How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Mini 30

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flashman2

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Truly, no one was as surprised as I when a few months ago I woke up to recall that the night before I had ordered a Mini 30 from Epps. I'll chalk half of it up to being tipsy and the other half to saying ahhh, #### it, why not. Having owned pretty much every other x39 semi auto you can buy in Canada but having sold them, I was in need of a blaster firing the cheapest rifle ammo you can buy, and I figured it'd double as a nice woods deer rifle.

So it arrives. The cases of Chinese x39 arrive. Off to the range...

I can say now that most all of what you hear about these rifles is pure B.S. The current 583 series, anyway.

- It fires surplus x39 flawlessly. Not one single light primer strike in 1500 + rounds.
- It shoots pretty well. Nothing stellar, about 4" groups at 100 yds with the irons and the newly installed Fastfire III red dot using surplus Chinese. About 2.5" with some Mexican match ammo I made up by pulling the bullets from Barnaul, uniforming the powder and loading a 125 gr Sierra soft point. Plenty good enough for it's intended purpose.
- It's not a $1300 SKS. It's nearly two pounds lighter, much handier, with an infinitely better trigger plus it's practical to mount optics on. It's much much nicer than any SKS.
- It comes with a spare mag, picatinny rail and scope rings. Nice touches.

These are some representative groups. The single one is cold bore and the pair are with a smoking hot barrel, rapid fire. Like as fast as the sight came back on target rapid. Wasn't the best choice of target, they were pretty hard to see at 100, 4" across with a 3 MOA dot doesn't leave much to see, but it worked. Still fine tuning zero since I moved the sight, but you get the idea.

All in all, it's a great rifle. I was semi horrified to find myself buying one but I'm glad I took the leap.




 
if you run into primer strike issues, just buy a wolfs spring kit off brownells, it replaces the hammer spring and the main spring. In saying that, Regardless of malfunction or not i've bought the $20 kit for every mini i have owned, it just makes them run better.
 
Just a quick tip. You will notice with the minis that after a couple of shots they start to get hot and your barrel walks your bullets into a string that can go left or right. Loosen the gas block and put a feeler gauge between the gaps and tighten screws trying to keep the same gap on either side. (Even it out) it's somewhere around .030 thou for me. Torque screws to 30" lbs. Now the goal is to have the bullets walk straight up which is easier to learn to compensate. Another good modification is an adjustable gas block or smaller gas bushing to prevent your cases from launching into space.
I have tuned quite a few Mini,s and they can shoot quite well with reloads, it's my go to coyote gun and a pleasure to carry and shoot. HTH,s
 
LordEvilPepper said:
if you run into primer strike issues, just buy a wolfs spring kit off brownells, it replaces the hammer spring and the main spring. In saying that, Regardless of malfunction or not i've bought the $20 kit for every mini i have owned, it just makes them run better.
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That was my plan if I had any issues. Frankly though can't imagine how it would run any better. Goes bang every time.
 
mac100 said:
Just a quick tip. You will notice with the minis that after a couple of shots they start to get hot and your barrel walks your bullets into a string that can go left or right. Loosen the gas block and put a feeler gauge between the gaps and tighten screws trying to keep the same gap on either side. (Even it out) it's somewhere around .030 thou for me. Torque screws to 30" lbs. Now the goal is to have the bullets walk straight up which is easier to learn to compensate. Another good modification is an adjustable gas block or smaller gas bushing to prevent your cases from launching into space.
I have tuned quite a few Mini,s and they can shoot quite well with reloads, it's my go to coyote gun and a pleasure to carry and shoot. HTH,s
Click to expand...

I put the gauges to it out of the box. Dead nuts even so I left well enough alone. Figured I wasn't going to improve anything. Usually the hot groups open up a bit more, today was unusual. But I can put rounds down as fast as I can reload and still hit my 6" popper 100% of the time at 100 yards. Good enough for me. For deer or other hunting it's no issue... More than three rounds and I'll turn my license in.
 
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davide montini said:
I'm on the fence about one of those.... the stainless steel??? If it was blued I'd buy one
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Stainless, yep. With the wood stock. I've been pushing things with the cleaning after corrosive, just to see. Three days is the longest I held out and no sign of corrosion - and I'm literally 100 feet from the Atlantic. Dunno if anyone had the 30 in blued, but Flaherty's has the 14.
 
My daughter wants one of these guns. I have had two in the past. One that was barn-door accurate and the other that was a surprisingly good shooter. They certainly have their place in the deer-woods.
 
saskcop said:
My daughter wants one of these guns. I have had two in the past. One that was barn-door accurate and the other that was a surprisingly good shooter. They certainly have their place in the deer-woods.
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I'm no expert but I've heard the 583 series have come a long way. That has been my experience. It's now my go to woods deer rifle. It's just so light and handy. A pleasure to carry, almost as nice as a '94... but at .20 per round you can't practice any cheaper.
 
flashman2 said:
I'm no expert but I've heard the 583 series have come a long way. That has been my experience. It's now my go to woods deer rifle. It's just so light and handy. A pleasure to carry, almost as nice as a '94... but at .20 per round you can't practice any cheaper.
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You definitely recoup some of the cost when one considers the price of ammunition.
 
I've been thinking for awhile that a Mini 30 with 2.5x Leupold ultralight would make a great all purpose rifle.

MSRP is pretty up there these days but I've seen a few 580 series for well under a grand on the EE.
 
Agreed! Love my mini, its my most fun rifle for sure. I only shoot US made quality ammo, get fine accuracy for what it is. Good on ya for buying, its a platform that makes alot of sense. Huntable, reliable, handy, tactical-ish, non restricted, etc. Enjoy!
 
Leg said:
I've been thinking for awhile that a Mini 30 with 2.5x Leupold ultralight would make a great all purpose rifle.

MSRP is pretty up there these days but I've seen a few 580 series for well under a grand on the EE.
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Heck, it's almost paid for itself in ammo cost savings already. 1500 rds @ .20 vs 1500 rds at .83 for 7.62 is close to $1k.

I forgot to mention but I tried mounting a mark AR 1.5-4x but the brass was hitting the turrets. So put on the Fastfire III which should have been my first choice, I much prefer it. Keeps it nice and handy. You could always rotate the scope, but the illum button on the mark AR ruled that out. FYI.
 
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LordEvilPepper said:
they pickup rounds more reliably, more consistent operation. the stock springs are weak.
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How does the trigger and hammer spring affect feeding? She cycles and fires 100% as is, but I'll probably order myself a kit just to have on hand. If anything, after smoothing up the engagement surfaces with valve lapping compound the pull is almost too light for hunting, heavier springs would address that.
 
I have a brand new bolt buffer here for the mini 14/30 out of the states. I had a mini 14 I was stoked about and enjoyed shooting until I realized hitting a large pie plate was a difficult challenge. If the new ones indeed shoot atleast 2-3" groups that is much more acceptable
 
2" would be tough IME, 3" for sure with better than surplus ammo. Those groups above were with cheap Chinese surplus from Tradeex. The single group is 4", the best one is 2". Oddly, shot with a blazing hot barrel. I wasn't using the best targets, they're my 50 yard M1 Carbine ones, and they were a bit hard to have a consistent POA with a 3 MOA red dot at 100 yards. Could probably shave a half inch off that with something I could actually see at that distance... But they're pretty representative. 4 MOA from a self loading rifle shooting x39 is about my benchmark, that's about what I'd expect in terms of average accuracy. Everyone would be all over an AK for the price if they were still NR here, and they won't do any better. If I need more precision there's always my bolt rifles.
 
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