Mini-14: Should I save my cash

The beauty of the mini is bullet proof peep sights , sight it in once and its good for years no need for bulls**t rails and cling ons ........
 
i have owned a mini 14 for 10 years and am well satisfied with mine. the 223 round is used on small game including coyotes in south western ontario and can be purchased at any gun shop.light to carry ,comes up fast, easy to maintain and mine is accurate. if you find you do not like it resale is fast on these guns .
 
I have an older (183 series) Mini 14 and I love it. It's not tremendously accurate, but I can live with it for the price, especially since I knew I wasn't getting into a super high end precision rifle before I bought it. I haven't played around with handloads much but the two or three loads that I have tried both showed an improvement in accuracy over the factory American Eagle and Winchester FMJ's that I had been shooting at the range with it before getting a set of .223 dies.

One thing I like about it is the variety of parts available. Mine came scoped and I picked up a used factory rear sight as it was missing, a Butler Creek folding stock and a couple 5/20 round mags, and it's a pretty neat gun.

I have an older Colt AR15 Sporter HBAR as well, and it's more accurate.... To be perfectly honest, I think I'd do better with the iron sights on the AR at 100 yards, than with my Mini 14 and the cheap scope it came with. But considering the Mini is non-restricted, cost almost $200 less than the AR (including a folding stock, and factoring in that I got a pretty sweet deal on the AR at a local shop), and pisses off liberal gun haters just as much, I think it's a great investment. :)

Adam
 
I had a 183 series stainless, loved the look of it, loved plinking with it, loved the obnoxious noise, hated the accuracy....

The newer ones don't have spagetti barrels though so it'd make a nice arm.

I may buy a new one sooner or later, see what happens with the LGR first.

Had a 186 Series Mini 30 to, loved that gun.
 
I've got a 181 series Mini-14, and I love it. She's very compact with the factory folder I bought for it, very reliable, and the weight isn't bad at all, so she makes the perfect bush gun for me. Though she's definitely not as accurate as one of the newer series rifles, I'm planning on installing a barrel stabilizer, and I'm going to experiment with a bit of handloading to see how much it will improve the accuracy.
 
RUSTSPOT said:
if you like the style of action, dont mind paying for 308s,dont mind spending a 1000(since you are considering a mini), ..... get a M1 garand! best of both worlds. better build quality than norc m14, wouldnt deprecate like mini 14s, 30-06 are about the same price as 308s in box of 20.

jk. well i would put my money on mini. those nocincos does not worth the money IMO, you need to spend extra to get them run and feel right. there is reason why mini or Springfield M1a cost as much as they do. these type of actions are not cheap to produce. in the end, you get what you pay for.
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Aye.
I could easily think of 10 ways to better spend $1000 than on a Mini-14
:cool:
 
Ardent said:
Mini-14 gets a bizarre bad rap, mostly from people who know f**k all about guns. It's a truly great little carbine, and the new ones are accurate too, very accurate actually. Next time you see somebody bash the Mini-14, take a note of how experienced they are. 90% are just repeating what they've been told and are fairly inexperienced with firearms.

I'd love to have a new 6.8 SPC stainless / walnut mini.
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+1.

I have had several Swiss Arms Rifles, several different AR15s, and an XRC however have sold them all (ok...not completely true as I kept one SAN rifle) but have kept a decent armoury of mini-14s for use as loaner guns. The surprising part for me is that, having been a snob for "better guns", I find myself shooting and thoroughly enjoying my mini-14s far more than any other gun I have, including my M14/M1A collection.

Last year I hunted exclusively with a mini-14 in 6.8 SPC and am pretty sure this year will be the same....

Brobee


edited to add: while not a tack driver they suite my purposes quite well. Picture below is how my 580 series GB clone prints in my hands at 100 yards, shot from a no-rest sitting position. The only thing different about the gun now (as compared to 2 years ago when the picture was taken) is that all my minis now sport ultimak rails and aimpoint M3 2MOAs. As I get older I find I shoot better with red dot sights as compared to plain-old-irons...

pose_with_target_c.jpg
 
nork's use cheep cast parts? I thought the M1A was cast, and the poly's were forged.? I got both and love'em. I eventualy wanna get a M1, so then I can have the whole family.
 
fnrob said:
I'm planning on installing a barrel stabilizer, and I'm going to experiment with a bit of handloading to see how much it will improve the accuracy.
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You're the second talking about the barrel stabilizer. That's ugly and extra weight to the front end. In my opinion a Ultimak rail is much more useful and nice. I don't know if it increase accuracy as much however.

Brobee: did you note the average improvement in grouping after installing the Ultimak?
 
wildphil24 said:
Brobee: did you note the average improvement in grouping after installing the Ultimak?
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Accuracy may have improved a little, however I'm not much into laying down with sandbags et al and trying to shoot teeny groups so I can't give you any specific numbers....I spend the overwhelming majority of my range time practicing from sitting, crouching, and standing where the limiting factor is definitely not my rifle...:)

My suspicion though is that the ultimak rail helps a little.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
Im starting to thing that some of the rumors on the mini are wrong. Mine will easly out shoot me and doesnt seam to show any issues when it gets warm..I say warm cuz, well, you need a lotta 5 rounder's to get anything HOT lol
 
I had the pleasure of helping a guy sight in his Mini 14 target model. It shot decently at 100 yards with cheap factory ammo, no worse than an ar-15. Considering reports that with hand loads and tuning you can get it to shoot minute of angle, I'd say they have a very much underappreciated product on the market. You could spend a lot more money for an unrestricted black rifle and it probably wouldn't shoot any more accurately.
 
wildphil24 said:
You're the second talking about the barrel stabilizer. That's ugly and extra weight to the front end. In my opinion a Ultimak rail is much more useful and nice. I don't know if it increase accuracy as much however.
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I kinda like the look of some of the barrel stabilizers. Gives the Mini's gas block a look reminiscent of the M-14, even if it adds a little weight to the front end. And from what I've read, it makes a noticable improvement on older models with the pencil thin barrels, like mine has.

As for the Ultimak, I've already got a scope mount on the receiver, which is situated at such a height that it would obscure any optics mounted on an Ultimak rail. So basically on my rifle, the Ultimak would be a rail I can't mount anything on, that gives a slight benefit of an increase in accuracy.
 
While I am a big fan of the re-tooled factory produced standard mini-14, my opinion is that the target model is less inspiring. Ruger uses the same gas block in the target model as they do in their standard production guns....the barrel is 0.625 at the gas block. So everything under the handguard is the same from one model to the next. On the target version the barrel steps up AFTER the gas port and then they hang their massive weight/tuning thingy on the muzzle. Some folks report that they shoot well....the ones I've seen don't shoot that much better than the standard factory models.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
My Mini 14 is my go-to centerfire for varminting, and is hands-down, my most favorite rifle from my collection.

My second favorite is my Norc M14...
 
I have BOTH!

Interesting thread. I have both a Mini-14 (brand new out of the box 580) with wooden stock. Hated the look of that dumb hand-guard, so I got a hand guard from Accuracy Systems and now the rifle looks more bad-a**. I have a 3X9 scope on it and it is a very good coyote rifle to about 200 yards (223 limitation). It shoots about 1.5" @100 yards with my handloads, but the main thing is it is light, fast and now...looks really cool! :D

My M-14 (Poly) is tweaked and I have a cheap tactical scope. The rifle is great to shoot and plenty accurate (1" to 1.5") @ 100 yards with my handloads. A bit heavy for lotsa walking, but last fall, proved to be quite a nice black bear rifle (308 150 gr.). :D
 
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