The accuracy of this review is disputed. Please see discussion below.
Period of Product Use:
Less than a month
41 of 49 people found this review helpful.
Paintball Experience:
More than 5 years
Similar Products Used:
Dm6-far less kick, quieter, and smoother shooting
Ego-less kick, much easier maintainance
Angel-G7 easier maintainance
Shocker-less kick, quieter
Marker Setup:
2006 Dark Ego, Angel G7, Dm6, Dynasty Shocker, Invert mini w/rf chip
Recommended Upgrades:
-Barrel kit or Stiffi
-RF chip if you've got a pulse
Strengths:
-Very light
-Very cheap
Weaknesses:
-Prone to technical difficulties
-Lots of kick
Review:
I recently purchased an Invert Mini and have been holding off on writing a review on it. Now that I have taken it out for four days of play, though, I feel that I have a good enough handle on the marker to review it.
I'll start with the obvious. This marker is very light. It weighs 1.9lbs out of the box. If you throw a decent 45/4500 tank on it, a pulse, and a stiffi barrel, you have pretty much the lightest tourney marker there is. That doesn't mean that you will not feel it, but it is certainly better then lugging around a G7 all day. What I've noticed more, though, is how small the marker is. I am able to play tighter to my bunkers then I have been able to with any of my other markers. It actually is small enough that it takes a bit to get used to. It's very strange at first to figure out how to hold.
Invert certainly did a nice job with the packaging as well. Enough so, in fact, that I wonder what percentage of the cost goes into the packaging. The case is very high quality with the exception of the handle (cheap plastic) and even locks. It comes with a decent manual, nothing great but it functions. It also includes a tool kit, which yet again, isn't awesome, but does the job. I would recommend getting better lube, though. As for the barrel, I really don't know as I haven't even taken it out of the plastic. I threw my freak on it originally, and have just switched over to my stiffi.
The marker also shoots well. I would compare it to a very kick-heavy Ego, and thus a lot of compensation is necessary. This is due mostly to the dwell being so high on Minis (stock is 28 and a lot of people end up setting their dwell up as far as 38). It definitely rips, though. I was outshooting my stock Halo and having problems snap-shooting with a pulse until I got the rf chip in there.
the biggest problem with the Mini, though, and the main reason for my waiting to write a review, is the temperamentallness of the marker. When I purchased the marker, it was not usable. I could not shoot a ball without it chopping. I spent an entire day cleaning it, messing with the settings, shooting it, and repeating. Needless-to-say, I was fairly frustrated. After taking it home and really looking at it, though, I realized what the problem was.
If your Mini DOES NOT WORK, here's most likely why: Due to the Mini's design, it requires an extensive break-in period. The spring which returns the bolt to its original position is very stiff when new and must be softened. To do this, simply turn the chrono up as high as possible, and shoot about three tanks of air through it (dry-firing works fine). When done, open it up, lube it liberally, and put it back together. Then, turn your dwell up from stock to around 36. As you play with it more and more, you can turn the dwell down. This worked for me, at least, and seems to be working for others as well. This has the added benifet of breaking the reg which when first tried, chronoed at +/-45 and is now +/-3.
If this was the only thing that went wrong with the Mini, I would have been more then happy with the marker, but even now, it randomly decides to leak out the barrel. This seems to happen whenever the internals get even the slightest bit dirty and requires an extensive cleaning and re-lubing of the bolt.
Conclusion:
I really do like this marker. It is a perfectly acceptable tournament marker. It is very fast, and ridiculously small and light. I really like the marker and plan to keep it as a back-up. I really am concerned with the fragility of the marker, though. this would not be such a big problem except right now there are very few techs capable of dealing with minis (there haven't been a lot of classes yet). Due to this, I would recommend that people who have little experience teching markers avoid this guy for the time being. If you are confident in your repair abilities, though, or have a Mini techy on hand, this is definitely a good marker to consider. When this marker works, it works really well; easily keeping up with Egos, G7s, and Dms. For the price, you really can't expect much more, it's just too bad that all the money that went into the packaging wasn't put into making the marker a little more resilient instead.
wouldn't it possibly damage the gun's internals or atleast the ball detens if you dry fire it that many times on the highest possible chrono? doesn't sound like something you should do
it softens the spring so the gun is easier on paint. It doesn't damage anything (remember that you can't actually get a high enough chrono on almost any markers to damage them). It's also what the Invert tech I spoke to told me to do
Dispute: the gun has almost no kick i've shot them plenty of times and u can barely feel the kick and if u were shooting a tippmann before it u couldnt tell the difference
hate to tell you but I wasn't shooting a tippmann before it. If you actually read the marker setup part of the post you'd see that I was shooting a dark ego and G7 before it. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that I had a tippmann.
