Comparison Guide

Cartridge Or Sausage Which Sealant Gun To Stock

Sausage packs cut cost per litre and packaging waste; cartridges are simpler and universally stocked. The right answer depends on who your customer is.

Both formats do the same job and neither is going away. The question for a distributor is which one your customer base actually buys, because the two ranges are built differently and priced differently.

What Each Format Is

A cartridge is the rigid 300 ml tube everyone recognises, dispensed from a skeleton or frame gun. A sausage is a collapsible foil pack, usually 400 ml or 600 ml, dispensed from a barrel gun with a screw-on nose cone. The gun bodies are not interchangeable.

The practical differences
	Cartridge gun	Sausage gun
Typical pack	300 ml rigid tube	400 ml or 600 ml foil pack
Waste after use	The whole rigid tube	A collapsed foil remnant
Cost per litre of sealant	Higher	Lower
Gun weight in our range	175 g to 750 g	440 g to 880 g
Push force in our range	50 KG to 270 KG	90 KG to 270 KG
Setup time per pack	Drop in and go	Load pack, fit nose cone
Best suited to	Occasional and trade use	Continuous professional use

Why Professional Crews Move To Sausage

Two reasons, and cost per litre is only the first. The second is disposal: a facade crew running twenty packs a day generates twenty rigid tubes in cartridge format and a handful of collapsed foil remnants in sausage format. On sites with waste segregation rules, that is a real operational difference.

The trade-off is setup. A sausage pack has to be loaded into the barrel and a nose cone fitted, which takes longer than dropping in a cartridge. For a crew doing one joint that matters; for a crew doing a hundred it disappears.

Why Retail Stays On Cartridge

Cartridges are stocked everywhere, need no loading skill, and the guns start cheap. Our JS-8601 is 175 g of reinforced PP at 50 KG push force, packed 50 per carton, which is the format a hardware shelf wants. There is no sausage gun at that price point and there is no need for one.

Where The Ranges Differ Mechanically

Because sausage guns are aimed at continuous use, the engineering effort has gone into reducing pull weight. That is what the bearing count is about: three bearings on JS8622-B for 180 KG, seven on JS8626 for 200 KG, nine on JS8634 for 250 KG. Cartridge guns in the same range mostly rely on welded frame strength and a hard alloy dispensing plate instead.

Barrel material is the other difference. Sausage barrels are thickened anodised aluminium on the professional models, or integrated injection-moulded PP on JS8623-A and JS8623-B for buyers who want a barrel that survives a fall from scaffolding.

A Reasonable Range For A Distributor

One economy cartridge gun for the retail shelf, around the JS-8601 or JS-8602 level
One mid cartridge gun for trade, around JS-8604 at 120 KG or JS-8606 at 160 KG
One professional cartridge gun with adjustable ratio, JS8611 at 18:1 to 28:1
One mid sausage gun, JS-8607 at 90 KG or JS8622-B at 180 KG
One professional sausage gun, JS8626 at 200 KG or JS8634 at 250 KG

Five models cover almost every enquiry, share a single carton and colour specification, and give your customer a visible reason to trade up.

If you are entering a market rather than replacing a range, ask your two largest customers what pack format their sealant supplier sells. The gun follows the sealant, not the other way round.

FAQ

Questions On This Guide

Can one gun take both cartridges and sausages?

Among our manual guns, no. The JS862X battery guns are the exception and are documented as taking both cartridges and sausages.

Which format has the lower total cost?

Sausage, on cost per litre of sealant and on waste disposal, once volume is high enough to absorb the higher gun cost. For low volume the cartridge gun's lower price dominates.

Do you stock both formats in the same colours?

Yes. Anodising and paint colours are applied across both ranges, so an own-brand range can look consistent whichever format the customer buys.