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WARRIORMIKE

Pro-Staff Everything
Oct 5, 2009
2,815
48
At the Jewel in San Diego
I don't own one but I've got to handle one and catch a few balls with a 12.75" black w/tan lace Justballgloves exclusive, very impressive glove! Definitely a notch above the Global Elite series but a notch below the Mizuno Pro series. Definitely on par with a HOH and a A2000.

Its an all leather glove vs the A200000000. So thats why we went with it.

Plus I'm kinda of irritated with Wilson right now too.
 
Oct 1, 2014
2,234
113
USA
Update - Vinci relaced the mid-fingers and the H-web on the Optimus. Looks like he chose a strong piece of leather for it (the best description of it I could get was 120lb test). Got my fingers crossed!
 
Nov 1, 2022
16
3
Just recently broke in two Optimus models, an 11.75" and her sister's 12.75" 1B mitt. Both were actually really easy to get usable very quickly. The Optimus leather is pretty soft but thicker than the Kip leather. The only steerhide Vinci I've ever owned/broke in is a JCV-22 catchers mitt, it will go down as one of the most ridiculously stubborn gloves I've ever worked with!! But I would imagine Vinci's steerhide fielders gloves would be something like this Optimus leather?

My experience with Vinci, the tan Kip is the hardest/firmest/tightest grained leather they offer, ESPECIALLY in a smaller sized glove, that's followed by their black Kip, which is no comparison in stiffness to the tan Kip! Then their Optimus leather which "I'm guessing" is probably pretty comparable to their steerhide, just thicker? As I said this is my experience with Vinci leather, never owned the Fortus or PC leather.

Tatonka, I will say, the glove you posted above just may be my favorite Vinci glove ever posted here, and there's 3 customs at my house! Very cool glove!
I read what you wrote about breaking in your Vinci..... It tried to defeat me, it tried really hard. However, three months later and a lot of use it has been throttled. We grabbed a 34" Fastpitch catchers mitt. We have the A2000, Rawling HoH, Mizuno Prime, Rawlings Liberty and a Nokona and the Vinci puts up the fasted pop time of any of these with the HoH being closest, and the Liberty and A2000 are distant finishers. Daughter is a college catcher and uses the Vinci exclusively now and says it is her best mitt by far, so yeah it was a bear to break in but worth it, and it is a tough mitt built for abuse and is holding up like a champ.
 
Dec 11, 2021
23
3
I read what you wrote about breaking in your Vinci..... It tried to defeat me, it tried really hard. However, three months later and a lot of use it has been throttled. We grabbed a 34" Fastpitch catchers mitt. We have the A2000, Rawling HoH, Mizuno Prime, Rawlings Liberty and a Nokona and the Vinci puts up the fasted pop time of any of these with the HoH being closest, and the Liberty and A2000 are distant finishers. Daughter is a college catcher and uses the Vinci exclusively now and says it is her best mitt by far, so yeah it was a bear to break in but worth it, and it is a tough mitt built for abuse and is holding up like a champ.
Please share some of your wisdom and persistence. We received DD's 34" Optimus mitt back in late January and I feel like we are only at the point where the ball doesn't pop out consistently. I was naively hopeful it would be if not game ready at least close to game ready by now. This thing is a beast.
 

LEsoftballdad

DFP Vendor
Jun 29, 2021
2,884
113
NY
Please share some of your wisdom and persistence. We received DD's 34" Optimus mitt back in late January and I feel like we are only at the point where the ball doesn't pop out consistently. I was naively hopeful it would be if not game ready at least close to game ready by now. This thing is a beast.
I don't have a Vinci, but I've been breaking in my daughter's custom HOH mitt, and my Jadier Molina baseball mitt.

You need to beat the snot out of it with a 5 LB dumbbell. Also, you need to form the pocket with something the size of a softball. I used a large drumstick drilled into an old ball and secured with Gorilla Glue.

I also used the Aso method from the Wilson site that involves hot water. If you have access to a pitching machine, use it to fire balls into the mitt repeatedly. I feed the balls with my right hand, and I catch with my left. I can do 100 balls in a few minutes. There's no replacement for using the mitt.

Both mitts took a week to be practice ready, but they took about a month to get game ready. My HOH was a little quicker than my daughter's, but that is because she got injured and missed some time.
 
Nov 1, 2022
16
3
Please share some of your wisdom and persistence. We received DD's 34" Optimus mitt back in late January and I feel like we are only at the point where the ball doesn't pop out consistently. I was naively hopeful it would be if not game ready at least close to game ready by now. This thing is a beast.
I don't have any magic to share. It was work, a lot of work like no other glove I have tried to conquer. I bent it, stretched it by hand, crumpled it, threw it on the ground like a slam ball, more out of frustration than a process, hit it with a baseball bat on the grass until I got tired. I put some gloveolium on it, and really hit the laces around the pocket and hit that with a mallet. Many hours of just bending it by hand back n forth, After a month she could catch balls with it although it was still out of the box new feeling if you were to buy a different brand. She has about 50 games on it now and somewhere around the 30 game mark it came to life. I would buy another one in the future knowing what a tough job it is going to be to break it in. This glove is going to last three years of intense play, and perhaps longer. I have no regrets with my purchase, and my daughter (who thinks she broke it in herself) feels the same.

Someone told me to get it wet and it would have broken in much sooner. I never tried that. I thought getting it wet was bad for the leather. However, after seeing my daughters gloves still in action after getting caught in numerous downpours I kinda wonder how bad water is for the glove, and wetting it once and then oiling it liberally after it dried might be reasonable?
 

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