit in some other sort of firing pin just for experimentation.
Thanks for giving my readers some more ideas though, maybe some of them will be able to use the idea to finish their projects.
Truth! Bought one went to secure wall to concrete slab and 1st one went in on 1st try. Woo hoo nice tool, lets do that again….nothing, bad charge? New one in..nothing….after 7 or 8 tries return to Lowes for a new one thinking I just got a rare lemon. 2nd one was crap too.
3 shots, 22 swings of the hammer. Unusable after that.
Best paper weight I ever bought.
The problem for me, I thought were the loads. With better loads, I got better responses. It’s a rim-fire not a pin-fire mechanism. However, most rim-fires have a pin but it strikes the rim. This tool just strikes the entire cartridge making a .22 cal size impression which makes it a POS. The tension you have to have on it for it to fire, is too great. Which, means, if you are working on the floor you’ll get mixed results due to the rim-fire, impression and the bullshit pressure you need to actuate. But, God forbid you’re working in a crawl space on a wall. Because, that when it gets really dicey. With told like this, the more simple, the better. They’re trying to sell another model.
Plunger broke within 25 nails on 2 consecutive guns. Frustrating but thankful Lowes allowed me to return both of them
What junk. Mine never fired once. I own several Dewalt tools which work flawlessly but this needs to be taken off the market.
Just finding this review as I’m struggling to get my P1000 to fire. Bad enough, I have a little anxiety firing the tool because of potential ballistics. It’s compounding anxiety when you feel like you can’t figure out how to operate.
Taking back to Lowes.
Sorry that you had a bad experience with the tool Tony. I also thought I might be doing something wrong when fighting to get the tool to work. With so many negative reviews it has to be poor design though. I can’t believe Dewalt is still selling the junk.
I wish I had had as much success as the previous reviewers had. I couldn’t get mine to fire at all! I’m a Regional Sales Manager for a low voltage landscape lighting manufacturer. I spend the majority of my time out in the field as I’m very hands on. I spend a lot of time educating contractors, solving problems, and often assist on more difficult or new applications, and to educate the less experienced. I purchased this tool to install some of our fixtures designed to be installed in or on masonry, IE, step lights. I thought it might save some time, compared to drilling and using anchors. Wrong! I’m now taking the test, to obtain my certification, (hopefully, for use, in the future, with someone else’s tool), and for the purpose of validating the warranty.