This morning we did some research looking for a nailing gun which will allow us to nail metal plates onto timber as well as the usual wood joining plus the ability to take different sizes of nails. There is one particular model that seems to fit the bill so after reading various reviews on it we ordered it along with boxes of nails including hardened nails for firing into metal plates! Another advantage of this nailing gun is that these nails all have full sized heads on them which offers better fixing properties when nailing panels! It is nice to see that the price of the nails are very similar in bulk!
It is good to have a second major nailing gun on hand, just in case our older (coming up to 8 years now) big gun stops working again!