So what happened with Niche?

[James_Blond]

Their site doesn’t look active or have anything in stock. Anyone know if they are still producing slice kits for autocockerparts.com or is that just old stock that is being sold off? I did see a video from like a month ago about them selling a new aluminum fancier pump kit for a short run. Did they close down for some reason or was demand just not there? Their guns were way out of my price range but super cool looking.

I have their gen 1 86 slider with the updated parts and think its pretty nice, though I never shot any other high end sliders to compare it too. Other than needing some new grips for it since the stock ones are too flat and slick for me, I’m pretty happy with it.

[warbosschoppa]

I don't know but would love to see them come back with another body.

[Magageddon]

They had a less than stellar launch and burned some bridges within the industry from what I understand. When they announced the vector half block pump, I was sold, it was marketed as the budget T2 and for a price tag of 475 it seemed like a good deal. When they started getting into peoples hand, problems started to arise. My personal vector had a dent in the lower tube and was missing a pin for the back block/pump rod hold down point. A lot of people had gotten theirs to find out the max velocity was 250 and because of the valve chamber, couldn't be improved upon in its current state. The regulator was also a non standard asa threaded regulator, so you couldn't change it if you wanted to. Mine was one of the lucky few that chroned above 270, but a lot of people got burned. They did revamp the vector line and release updated versions, but I had lost trust with them.

You can go on the niche paintball owners and fan group on facebook to see a bunch of peoples thoughts on the vector and other niche products.

From my understanding they also stole/didn't deliver on certain agreed upon designs they used for making their custom bodies. Cougar20th could probably explain more on this.

[Chuck E Ducky]

They also decided to go with trash thanking there competition marketing. So when they under delivered and under performed people were ruthless about it.

They had some very cool designed products a lot of there issues were design complexity and assembly issues. They made some super cool designs but the test marker they sent to the east coast was far from issue free. At the same time taking crap about known proven quantity manufacturers. This rubbed me the wrong way and I decided not to buy one. When the vector came out and flopped it was basically the nail in the coffin.

They made some small runs of frames I’m not sure what their association is with Autococker parts is. But the pump kits ACP make / sell are nice. The early frames were very heavy however they made some cool slider frames and a few unique low production pieces. Not sure what became of them. Machinists are in high demand so I’m sure they just moved on from paintball products to more lucrative product manufacturing.

[fullofpaint]

I was so excited for their stuff, the prototype Element they loaned me was heavy AF but crazy smooth pump stroke. It also had issues though so I shoulda known from the start lol. The final product was less than impressive to put it nicely. I think my post about my issues is still one of the first things to come up when you google them. A lot of issues stemmed from being over designed and either poorly tested or poor QC.

They had reached out to me right before the MCB hack to ask about testing some upgraded parts and reviewing them, but for multiple reasons besides the issues I'd had with the gun I declined that offer.

[cougar20th]

Niche is still around. Still making parts. They recently released a aluminum skull pump that fits 3/8 shafts so it can be put on stuff like ccms etc. The shop is also doing machining other than paintball

[James_Blond]

Hopefully they keep the slice pump kits resupplied. I’ve been thinking about getting a platinum kit for my pre 99 cocker but really want a black kit with silver anno front and rear pump caps to match the black and silver I’ve got going on.