Growth Potential in a Mini-14?

i'll raise my hand & join the mini lovers club.
i have two..a 182 & 582 series.
unbelievably reliable, rugged & handy.
both have accu struts , hogue stocks & muzzle brakes, can easily stay inside 3" @100yd with good ammo.
582 series is more accurate.
non restricted is the icing on the cake.
 
Had one for a day. Returned it. Ruger QC is legendarily... bad sometimes.

Really wanted to like the platform. Just couldn't.

I know some people have had good luck with theirs. But i found the manual of arms... annoying. But you can put a scope on it easily enough, so that's a plus.

If you can find a reliable one, i'd go with a 5.56 Vz58 for a fun gun you can tweak and play with endlessly. Better yet, an x39 gun.

Cheap, plentiful mags, cheap plentiful ammo.
 
ChefBoyOhBoy said:
I actually really like.mine, it's not a tacjdriver by any means, nuts it's fun range gun nonetheless. I still have an accu-strut that I haven't installed yet, but hopefully it will tighten up a bit.

Here's mine (yes the scope is ridiculous, it came with the gun, yes the rail is ridiculous, it also came with the gun)
J98YjO6_d.jpg
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That's the kind of stock I want! Do they still sell those?

Still want to know about bayonets though.

Also; the M14 has a charger loading slot, does the Mini have something similar for 5.56 stripper clips?
 
I had one of those back in the 80s and no Ruger no longer makes them.
They are worth big money these days if you could ever find one used.
 
I've owned quite a few now. The target models seem to all be capable shooters. Without much screwing around I found that mine can do 1.5", give or take, at 100 yards with PMC ammo. Under the same conditions using Federal American Eagle it spreads to 3"+.

I've had some older models that literally couldn't do better than 12" at 75 yards. Granted, I didn't install an accustrut on any of those but there's no way it would improve enough to be acceptable. I owned a newer blued ranch model that was an excellent shooter with no modifications and an older model that had an accustrut that could do better than 2". They are picky to say the least but you can make some into very nice 223 semis.
 
I have to admit the ones converted to look like an AC-556 are pretty ###y. The folding stock looks well suited to the Mini-14 platform.
Having said that, the A-Team used the Mini-14 and their results speak for themselves!
cou:

The current NR status has merit obviously but, for a few bucks more, there are better NR choices out there.
 
I've had a few over the years, and they are without a doubt the best truck/atv firearm out there. A basic Ranch Rifle without a scope is snag free and will slide in almost anywhere. No pistol grips, rails, lugs or add on sights make it very easy to keep handy. Even with a scope they're still almost as easy to carry and store, and about a foot shorter than my Tavor. The new 582 and up series shoot quite well, at least as good as some of the other NR black rifles I've had. 2" groups can be had with not too much effort, which is more than enough accuracy for what these rifles are intended to do.

As for growth, well you can buy a whole bunch of stuff to strap onto one, but I think it's better to buy a bunch of ammo and go shoot it instead. Something I'm just now learning, after having spent 10 years buying needless stuff instead of just going out and having fun.
 
Magazines are more expensive than ar15 mags, but you can import them through a z t e c h for half what the yahoos up here charge for them.
The tapco magazines aren't bad for the price.

Iron sights, mine matches my colt ar15 upper for accuracy, ~3moa with cheap ammo.
Flirted with 1moa scoped, more testing needs doing. The 4x max magnification isn't helping.

No idea of stocks, I like wood.

Friend has one of the ASI done up rifles. gas block torque was a major factor in accuracy with it iirc
 
cr5 said:
Growth potential of the mini 14:
Step one- buy a mini 14
Step two- spend a whole bunch of money trying to make it something it's not.
Step three- sell it for a loss and spend the same amount you wasted on the mini 14 and buy a used XCR or Tavor for $1800-$2000 off the EE.
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Laugh2

Too true!
 
Xcr's suck... acr is amazing if you want to spend the extra.
I regret selling my mini... my take is this... they are not the most accurate, but they they are very fun, cheap to shoot, drop dead reliable and are the best bang for the buck on a non restricted rifle.
They are crude though ,I don't like the #### and click mags , ruger mags are expensive but are worth it , no bolt release.
Everyone I have ever let shoot mine really enjoyed it including myself.
If you can find one in a Butler creek folding stock you will have a blast.
 
Had an older one.

Pros
- reliable with factory mags
- affordable

Cons
- aftermarket 20 or 30rd pinned mags sucked, and were expensive
- factory mags bigger than 5rd mag bodies were impossible to find and were REALLY expensive
- mag retention wasn't the best design - they could be tricky to seat if you were in a hurry
- accuracy was meh... I've heard the newer ones are better.

I've been tempted to try a newer one, but I was seriously underwhelmed with my last one.
 
trigger'06 said:
Hmmm, might have to see if a $2000 Tavor will shoot twice as good as a $900 Mini 14 at some kind of Match in the near future.
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I can tell you right now my 582 Series mini with Tech Sights can out shoot a Tavor at 50 meters even if I'm comparing groups at 100 meters with my mini 14.
That's with junk Eagle brand 55gr FMJ's. The last Tavor I shot at 60 meters with an optic was producing sewer lid area "groups"...
Again though, neither was designed for precision accuracy. What they are designed for, they both do very very well.
 
Also to add to that, the myth of the "expensive Mini-14 mags" boggles my mind.
I know people blindly just repeat what they hear on the net but I buy 5 round Ruger made mags for mine for $26 each all over the West.
In comparison the following is a list of rough cost for mags for some of my other rifles/gun:
Sig P226: $45 at least
AR15: $30 at least (for LAR15 mags sometimes more)
Savage MKII 10 rnd: $26
Rem 597 10 rnd: $25
M14: $30 minimum for a 5 rounder Chinese

The only Mini14 mags that are expensive are 5/20 or 5/30 factory mags. They are rare. In this country they're also useless. I can only put 5 rounds in mine so why would I want 11" of empty metal jutting out the bottom of my rifle?
I don't know why people insist on perpetuating this information.
 
Travis Bickle said:
Also to add to that, the myth of the "expensive Mini-14 mags" boggles my mind.
I know people blindly just repeat what they hear on the net but I buy 5 round Ruger made mags for mine for $26 each all over the West.
In comparison the following is a list of rough cost for mags for some of my other rifles/gun:
Sig P226: $45 at least
AR15: $30 at least (for LAR15 mags sometimes more)
Savage MKII 10 rnd: $26
Rem 597 10 rnd: $25
M14: $30 minimum for a 5 rounder Chinese

The only Mini14 mags that are expensive are 5/20 or 5/30 factory mags. They are rare. In this country they're also useless. I can only put 5 rounds in mine so why would I want 11" of empty metal jutting out the bottom of my rifle?
I don't know why people insist on perpetuating this information.
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They're just harder to find, not really more expensive unless as you say a guy wants the mall ninja look.
I have seen them on the shelves at Cabela's and a couple other shops lately so even the harder to find argument can't really be used anymore.
I was not impressed with the accuracy of the mini-14 I used to own (older ranch with 1:7 twist pencil barrel) but it was reliable with Ruger brand mags.
 
The older Mini-14's (I have no firsthand experience with the newer ones) are much like the old WWII US M1 Carbines: If you want it to do what it was originally designed to it, then it will run all day long. However, if you try to get it to do something, or to be something, it was never designed to do or be, then you will be very disappointed.
 
Mini-14 is one of those guns that seems temping at first blush: compact, semi-auto, inexpensive, shoots the .223 cartridge. But the more you think about, the more you realize that there aren't many applications that it's actually well suited for. Too inaccurate for any sort of precision work, too outdated for "run and gun" type shooting. It was (is?) a popular prison gun and it may work well for shooting rioting masses in confined spaces, but that's about it. Considering the prices of AR's have come down quite a bit in recent years, there are not many reasons to buy a Mini-14.
 
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