Abstract: Improvements in a fastener-feeding mechanism for a pneumatically powered, combustion-powered, or other rapidly acting, fastener-driving tool comprising a housing structure, a driver, and a magazine, as well as such a mechanism. The housing structure includes a nosepiece defining a drive track. The drive is mounted for repeatable movement along the drive track. The magazine is adapted to store a strip of collated fasteners, e.g., collated nails, such that a leading portion of the strip extends from the magazine. As a component for feeding fasteners individually and sequentially into the drive track from the leading portion of the strip, a pawl has a groove or grooves adapted to receive one such fastener. A fixed structure confines one of two sides of the leading portion of the strip so as to guide such portion. When in an operative position, a hinged structure confines the other side of such portion so as to guide such portion.

Abstract: A driving tool comprising a cylinder, a piston movable axially within the cylinder, a driving element movable conjointly with the piston so as to move through a central aperture of an end wall of the cylinder in a driving stroke and in a return stroke, and a bumper, which arrests movement of the piston toward the end wall of the cylinder in a driving stroke. The bumper is made of resilient material, such as cast polyurethane, in an annular shape. The bumper has a plurality of slots extending radially from each of its inner and outer peripheral surfaces and extending axially between its opposite ends. Each of a plurality of ports in a wall of the cylinder, either the end wall or a cylindrical wall, communicates with a space between the piston and the end wall and with one of the slots to cause air to pass through the communicating slots before being exhausted through the ports in a driving stroke and after being admitted through the ports in a return stroke.