I own a Ridgid full size palm nailer and bought the Grip-Rite Mini nailer because I had to work in some spaces where the full size nailer wouldn't fit. My Ridgid drives all kind of nails, big or small, quickly and surely, but the Ridgid's size is a limitation just like a regular hammer. So, enter the Grip-Rite Mini. It does work, fairly well, on big nails and gets into places the big nailer will not.
My Grip-Rite leaked air, right out of the box, requiring tightening of 3 of the 4 cap screws to get it to stop. After fixing that, it worked fine, within its limitations. Contrary to what the company material says, the Grip-Rite Mini won't drive 16d nails well, if at all. The heads on 16d bright common nails are too large to go into the nose piece (impact socket). The opening in the nose piece is just slightly smaller than the average diameter of those nail heads found in a box of Grip-Rite 16d 3 1/2" bright common nails. Since the Mini wouldn't accept and drive their own common nails, I switched to 16d 3 1/2" finish nails for the spots I needed to use the Mini nailer. The shanks are smaller on the finish nails than on the common nails and still, the Mini nailer had difficulty driving them fully.
As a side note, I also own the Senco PC1195 Mini Palm Nailer which won't accept the big nail heads on the 16d common nails either, which was why I bought the Grip Rite Mini. Senco's manual tells you that their mini nailer has a head limitation and won't accept anything larger than .339" and the Grip Rite Mini manual states a head limitation size of 5/16 or .311". (The moral to that story is that I should have gone to Grip-Rite's site and downloaded the manual, instead of only reading the sales hype before buying the nailer.)
Measuring several 16d bright common heads revealed an average head size of well over .350". Measuring the heads on a dozen 12d 3 1/8" coated sinkers gave an average of over .330", but all of them easily fit into the opening of the Grip Rite Mini nose piece, which actually measured .350" on my unit.
In short, either Mini nailer is nice to have around, to complement a full size palm nailer. If you're wanting a palm nailer that simply works well on anything you want to throw at it, my advice would be to buy a full size nailer, like the DEWALT D51180 Heavy-Duty Palm Nailer or the Bostitch PN100K Impact Nailer Kit, instead of the Mini. The difference in power and ease of use is well worth the extra money for a full sized palm nailer, in my opinion.
Get more detail about Grip-Rite GRTMP16 16d Mini Air Nailer.
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