Rant: Minis are trash

[BlastBase]

God I hate Minis more than anything. They shoot nice enough when they work, and most advanced players don't have any problems with them; but, they are an absolute PAIN IN MY ASS.

Two kids bought brand new guns this week. The CZR paired with a gravity fed worked perfectly all day because it's not a terrible piece of shit. The Mini was brought to me literally every single game.

Game 1: Chopped ball. Okay, no worries, I see you don't have a squeegee so borrow mine.
Game 2: Chopped ball. Umm, well I guess your eyes are dirty from before. Maybe your paint is bad, I see you're using Walmart paint so maybe it's just a bad batch.
Game 3: Gun won't cycle with good paint. Bolt is stuck forward because it pinched paint into the breech. Let's hammer it out with my squeegee. Sounds like it's cycling good now.
Game 4: It's not actually cycling. Hammering out the bolt tip stretched the rubber face and now it's not fully resetting.
Game 5: Oh what do you know, that shitty dump chamber/AT pipe thingy's seal that's a proprietary size started leaking like every other Mini ever. We didn't even take the grip or frame apart yet. Sorry kid I got shit to do. Borrow a working EMEK that hasn't been lubed in 2 years if you want.

It's a different Mini with different (but the same) problems every single week. I'd understand if these were 10 year old guns (respect to the resilience of that god awful reg that's a PITA to service) but these guns suck balls out of the box. Please stop recommending them to beginners.

/End rant

[Ecapnation]

Interesting way to introduce yourself on mcb. Sounds mostly like user error.

[capitalpaintball]

The Mini is by far one my favorite electro markers out there. so i guess its all about opinion.

[Ego10Baller]

[NONOBLITUS]

Zero issues when my son shoots his.

[BlastBase]

Don't get me wrong, they do have some great things about them. I'm confident if you gave somebody one in a blind test and told them it was the new CS4 they would be raving about how much Eclipse improved the shot quality. The Empire triggers are good although not as great as Inverts'.

The platform needs an overhaul for 2026 though. The eyes are like 5 miles away from the breech and collect everything. Worn bolt tips shouldn't prevent a gun from functioning. Just use a damn 010 oring for the internal AT pipe. The poppet constantly leaks upon airing up the gun.

I understand every gun can shoot without pulling the trigger, but it shouldn't be such a prevalent problem when engaging the ASA. Find some way to lock the reg cap/adjustment so beginners don't screw it up.

If Empire fixed all those problems, they would have an incredibly solid gun. There isn't much else that goes wrong on these.

[Rainmaker]

Welcome BlastBase!
Geeze guys, cut him some slack. Sounds like he had a rough day.

[Carp]

God [snip]....[/snip]... Please stop recommending them to beginners.

/End rant

Try to read the "rules" of the forum. Sounds like another angry Reddit and/or discord sent account....Thanks!

[RAZRBAKK]

I had the same thought but haven't been able to find a duplicate of the rant anywhere.

[Painthappy]

I honestly didn't know minis were still a thing and being sold. **** The more you learn

[autococker04]

I’ve had the opposite experience. Timmy’s and Minis are the only electros that I’ve bought in “worked last time I used it in 2015” and had them air up and shoot without issue.

[Jsc5150]

Tbh the mini drive system probably only second to the Gamma core in terms of performance/cost ratio.

The only part I find badly designed is the eye access, and that can be mitigated by heat shrink on the eye wires and a can of keyboard cleaner to clear out the eyes after a break (do the same for markers with eye covers, its faster and doesn’t risk losing a detent/spring).

The magnet trigger activation can do some hilarious bouncing, but nobody really plays uncapped semi tourneys anymore.

They do need some better loctiting at the factory, I used to apply blue loctite to the set screws on new minis we sold at Velocity bc we guaranteed lifetime labor

The regs are a pain to service but rarely need it, and during the mini’s lifetime many people just upgraded to the axe reg.

The ASAs are usually drilled with a hillbillys crooked teeth, but using a steel bonnet will usually forcibly fix them over time

The v3 and newer minis are great for the price, and the v2 and below can be updated.

The Dye Rize/Rail/Reflex Rail/PMR platform is also a great, mature design, basically a dye version of the SP ion drive system.

They are gentle on paint, pretty quiet, and share the ergos and reg of the higher end Dye guns.

I remember shooting a DM10/11, an NT, and a Reflex Rail when they came out, and the Reflex was my favorite. Lo and behold a decade later I’m disassembling a DAM and after ten minutes looking for the LPR I realize it’s just a hoseless reflex rail is a magfed shell.

Sound like a bad day with the mini, it happens. I will point out that I personally am much worse at diagnosing and fixing issues while at the field and rushing to finish before the next game starts. But it sounds like that gun needs a serious once over.

Have you ever tried a low pressure tune on a mini? It makes them much more gentle on paint at the cost of a little efficiency, and being forgiving on paint alleviates the bad eye access issues.

[Drcemento]

it's a legit rant. i don't think its all great a beginners gun, esp. when put toe to toe with eclipse. I've bought, rebuilt and sold a few minis to my kids friends now and I have definitely spent some time fixing them between games. most issues revolve around broken paint, which ends up getting down into the eye cavities and has to be cleaned by tearing it down, which is not easy. I'm not sure how it happens but in the hands of a 15 year old, it does, particularly with the mini's. I was the kind of kid that would have done a deep dive into pulling that thing apart and learning everything about it, especially if was having issues. I have met few kids these days ( mine included) that share my love of cleaning and tuning paintball gear after a day of play and in between days on the field. as a result I am not a fan of the Mini for the newbs!

[William the Third]

The biggest problem I've seen with the Mini is users who are like "it's not shooting fast enough (BPS)". They then turn off the eyes, and are like "hurp durp it 'shoots' faster now!". Then they proceed to chopping the shit out of balls.