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Check that you don’t have your rivet gun turned up too high!
This can result in big dents in the skin from too much power and from the inability to control the gun.
How do you know
what’s too high?
Use a simple click type regulator at the gun (you can see it below my pinky in the last picture) and turn it
clockwise until the gun barely works. Then back it off two or three clicks at a time
until your practice rivets are forming nice shop heads with a single burst,
just shy of a full second. If it takes longer, then you are work hardening the
rivet. Shorter and you may lose control of the gun and end up with a
smiley or two. With the AN426AD3 rivets that are 3 or 3.5 in length,
you should not have to have much force at all.
The other trick is to use a mushroom set with the rubber ring around it. I used a plain mushroom set which tended to wander. Not skilled enough yet or it simply wandered because the gun was jumping all over the place due to the high pressure setting.
In the pictures you see the very first rivet was okay, in the far left picture. But notice the very large dent in the rivet just above it. Not good. On the other side there was an equally bad dent towards the leading edge. Ugh.
I might actually rebuild the VS because of this. Just admit it was my practice piece. | 
